Day 26 - Only Laugh - Chapter 26 (1554 words)

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ONLY LAUGH WHEN IT HURTS

By Wayne Webb

CHAPTER 26

Tony woke up in a flash, he was on the roof of the church and there was a flash and a bang and then he blacked out. He must have blacked out, instinctively he grabbed at the roof where he was sitting trying to grab any purchase to stop himself from falling.

He wasn't on the roof, he was indoors. In a room, a white room, a hospital room. A few seconds passed as he adjusted to this new surrounding. He was on the roof, the ridge apex of the church roof and trying to get up the spire to rescue an umbrella. Now he was here.

In hospital again, last time this had happened he had been in bed for a long time. He had dreamed of drowning and when he woke up the atrophy in his limbs made him soporific and so very tired. Right this second it seemed the opposite was true.

He felt energised and wired, like he had taken a direct shot of adrenalin or caffeine, something that would over stimulate him. He was in the room alone and found he could not move his legs, had he been restrained again? That at least felt familiar to him, but he was pretty sure he knew who he was and where he was. He felt no gaps in his memory apart from being outside a few moments ago and now being here. He struggled a bit to sit up and realised that his body was shaking a little, perhaps though his mind was sharp he had been here longer than he thought. He hoped not, what are the chances of having to rebuild your life twice over?

There was a steady beeping coming from his left hand side, and it took him a second to realise that it was his own heartbeat, steadily increasing now that he was awake and starting to stress out about the potential list of issues that could be back in his life. How long had he been unconscious and away from his life, what if it were not his life again? Can he go through that again?

What was different this time is that as far as he knew he was still himself. He knew who he was, he knew that his business and home was Solo Ridere, and he knew that he didn't know who he was from four years before that, longer if you counted the almost two years he was in a coma previously. He knew what he was doing and why he was up on the roof, and he guessed rather than knew that perhaps something had happened there, like maybe lightning strike to the church's lightning rod, while he was up there trying to be a hero and retrieve Oriana's parasol.

Oriana, Vittorio and Aida, he knew those three people were in his life, he hoped they still were in it. It did not feel like parts of his life were missing, apart from the bits already gone. His memory of Tony the comedian's life had not magically returned with a comedic and convenient blow to the head.

So he was in hospital, wired to an heart monitor and strapped into the bed, restrained. He could sit up and so he levered himself up as much as he could considering being unable to lift his legs to apply any extra torque. There was a call button within reach and so he pressed on it and thought he heard a ping, a few rooms away in the relative silence of the hospital. He was not in a private room, but he was in an small ward containing himself and three other yet empty beds.

There was the sound of a raised voice calling for a Doctor in Italian and then the clack clack of heels on linoleum flooring getting closer and closer. Seconds later a nurse appeared and slowed down and came up to him looking genuinely surprised.

“Gurgle.” That did not sound right. “Urg, uhgh.” Something was wrong with his voice. He asked for water but it sounded equally unintelligible. He gestured to his throat instead. The nurse was checking the machines readouts and then taking his pulkse manually and feeling his forehead, not quite trusting the readouts of the expensive machinery surrounding him.

“Are you ok? Do you know where you are?”

“Urgle.” No sounds made word like shapes as they came out of him. He pointed to his throat and mimed the most pained expression he could muster. The Nurse caught it and poured him a cup of water into a half size disposable cup and tried to feed it to him. Tony was not having that and took it from her quite deliberately to show his capability and then down it in one go waited a seconc and the cleared his throat.

Thinking, deliberating and forming the sounds in his head he tried to say 'that’s better' but still the strangled mess of consonants came out of his mouth. Inside his head he was enunciating clearly, but what came out sounded so wrong

“Ok, it's ok, don't try and say anything more, do you know where you are? Nod if you think you do.” the nurse smiled encouragingly and Tony nodded.

“Do you think you are in, London?” The nurse nodded, and Tony gave her a witheringly unimpressed look right back. “Ok, then how about Florence, in Italy?”

Tony looked about in surprise and raised an eyebrow back at her. He had been in a village outside of Florence, so it made sense that he was brought here to a main centre. He pointed at the bed and then himself, shrugging his shoulders.

“You are in the Hospital of Santa Maria Nuova, in the intensive care ward. It's quiet here today, ususally this place is bursting at the seams when the other newer places are busy, but there's been little activity in this storm, less people hurt or injured than usual. Present company exlcuded of course.”

Tony pointed to the bed and to himself again, shrugging once more but empahtically, more demading of answers.

“I have called for the doctor, its best if he explains it all to you.” The Nurse took a step back from her detailed examination of Tony and his readings. She looked down the corridor and saw no one coming just yet, then leaned in to Tony and whispered. “Aida is my second cousin, she brought you here. She's waiting downstairs, do you want me to go and get her?”

Footsteps were approaching now so the nurse stood back up and straightened her uniform guiltily seeing Tony nodding furiously, tears of relief forming in his eyes. The nurse nodded and stepped out of he way as the doctor strode in, did a slight double take to see him awake and aware so soon and then brushed past the nurse, not acknowledging her existence at all. He took a torch and shone it in Tony's eyes, before the brightness came in and blocked out all else in that familiar black halo, he could see the Nurse sending a message on her mobile phone.

“Ok, Tony can you hear me ok?” The Doctor spoke very loudly in Italian, as if speaking to someone hard of hearing or foriegn.

Tony nodded and pointed to his throat. The Doctor poured some water and handed it to him, Tony shook his head and made the “Gurgle.” sound. The doctor leaned in and peered at Tony, getting a tongue depressor and shining the light into Tony's mouth.

“Say Ahh please.”

“Waggh.” It was not the noise that Tony was trying to make, but it had some resonance with the basic sound.”

The doctor stood up straight, looked at the nurse, her phone now away and she added in that he had not been able to say anything other than make that odd strangled noise. She went on to quote the various readings and vital statisitcs that had been on the machinery as he had awoke. She also pointed out that he had called for her, he had the presence of mind to know and call for help.

The Doctor turned back to Tony.

“Some side effects are expected, I don't know how much you remember about the … incident, but but it's not an uncommon occurrence to have neurological side effects after. You have been quite lucky to even be alive considering you have bee struck by a side flash of lightning.” The doctor was watching him closely to see what if any reaction he would get by revealing the cause of his injury, his current predicament.

It did not come as much of a shock, Tony had figured out this already, nothing else made sense. He did not know what a side flash was though. He looked down the left then right sides of his body looking for clues.

“A Side Flash is when lightning strikes a nearby object, in you case the lightning rod on the church roof, and then jumps, arcs really, to the person nearby, you.”

Struck by lightning, what are the odds.

Tony laughed as loud as he could, but with his mangled speech centre it sounded like a yapping little dog.