Things lost and things found, the story of Wallace Morgan. (1133 hits)
Category: Quotes & StoriesLabels: uberbook
Rating: 1.95 on 27 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Bigmike (View user info) at 2005-02-12 00:46:51 EST
"He said "Where am I?" I swear to god he did. It's incredible!"
Wallace opened his eyes to see a man standing over him talking into a phone. It was like nothing he had ever seen before so he thought he was dreaming. They don't have phones like that anywhere. It was the coolest thing he had ever seen.
"OH MY GOD, HIS EYES ARE OPEN! Get down here quick!" He heard the man scream into the phone. The man was large and bald. He had a slightly graying goatee beard and was wearing glasses. He was wearing a black short sleeved polo shirt and a pair of grey slacks. He folded the unusual phone in half, slid it into his pocket, and came over to the bed.
"Dad, are you ok?" the man said to him cautiously.
Wallace looked around the room to see where he was. It was obvious that he was in some kind of hospital. There was a light green curtain hanging to his left and a television hanging up on the wall directly across from him. There was some kind of news program playing on the television in color that was so vibrant he thought it was an illusion. A clock was hanging next to the television. It read twelve forty five. He could see light coming through the blinds hanging over the window so he presumed it was afternoon.
The man spoke to him again. "Dad, say something to me, say anything." His smile was about to leap off of his reddened face. It was clear to Wallace that this man was in an agitated state of excitement. Wallace attempted to speak.
"Did............did you call me dad?"
The words came out raspy and weak. As he said them, he looked down at his body. There was a generic white sheet covering his torso and legs. He scanned up to his arms to see that they were thin and wrinkled. There was a tube leading from an intravenous drip bottle down to a needle inserted into a vein in his right arm. He looked at his wrinkled fingers and tried to flex them. He could only move them slightly and his mind began to wander. He started to close his eyes to think, but the man wouldn't let him.
"NO! NO! Don't close your eyes dad. Please.........don't close your eyes."
The man was pleading with him feverishly. Wallace could see tears running down his face. Why couldn't he close his eyes? He just wanted a little rest. He closed them and went back to sleep.
************************************************************************
When he woke again, Wallace looked up at the clock which now read seven thirty five. The window had gone dark, but the television was on and a lamp on the table across the room illuminated the walls with a nice, soft glow. There were more people in his room now. The man he had seen earlier was sitting on a chair next to the bed. There was a pleasant looking woman sitting next to him and she was cradling a baby. There were also two other what seemed to be teenagers in chairs down by the end of the bed. They were talking quietly amongst themselves. They hadn't seen that he was awake so he listened.
"When did he come to?"
"About quarter to one yesterday afternoon. He spoke to me. He said "did you call me dad?" then he looked around for a minute and when back under. I tried to keep him awake, I swear."
"Wow, I can't believe it, after all this time."
He listened for a few minutes more to the questions and answers. A nurse then entered his room from behind the green curtain. She asked everybody in the room to leave. When they did, she came walking over to the bed and started adjusting the sheets. She then turned her attention to the IV and made sure that it was working properly. As she went to the bottom of the bed, she lifted the sheet gingerly to expose his legs. She gently grasped him just below his knee and on his ankle. She started to flex the leg gently, watching his body react and exercising his muscle. He could see that his leg was extremely skinny and frail. The skin was just hanging there like a cheap wrapping.
"What are you doing?" He said to her.
She dropped his leg and gasped, startled at his spoken words.
"Ow, be careful there. That hurt," he said.
The nurse ran out of the room and the rest of the people came running in.
Wallace had no idea what was going on.
The man he had spoken to earlier came up to his side. The rest of the people stood at the end of the bed gawking at him. He felt like an animal at the zoo. They were looking at him like he was some kind of curiosity.
"Dad? Dad, look at me."
He looked up at the man and saw the concern on his face.
"Dad, it's me, Peter."
Wallace searched his memory for a man named Peter. He couldn't quite remember any man in his life that carried that name.
"Peter who?" was Wallace's reply.
