The Green Mist
Oct 31Another boring evening and three boys wandered the corridor of the hospital, looking for a diversion to take their minds off the war.
“Hey, cheer up, Prairie Muffin,” said the Magic Boy (a CA hippie/yippie),
“You can’t be with your Vietnamese girlfriend, Lissette 24/7.”
“Why not?”
Funny…a couple of months earlier…Dwane Harris (a Lone-Star State redneck…but, basically, a decent guy) told Sam, “They all look alike”
“Whoa, now… Stateside Flash!” declared emcee Magic Sam.
“Americana for five hundred dollars: Kids at home are enjoying this holiday tradition right now…”
“What is… trick-or-treating?” ventured Mike.
“Correct! So let’s carve a Jack o’lantern.”
“How? The nearest pumpkin is probably 5,000 miles away.” READ MORE
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“Always the optimist, Harris,” sighed Sam.
“Coconut?”
“Bingo.”
“I left one in Ortho.”
“Fetch…and meet us in Dental.”
PFC Harris embarked on his secret mission.
“How can you carve a coconut?” asked NYC urban realist, Mike. “They’re as hard as a rock.”
“With the dentist’s drill.”
“Oh, great idea. I’d hate to be the next guy to receive a filling after you’re done.”
“War is hell.”
The boys entered the dental clinic and the Magic Boy examined his arsenal of tools.
“Cool. Here’s an electric saw capable of sawing a jawbone, and a power chisel.”
Dwane returned and placed his palm-tree patient on the headrest of the dentist’s chair.
Magic Sam began his masterpiece.
“So, do either of you know any good ghost stories?” he asked.
“No.”
“Oh, come on. Tomorrow’s Vispera de Todos los Santos…All Saints day… when the dead walk the earth. Perhaps you’d be more inspired if we moved our little party out to the morgue where I work?”
“Bad taste, Pardner.”
“I think I hit a nerve. Could it be that our big, strong Texas Ranger believes in ghosts?”
“I grew up just a stones-throw from Louisiana where a lot of folks take to that Voodoo stuff, with zombies and such.”
“Now we’re getting somewhere. Zombies. The Living Dead. So, Tex, ever see one cross over the state line?”
“Well, no. But I’ve never seen the Sphinx either. That doesn’t mean it don’t exist.”
“How about you, Mike? Are you open to the possibility of weird, spooky things that go bump in the night?”
“Negative, Man. When you’re dead, you’re dead. But just before…that’s a different story. Lately, I’ve been experiencing some weird shit in ER…”
“Like what?”
“I know a patient’s fate as soon as he rolls through the door.”
“You’ve been in ER for half a year, and are dang good at your job. I reckon I ain’t surprised you can make a quick, educated guess.”
“No guess, Dwane. This weird power hit me suddenly a couple of weeks ago. Now I don’t need to assess the wounds…or take blood pressure or pulse… I just know.”
Dwane was mesmerized. “How, Mike?”
“Fugetaboutit.”
“Come on,” urged Sam. “You can’t just keep us dangling.”
“You’ll think I’m crazy.”
“Cool. It’s Halloween. Bring on the weird and crazy!”
“Okay, Magic Boy. You asked for it. When the wounded roll in, I see a strange green mist hovering over them that I never noticed before.”
“What kind of mist?”
“It varies. If the soldier is destined to survive…I see a dense, green fog swirling above heart and head.”
“And if the patient’s dying?”
“The mist dissipates…the green color pales, and the cloud swirls slower and slower over a wider area…head to toe at first… but as the soldier nears death, the mist expands to fill the entire room. With the final death rattle/last gasp, the fog suddenly disappears.
“You’re freaking me out, Mike,” said the Magic Boy. “You’re basically telling us that you can see a guy’s Life Force…”
“Or Soul,” argued Dwane.
“…leaving his body?”
“Call it whatever you like, but the instant I see the green mist, I know the soldier’s fate…only been wrong once: Dr. Hanna examined a kid with a severe chest wound, the green mist swirled all around us, wider and wider, and high over our heads. The guy had a large frag wedged under the pericardium…the thin lining that covers the heart. Amazing that he wasn’t dead already. Hanna didn’t hesitate… dove right in after that chunk of metal…knowing full well that one slight, false move and the heart would be ruptured, and the soldier would be dead instantly. Hanna performed another one of his medical miracles…and two days later the kid was sitting up…chatting with me in Post-Op. The mist was gone…back inside where it belongs.”
Magic Sam worried that his best friend might be cracking up. “You’re putting us on, right, Mike?”
“I really had you white boys going.”
“Green mist… very funny.”
“You wanted a eerie Halloween story, didn’t you?”
Shanahan and Harris let out a sigh of relief. The Magic Boy held up his work of art. He mimicked the vain Dr. Hanna: “Gaze upon the amazing hands of a artist artist. My masterpiece…
Behold my Vietnam Jack o’lantern.”
“Looks like Lt Calley,” said Dwane.
“You’re right,” said DeAngelo, “and what could be more horrorific than that?”
Sam was in great need of a distracting amusement. “What will we do now?” Shanahan spotted a tank of Nitrous Oxide. “Anyone up for a hit of gas?”
“Don’t touch that stuff,” warned PFC Harris.
“Why not?” asked the ranking medic. “Think of it as a scientific experiment, my little prairie muffin. Don’t you wonder what a patient expeiences before surgery?”
“Mike, You’re looking for a cheap thrill.”
“Do you see a problem with that? Our lives in a combat zone are either intense stress or unbearable boredom. To be numb for an hour means I’m an hour closer to home.”
“I had a knee operation in High School,” warned Harris. “That gas gave me a mighty dizzy feeling.”
“Mighty dizzy sounds perfect.”
DeAngelo climbed into the dentist’s chair and instructed Sam: “When I put the mask on turn on the tap until the gauge indicates half, and shut it off when I stop counting. 100-99-98-97-96-95-94…”
DeAngelo knew only a few seconds had passed, but someone must have hit the slo-mo button. Hearing intensified and Mike listened to his uncontrolled bodily functions. Air rushing in and out of his lungs grew louder. The length of breaths increased…as did the intervals between each. Mike was helpless.
“What’s going on? It seems like minutes since my last breath. Am I going to die?”
Heartbeats…soft and quick at first, but now louder and slower. The intervals between each thump stretched out until DeAngelo was convinced that the last beat was indeed the last.
“I’m dead.”
Mike felt himself rising…floating near the ceiling…looking down at his body in the dentist’s chair. Not a painful or unpleasant experience…no sense of panic about his recent death.
“Gee, I look kind of flabby,” thought DeAngelo. “I really should have exercised more.” And then, it hit him. “Holy shit! This scene is exactly like the near-death experience the heart-frag kid described in Post-Op.”
But then “pop”, and Mike landed back inside his body in the dentist’s chair with eyes wide open.
“How long was I out?”
Harris checked his watch, “One minute, twenty-four seconds.”
“That’s all?”
DeAngelo wanted to tell his friends how he floated around overhead…observing his body…but figured it would probably be best to remain silent.
Shanahan and Harris decided likewise…concerning the green mist they may (or may not) have seen.
Click here to read more of my misadventures in a combat zone
Greetings is a free Ebook on this site
Published by Greg at 08:06 PM on May 10, 2007