Born Again – a story

It was like being born again. Everything was an indistinguishable swirl of color with no defined edges or depth. Sounds were chaotic. There was movement, he could tell, but what was moving, he did not know. He also did not know who he was. Everything went black again.

The process repeated several times. Each episode of consciousness became longer in duration and clearer to the point that he knew he was in a hospital, though he was still coming up short on who he was. He had no clue as to why he was there.

Finally he became aware that he could move his mouth and arms, and that he had toes to wiggle. Then came the pain. It was in his throat, like a tub, he imagined.

His eyes opened one evening, and he could clearly make out his surroundings for the first time. He was definitely in a hospital room, laying on his back in bed. It was dark outside. Standing next to him, doing something or another, was a nurse, he thought. He listened to her intently.

He reached out and tugged at her shirt, causing her to jump. He was able to say, “hello.” It came out scratchy, and hurt to say. “I’m–I’m awake.”

The next day tubes were removed, and they began the process of reintroducing him to solid foods–gushy stuff at first, like baby food. Water never tasted so good.

That evening the same nurse came into his room. She was an attractive woman in her early thirties.

“What’s my name?” he asked the nurse.

She smiled at him. “Your name is Derek Stephens.”

“What a weird name,” he said. “Sounds kind of harsh.” The nurse laughed.

“Hey,” Derek said to the nurse. “You and your baby are fine.”

“What?” asked the nurse, perplexed and slightly upset. “What did you say?”

“You can tell your husband. This one won’t miscarry.”

“How do you know that I’m pregnant?” she said.

“Two months, about,” he observed. “It’s a girl. This one is coming.” The nurse remained silent. She had not told anyone that she was pregnant again–not her husband and certainly not told Derek.

Derek fell back to sleep.

The next morning the doctor explained to Derek that he had been in a coma for a little more than six months. Derek had been rushed to the hospital one night. It was believed that he had overdosed on alcohol and pills. Derek had no recollection of that evening, nor anything that had preceded it. He felt a little like a blank slate.

There was another woman there that evening, Derek noticed awakening from another deep sleep. She seemed sad, and sort of frustrated, but Derek did not know why. She was not a nurse. “Hello,” he said to the woman. The woman stood and walked to be at the side of the bed with him.

“Hi, honey,” she said.

Derek smiled at her. “You’re pretty. Who are you?”

The woman smiled and sighed. “I’m Lori. I am your wife.”

He learned a lot of things about himself that week before being discharged from the hospital. His only other visitor was his law partner, Mike Conklin. Derek sensed that he too had the same sad, nervous and frustrated disposition about him that Lori had a few days earlier.

“Hey, Derek, buddy. How you doing?”

“Great,” said Derek, sitting up in bed. “You are my law partner that Lori told me about?”

“That’s me. So, when are you coming back to Stephens and Conklin?”

“I don’t know. Am I a good lawyer?” Derek asked, laughing.

“One of the fucking best. A real goddamn bull dog.”

“Derek Stephens,” said Derek. “A goddamn bull dog? Sounds kind of–I don’t know.”

The memory of his skills came back to him over the next two weeks at his mansion home. He decided he did want to get back to work. He did not know why, exactly–it might have just been an unfounded paranoia, but he wanted to get away from his wife and the maid, Ursula. They made him very nervous.

He put on a suit, and against the advise of his wife, he put the key in the ignition of his Jaguar XK8, and with the assistance of his navigation system made it to his offices.

The receptionist almost jumped to attention when she saw him walk through the doors. “Mr. Stephens,” she said stiffly and with fear.

“Hi, how are you doing?” he said. She noted that those were the most words he had ever said to her at one time. “Ah, which way to my office?” he asked. “Could you show me?”

“Certainly, Mr. Stephens.”

“Please, call me Derek. The way you say ‘Mr. Stephens,’ well–you sound scared.”

“Um,” said the young, attractive receptionist. “I–it’s firm policy. I’m not allowed to call you by your first name.”

“Really?” asked Derek. “Okay,” he said holding his hands in the air in capitulation. “Whatever.” Mandy, the receptionist looked at him pleasantly confused.

“Come this way,” said Mandy, and looked around to make sure no one else was around, and whispered, “Derek.” Derek smiled at that.

They walked to an area away from the other offices were an army of associates in black suits and ties were hard at work. “Hello, Mr. Stephens.” “Good to see you in good health, Mr. Stephens.” “Glad you are back, Mr. Stephens.” He could tell that every last one of them were scared as hell of him, and none of them really meant the well wishes they spoke. He thought he might have made a mistake coming to work.

