Smokin Weed With Jesus by Clifford Beck - HTML preview

Chapter 3

His eyes opened slowly, and as Richard's head began to clear, he discovered his hands had been tied to the rails of a hospital bed. As he attempted to raise his head, he felt the resistance of hardware that had been fixed to his skull. Richard wasn't exactly sure about where he was, but he did realize that he was in a hospital as the sounds of IV pumps and other machinery filled his still foggy mind. A nurse walked into the room carrying a plastic graduated container. She began to kneel next to the catheter bag that hung from the bed frame when she noticed his eyes blinking. Putting the container on a nearby stainless steel table, the nurse quickly walked up to Richard's shoulder.

"Richard," she said.

Blinking again, he made eye contact, and seeing this, the nurse took it as a positive indicator of awareness.

"Richard, my name's Tabitha. You're in the hospital. You're in intensive care at Maine Medical Center in Portland." She raised an index finger in front of Richard's face and asked him to follow it with his eyes. The nurse was quite pleased to find that he could follow commands, and stepping out, she returned with the resident in charge of this case. The doctor put two fingers into Richard's hand and asked him to squeeze. He was only partly successful in that, during the accident, the pothole he struck shattered the bones in his shoulder, ripping tendons and muscles from their anchor points. The doctor pulled a wheel-mounted computer over and reviewed Richard's X-rays and CT images. Two bones in his neck had fractured against each other, yet his spinal cord remained intact. The doctor was not an especially religious man, but he was struck by the impression that, given Richard's injuries, the fact that he was even alive was nothing short of a miracle. He returned to Richard's bedside and, assuming he could understand him, updated him on his condition. "Richard," he said. "You were in a car accident; you hurt your neck and your shoulder, but it looks like everything's going to be okay."

As the doctor walked out, he was met by Richard's wife, who was also updated on his condition, and as soon as the conversation ended, she walked into the room as the nurse was emptying the catheter bag. Stepping up to the head of the bed, she took his hand and quietly spoke to him.

"You had us worried for a while." Richard looked into her eyes and uttered a short response.

"How long?"

His wife hesitated as she looked at the nurse with an expression of concern. As much as she wanted to give him an answer, she also wanted him to stay calm.

"He needs to be oriented," the nurse said. "You can tell him, just keep it short." She turned back to him and calmly told him that it had been a week and a half since the accident that had nearly taken his life. He also had two separate surgeries. One to repair his neck and the other to reassemble his shoulder. Three days later, Richard was transferred to the orthopedic unit on Maine Medical Center's sixth floor. From there, he continued to recover as bits and pieces of the accident returned to him. But there was something else, something that seemed foreign, coming to him in flashes like a ghost darting across the room. Initially, Richard concluded that this was the result of the hydrocodone being given to him intravenously. But as the dose was reduced, the flashes turned into small fragments, wafting up from his memory. Eventually, they would coalesce into his waking mind, and as promised, he would remember everything.

Richard was healing quickly. Even by the normal rate of the body's ability to mend itself, his doctors were at a loss to explain how such severe injuries could recover so quickly, and two weeks later, Richard was transferred by ambulance to Portland's New England Rehabilitation Center. Another two weeks went by as he regained nearly complete movement and functioning. Another series of X-rays were taken, showing nothing more than the plates and screws in his neck, as well as the metal staples in his skin. One week into his stay, the staples were removed, leaving the incisions to heal on their own. By this time, the circular hardware that had been keeping his neck immobile had been removed, and he was allowed to walk, needing little assistance.

Two days before his discharge, Richard woke to a strange odor. It smelled familiar, yet he could not recall from where. Bringing his hands up to his face, he checked to be certain it wasn't something he'd touched, but upon examining his fingertips, he discovered an odd yellowish stain on his index finger and thumb. Unable to rub it off, he walked to the bathroom and filling his hands with water and liquid soap began washing them thoroughly. Yet, the stains remained. He rang his nurse for a few alcohol pads, but this too proved ineffective. Returning to his bed, he again brought his fingertips to his nose. This time, the smell disappeared, but out of curiosity, he touched his skin to the tip of his tongue. Immediately, he noticed the slight taste of honey. But, there was something else, something that brought all the pieces together - the momentary impressions, the fleeting fragments of memory. Everything came to the surface as his mind was pulled into another place where he recognized the park he'd visited, the faces of those he'd spoken with -- even the image of the little girl who raced her way around heaven, chastising violators of proper language. Every word that had been spoken cascaded into his conscious mind. For Richard, this recollection was nothing short of life-altering, and sitting on the edge of his hospital bed, he began to quietly weep. Now, he understood and somewhere within him, a door had opened leading down a path few are willing to take.

He would do exactly as he had been asked, to convey his experience to anyone who would listen, and there would be many drawn simply out of curiosity. But there was one more thing he would, in time, discover. The gift he had been given would soon make its way to the surface.