The man spoke. "Peter........your son." Tears were now flowing down Peters face freely. Wallace took a minute to assimilate this information. He did have a son named Peter, but the boy was just four years old. Bits and pieces of information were coming back to him now. Peter. Helen, his wife. The house. The Chrysler he drove. The firm where he worked.
"Peter?" he said. "But you're a man. Peter is just a boy. Where's Helen?"
"Dad, I've got much to tell you. Mom's been........."
Just then a doctor came hurriedly into the room.
"Everybody out now please." He ordered.
"But......."
"No but's Mr. Morgan. Out now please."
All the people in the room filed out one by one. Peter looked longingly at his dad as he left. Wallace watched the doctor come over to the bed and look at him. The doctor didn't say a word.
"Hello," Wallace said.
The doctor looked at him strangely but continued to check him out. The clipboard in his hand was full of papers, and he was flipping through them, searching for some bit of information.
"How do you feel?" the doctor said.
Wallace tried to smile. "I feel a little tired," was his reply.
The doctor spoke again. "You should feel very tired Mr. Morgan. You sir, are a medical miracle."
Wallace looked up at him not knowing how to feel about that statement. He still didn't know why he was here or why his body was in such a state. No twenty four year old man should feel or look like he did.
"Do you remember why you are here?" The doctor said.
Wallace searched his memory. "Wasn't I in some kind of accident? A car perhaps?"
"Yes." The doctor replied. "You were in a very bad car accident. We lost all hope for you years ago."
Wallace heard him, but didn't comprehend. The doctor said "Years ago." He was wondering what those two words actually should mean to him. How long had he been here? Could it be that the man who called himself Peter was really his four year old son? Was he waking up from a long sleep to enter a nightmare? Wallace was confused and the doctor must have seen it on his face because he said, "I'm going to let your son come in here now and talk to you. Much of what he says may be upsetting to you. Please listen to him with an open mind. He has a heavy heart and much of what he will tell you will take incredible strength on his part. Do you understand me Mr. Morgan?"
"I think I do," Wallace replied. "Let him come in."
The doctor made a few notes in his clipboard before he left Wallace's room. A few minutes later, Peter came in and sat down next to Wallace's bed. His eyes were red rimmed from crying and he had a solemnly serious look on his face. Peter didn't start talking right away. He just sat there looking at Wallace. His gaze seemed to last an hour and just as Wallace was about to ask him why he wasn't talking, Peter spoke up.
"Dad, this is going to be very difficult for me to say, but it will be doubly hard for you to hear. Much has happened since you came into the hospital, so I will try to be as comprehensive as I can. I have some notes prepared. I have been writing constantly since I was old enough to put pencil to paper. Mom helped me out with the beginning and when I was about ten years old I took over."
Peter bent down and retrieved a leather bag from beneath the chair he was sitting in. He opened the bag and pulled out a blue three ring binder that looked to be filled with paper. He gently placed the binder on his lap, swung the plastic cover open and began to read.
"To Wallace, from Helen and Peter.
Dear Wallace,
It was a cold night that decided to take you from us so very suddenly. August Eighth of the year Nineteen Sixty Five. The accident was a bad one, and the doctors were surprised that you were still alive. Both of your legs were broken, your collarbone was also broken, you had a concussion, and one of your lungs collapsed. You were in intensive care for three weeks before they finally transferred you to another room and downgraded you from critical. They expected you to wake up, but you never did. The doctors didn't really know why you were in the coma, but they recognized the fact that your body was healing properly."
Peter continued to read as Wallace's mind flashed back to the day of that car accident. It was a cold and snowy day and Helen wasn't feeling well. He had to go out to the drugstore and get her a prescription that had been given to her by the family doctor. He remembered getting into his car and pulling out of the driveway, but he couldn't remember any more after that.
"Look Dad, here's a picture of us taken right before the accident." Peter held the binder up for Wallace to see. It was a picture of the three of them outside of a church. Wallace couldn't remember the day that picture was taken, but he could remember Helen. She looked as beautiful as she always did. Peter looked happy and his smile was beaming more brightly than the sun.
"Peter, I want you to stop reading now," Wallace said. Peter looked at him strangely, but did as he said. He folded the binder closed and set it on his lap. "I want to be able to read that myself someday, Peter. So tell me, how long have I been here?"