“Here is you assistant, Sherry,” said Mandy.

Sherry stood at her desk. “Hello, Mr. Stephens.”

“Hey, hi, Sherry. It’s good to see you.”

“Can I get you anything, Mr. Stephens?”

“Like what?” he asked.

“A cup of coffee, water, a soft drink, orange juice, a bagel?”

“I can get it myself, if you’ll tell me where it is,” he said.

“Sir, it would be better if you let me get it for you,” she said.

“Okay,” he said, laughing. “Coffee, please.”

“Black, as usual, sir?”

“No, with cream and sugar. Why do you keep calling me ‘sir’?”

“Firm policy.”

“Oh. Kind of stuffy, this firm policy stuff, isn’t it?” He smiled. “Go ahead and bring me some files I should be working on.” He looked around the room and pointed at some thick, oak double doors stained dark.

“Yes, sir,” said Sherry. “That’s your office.”

“Ha! My office,” he said. “Of course it is.” With his back to Sherry and walking through the double doors he heard Sherry say, with distinct clarity, “Why couldn’t he have fucking died?”

He stopped and turned. “Sherry.”

“Yes, Mr. Stephens.”

“What did you say?”

“Nothing, sir. I said, ‘that’s your office.’”

“No, what you said, after that.”

“Nothing, sir. That’s the last thing I said.”

Derek frowned and went to his office and sat at his desk. Sherry brought him a mug of coffee with the firm logo on the side. He sipped it. “Oh, that tastes good, Sherry. Thank you.”

Sherry looked at him funny. He had never said ‘thank you’ to her in the ten years she had worked for him.

“You are welcome, Mr. Stephens.”

He looked through the foot thick accordion file Sherry brought him. It was tabbed, ‘pleadings,’ ‘discovery,’ ‘motions,’ ‘memorandums,’ ‘correspondence’ and ‘exhibits.’ It was a case that was six years old–a very nasty divorce between a very wealthy couple. To date, $130,000 in fees had been generated for Stephens & Conklin. He grimaced and pushed the file aside and ran his fingers through his hair. “Not today,” he said to himself.

He walked out to the ante-room where Sherry was typing something on her computer. “It’s lunch time,” he said to Sherry. “You hungry?”

“My lunch break doesn’t begin for another fourteen minutes, Mr. Stephens.” She said with a confused look and turned to her computer monitor and began typing again.

“I’m the boss, right?” Derek said.

“Yes, sir,” said Sherry.

“Then quit calling me ‘sir’ and ‘Mr. Stephens.’ Call me ‘Derek’ and let me buy you lunch.”

“Firm policy, Mr. Stephens. Support staff is not allowed to socially interact with attorneys, sir.”

“Firm policy?” he asked, very irritated. Sherry pulled out a spiral bound text and handed it to Derek. It was one-hundred and twenty pages long. He thumbed through it. It was chock-full of does and don’t’s. “Who in the hell took the time to write this crap?” he asked.

“You did, sir.”

He pulled a chair up to Sherry’s desk. “Sherry,” he sighed. “I am begging you–you don’t have to if you insist, but please come to lunch with me. I need some questions answered. I am very confused, if you couldn’t tell.”

She looked at him gravely and crossed her arms. “Okay,” she said in a whisper. “Meet me at Ophelia’s at third and Winston Ave. “Get us a table and I’ll meet you there in ten minutes.”

“Cool,” said Derek. “Thanks.” He walked out of the office leaving a very perplexed Sherry behind.

The elevator doors opened. “Derek,” said Mike getting out of the elevator. “You are here.”

“Yes, I am. I’m having lunch with–”

“With who?” asked Mike.

“Ah, nobody.”

“Okay,” said Mike. “You feeling all right?”

“Fine–good–a little confused. I’ll be back on top of it before you know it, Mike.”

“Great news,” said Mike. “Can I join you–for lunch?”

“No, you can’t. I’ll see you later, Mike,” Derek said as the elevator door was sliding shut. Looking straight at Mike, he clearly heard Mike say, “I hope he doesn’t find out.” Mike’s lips did not move. The door shut and the elevator descended.

Sherry walked into the restaurant. Derek waived at her from the table he had just been seated at. Mostly in silence, they ordered lunch, and ate.

“Sherry,” he said. “Who am I? Why is everyone so scared of me? I really don’t remember anything about what kind of person I was before the coma.”

Sherry wiped her mouth with her napkin and laid it in her lap. “Permission to speak freely?” she asked, a little sarcastically.

“Yes, please do.”

“You won’t fire me?”

“Absolutely not.”

Sherry took a drink of water and looked Derek straight in the eyes. “You are the biggest asshole I have ever met in my life. You are the meanest bastard I know. I can’t believe that you were actually a child once. The last ten years of my life has been a living hell, because of working for you. I hate your guts.” Sherry shook as she spoke those words, and started to cry.

Derek wanted to reach his hand across the table and take hers, but thought against it. He looked down at his lap. “I’m sorry.” He was profoundly depressed. “All I can say is that I am sorry. I won’t be a jerk to you anymore.”

Sherry dabbed her eyes. “I better get back to the office,” she said. Derek nodded.

Derek loosened his tie as he stepped out of the restaurant and on to the sidewalk. He looked up and down the street. He did not want to go back to the office. Instead he went for a long walk, sat on a bench in a park for an hour. Derek finally figured it out. Everyone who walked along the path in front of the bench he sat on was chattering up a storm about this and that, though their lips did not move. He could hear their thoughts, good, bad, indifferent and crazy. He went back to the garage under the building that housed Stephens & Conklin, got in his car and drove home, put on comfortable clothes, and shut himself up in his study.

It was dark out when Ursula peeked her head into the study. “Dinner is ready, Mr. Stephens,” she said in a thick Mexican accent.

“Dinner!” he said. “Sounds good.”

The long dining room table had a place set at each end. His wife was already seated. Derek, dressed in shorts and a t-shirt sat down.

Derek still was not sure he liked such formality at dinner time, sitting at one end of a ten foot long dining room table, and Lori at the other. He was assured that was the way they always ate.

Ursula came in with their plates and set them before them. He looked at Ursula and clearly saw in his own mind a small dark colored vial, the contents of which were being emptied into a glass of wine. Ursula left the room and returned with two crystal glasses of wine and placed one in front of Derek and then his wife.

“Ursula. I just want a glass of water, please,” he said.

“I hope he doesn’t know,” he heard his wife think.

“What am I not supposed to know?” he asked Ursula and Lori.

Four big fearful eyes looked at him. He saw himself, in a white pinpoint shirt sitting at the same table from the point of view as if he were sitting where Lori was. In the moving image he picked up a glass of wine and drank it, choked and fell to the ground. He also saw Mike, his partner, naked in bed with his wife.

“I don’t think I’m very hungry,” said Derek. He stood and went back to his study.

The next morning, in the same shorts and t-shirt he had fallen asleep in on the couch in his study, he went to the office. “Is Mike in?” he asked Mike’s assistant.

“Yes, Mr. Stephens.” She picked up the phone to call Mr. Conklin to tell him the Mr. Stephens wished to see him. “Jesus Christ, my name is Derek,” he told her and walked into Mike’s office, and shut the door behind him.

“It’s over, Mike.”

“What?” said Mike a little jumpy.

“I know what happened.”

“What are you talking about?” asked Mike, breaking a sweat.

“Here’s the deal. You buy out my interest in the firm. I’m going to divorce Lori. It will be the easiest divorce ever. Everything sliced right down the middle–she gets half, no questions asked. I’m gone, and nobody has to worry about a thing.”

“Worry? Why would anyone want to worry? Are you okay, Derek?”

“Please. I know everything. There was a plot, and it went wrong. I was supposed to, but I didn’t die. Do you want me to go on? My wife would cash in my life insurance policy? You would take my shares in the firm? You and my wife would get married?”

“Stop, Derek. You’re delusional,” said Mike visibly trying to contain his nerves.

“Just do it,” said Derek. “Cut me my share, and it is all done, and you’ll never hear my talking this kind of nonsense again.”

Mike agreed. “I’ll have papers drawn up. Your share is going to be somewhere close to a million. I’ll have the funds electronically transferred to your personal account.”

“Make sure Sherry, my assistant, gets $250,000,” said Derek.

“Trust me,” said Derek. “This is the best thing to ever happen to me. I owe you a favor. The favor is my silence.”

He left Stephens & Conklin and walked to the park he had sat in the day before. He was amazed at the different kinds of people there were in the world, and the strange thoughts they fenced with. Most of their thoughts were harmful or of no use. Every now and then, though, he would hear a thought that wasn’t a thought at all–just a wide open window on the world accompanied by a great feeling of awe. That feeling and wide-open-ness was always in a child, but never an adult, except save one that he knew of–himself.

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