Peter hesitated for a moment. He had to tell him the truth, but how could he? The truth might make him go mad.
"Dad, the year now is Two Thousand and Five. You have been in a coma for forty years."
Wallace closed his eyes to think. Peter leaned forward ever so slightly and put his hand on his dad's arm, careful not to put much pressure on the fragile bones. After a minute, Wallace said, "That would make me....."
"Sixty four," Peter finished for him.
There was a moment of silence as Wallace digested this tidbit of truth. Peter spoke to fill the void.
"Mom died ten years ago. She had lung cancer. We had a nice service and I took pictures to show you. It's all in the binder. In many binders. Everything that has happened over the last forty years. I've been coming here four nights a week almost since the beginning. Mom would bring me and we would sit here waiting. Waiting for you to wake up. We would build puzzles and play cards. We would read to you. That's how I really learned to read. Sitting here reading my Dr. Seuss books or my comics to you. The doctors and nurses were really nice and let us stay as long as we wanted to as long as we were quiet. I grew up watching you breathe, watching you sleep, waiting for you to wake up. I used to bring you my report cards and read every grade to you, knowing that you would be proud of me. I brought you every one of my sports trophies and sang all of the songs I learned in choir to you. I sat here crying for you and feeling sorry that we couldn't share all the good times together so I decided to include you whenever I could. I've got a whole library at home dad, right next to the room that I have set up for you. That room has been waiting a long time for someone to fill its empty space. I want to take you there, Dad. I want to explain and show everything to you. Kathy is going to help."
"Who's Kathy," Wallace asked.
"Kathy is your daughter in law dad. She is the woman who was in here with me earlier. Those kids you saw are your grandkids. They come here whenever I do. They know more about you than you could ever imagine. They know everything that a grown man who lost his father at a very tender young age could remember. I told them how we used to listen to ballgames on the old transistor radio as we sat out on the porch in the summer. I told them of building snow forts with you at the old house. I told them of how you would read stories to me before bedtime and how you would check under my bed every night for monsters. I told them how good you were to me."
Peter could see tears beginning to stream down his fathers face. He took a tissue from the box next to the bed and wiped the salty moisture from his father's eyes.
I want to relive it with you dad. But you have to get well first. I will come here every day to be with you until you feel good enough to come home with me. Kathy and the kids will help. It's going to be all right."
Wallace opened his eyes and looked at his son. Peter leaned his head forward on his father's fragile chest and began to cry also. Together they wept for things lost and things found. After a few moments, Kathy and the kids came into the room. Witnessing this bonding between father and son after so many years, Kathy held the kids close to her and watched. Her daughter, Wallace's new found granddaughter started to ask her a question, but she gently shushed her. This was not a time for questions.
This was a time for silence. Silence except for the gentle sobbing of a father and son reunited over many years. Silence except for the soft whispering voice of Wallace Morgan repeating through his tears, Sixty four.....Sixty four......Sixty four.
The time for questions would come and, as they all found out eventually, Wallace had quite a few.
User Reviews
Submitted by munkeypants (user info) at 2005-02-13 18:48:47 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Tiltedhalo (user info) at 2005-02-13 13:32:17 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Very cool.
Submitted by pen_name (user info) at 2005-02-13 10:54:25 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
ment to say
..........this post is good, by the way.
just too caught up in eyeball
Submitted by pen_name (user info) at 2005-02-13 10:52:49 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
i have paypal, but i can't make myself waste money on the board
here's what's up right now.
EYE http://www.ubersite.com/m/59470 EYE
someone dished out a dollar for this....a dollar for a pussy eyeball (not meow meow, but infection infection). if you rethink that and not post a stinky eyeball, or used condom, or barrel of leaves you could rent a movie. maybe clash of the titans. that movie must have tons of eyeball.
think about it. Medussa has the red, scary eyeballs. the gods have 2 each...and there are like 50 of them (not counting crappy gods like the god of horse poop, or the god of wood fencing). You got the owl with the mechanical eyeballs...and you got the seer/witch with her magical glass eye.
better deal by far.
..........this post, by the way.
Submitted by Vomit (user info) at 2005-02-13 10:49:01 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
One of the best posts I've read in a long time.
Submitted by Bigmike (user info) at 2005-02-12 23:18:32 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
If I had a paypal account I would put this up on Uberboard to see what the weekday crowd thinks of it. I can never wait until Monday to post.
Oh well, if they want to read it, they know where to find me.
Submitted by Bigmike (user info) at 2005-02-12 23:15:22 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by Zoidberg (user info) at 2005-02-12 14:39:38 (#)
Ranking: 0
either you guys are homos or I have emotional problems, because this didnt make me feel like crying in the least.
a very good story though.
I was wondering about the timing, did you read about the woman who just woke out of a coma she'd been in since she was 18? She's 38 now. It happened like yesterday I think.
I didn't see that story. That's amazing.
Submitted by LadyPlural (user info) at 2005-02-12 22:06:53 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
It was the coolest thing he had ever seen.
I certainly was not around at that point in time, but describing something as 'cool' seems rather anachronistic for a man who was about 25 during the sixties. That said, great story.
Submitted by WiKi (user info) at 2005-02-12 15:07:29 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Awesome.
Submitted by Zoidberg (user info) at 2005-02-12 14:40:14 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
oh man Im so sorry that should have been a 2
damn oh well, I'll go give you one somewhere else
Submitted by Zoidberg (user info) at 2005-02-12 14:39:38 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
either you guys are homos or I have emotional problems, because this didnt make me feel like crying in the least.
a very good story though.
I was wondering about the timing, did you read about the woman who just woke out of a coma she'd been in since she was 18? She's 38 now. It happened like yesterday I think.
Submitted by tlozoot (user info) at 2005-02-12 14:22:15 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
For some reason I thought that Marcellus Wallace should have been the name of Samuel L. Jackson's character in Pulp Fiction.
Submitted by loki (user info) at 2005-02-12 11:08:46 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Bigmike (user info) at 2005-02-12 09:51:53 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by MyNameIsTim (user info) at 2005-02-12 07:40:38 (#)
Ranking: 2
i have to admit - i have tears in my eyes.
that was amazing.
was it based in truth?
No truth here. All fiction. This story has been banging around in my head for two weeks. After I read Teephs contest post I decided to write it. I think it came out ok.
Submitted by StonedSilly (user info) at 2005-02-12 09:29:29 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
After last night, I really shouldn't have read this.
But I did, and I have tears in my eyes. Again.
Submitted by GodChicken (user info) at 2005-02-12 09:10:25 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
BigMikey where the hell is it all coming from?!
Submitted by Soley_Trinity (user info) at 2005-02-12 07:56:07 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by MyNameIsTim (user info) at 2005-02-12 07:40:38 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
i have to admit - i have tears in my eyes.
that was amazing.
was it based in truth?
Submitted by Calios (user info) at 2005-02-12 06:43:01 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
wow.
Submitted by Stin (user info) at 2005-02-12 05:04:45 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
If that doesn't make Teeph cry, there is no hope for the man.
Simply outstanding.
Submitted by mrwolf (user info) at 2005-02-12 04:55:23 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
God I wish I could sit here and cry. Stupid fucking job.
Submitted by wardy (user info) at 2005-02-12 04:23:23 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
http://www.ubersite.com/m/59209 please read this... it's actually pretty good...
Submitted by Circe (user info) at 2005-02-12 04:14:45 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
You even surprise ME sometimes, and I know how fucking awesome you are.
Submitted by kaos-king (user info) at 2005-02-12 02:36:07 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Very well written and plotted out. Every now and again something surprises me here on uber. You just did.
Submitted by Wazza (user info) at 2005-02-12 01:32:01 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Bravo Sir!
Submitted by AstheRuinfalls (user info) at 2005-02-12 01:13:47 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Best thing I've read in a very long time.
I love this.
Submitted by Bigmike (user info) at 2005-02-12 00:48:03 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
I had to resubmit this because I found a few errors. Thanks to AlwaysanEagle for her first kind review.