Chapter 11:
Ding, Dong (or in this case, BEEEEEP), Brian’s Dead
“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” cried Nick, as the heart monitor
flat-lined, its loud wail permeating the room.
Immediately, doctors and nurses rushed into the room. “Please save him!” Nick screamed, as they
crowded around Brian’s bed, blocking his view.
“He’s my f-f-friend!”
“Get them out of here!” shouted a doctor, and a couple of nurses
escorted Nick and Taylor out of the room, Nick struggling to get back to Brian
and Taylor whimpering randomly, “Jack? Jack! There’s a boat, Jack!”
“What’s going on?” Kevin asked, jumping up from his seat as Nick
and Taylor were nudged into the waiting room.
“H-h-h-h-he’s d-d-d-d-dying!” Nick cried hysterically, tears
spewing from his eyes.
“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” cried Kevin. “Not my cousin!” Pushing past the nurses, he raced down the
hall to Brian’s room, the others following.
They crowded in the doorway, watching in horror as the doctors
repeatedly shocked Brian with the defibrillator (aka “those paddle thingies”).
Finally, Dr. Ahmal flipped a switch on the heart monitor and
turned it off, sending the room into silence.
As he stripped off his gloves, the doctor glanced at the clock and said
gravely, “Time of death – 23:15.”
“Ohmygod, like, no!” Taylor screamed, bursting into the room,
tears springing from her emerald green eyes (yes, despite the fact that this
part is about Brian, we can’t forget to mention what color Taylor’s eyes are
because you readers surely won’t be able to picture this scene in your mind without
knowing that essential detail). “Like,
no, you, like, can’t stop! Do
something! You have to, like, save him!”
“I’m sorry,” Dr. Ahmal said quietly. “We did everything we could. His heart was just too weak, and it gave out
of him.”
“C-c-can we t-t-touch him?” Nick stammered through his tears.
“Yes, of course,” replied the doctor, and slowly, the group made
its way to Brian’s bed. Nick reached out
and gently rested his hand atop Brian’s.
His skin was still warm, and his face was peaceful. It looked like he was only sleeping… blah,
blah, blah, you get the point.
“He was my cousin,” Kevin said with a loud sniff, tears pooling in
his deep, clear, spinach green eyes (usually they would be emerald green, but
that’s what Taylor’s eyes look like, so a different shade of green was
necessary… don’t want to be, like, repetitive or anything, right?).
“We know, Kev,” Howie said softly.
“We know.”
Yes, they knew that Kevin and Brian were cousins. But if only they knew what was to come…
***
The last thing Brian remembered was talking to Nick, telling him
that he loved him. Then there had been a
sharp pain in his chest, and his world had gone black. But the pain was gone now, and everything
around him was… well… white.
Looking around, all he could see for miles and miles was what
looked to be clouds. Soft, fluffy, and
cotton-candy like, great tufts of them surrounded him, looking almost like
hills of snow. He could not even see the
sky beneath them. Looking in front of
him, he realized he was traveling upward on what seemed to be an escalator made
of solid, shining gold. It carried him
slowly and smoothly into the sky, the mounds of clouds rising with him.
I must be dreaming, Brian thought in bewilderment. He had been given lots of morphine in the
hospital; he was sure that was the cause of all this. He considered giving himself a pinch, but
decided against it, for he rather enjoyed this dream. It was much better than the reality of lying
in a hospital bed, poked and prodded, in pain, and fearing for his life. There was no pain, nor fear in the place he
was now. He felt calm, relaxed… even
happy.
The golden escalator carried him further up, and then suddenly, it
leveled out, and he found himself on a large, golden platform nestled in the
clouds. There was a small gold kiosk
with a window in the front. He walked up
to it and found a middle-aged woman dressed all in white standing inside it.
“Name?” she asked.
“Uh… Brian Littrell…”
The woman bent over something inside the kiosk, apparently
searching for his name. Obviously
finding it, she looked up with a smile and said, “Welcome to Heaven,
Brian. Your hand please?”
“What?” Brian asked in disbelief.
“Heaven?”
“That’s right, Heaven. Now,
your hand?”
“Heaven? No… no, it can’t be! You mean I’m… dead?”
“Dead as a doornail. Looks
like a heart attack,” the woman said, glancing back at the register in front of
her. “Now, will you please give me your
hand? I don’t want to get backed up.”
Glancing behind him, Brian saw that other people were beginning to
emerge from the escalator and cross the platform. Reluctantly, he held out his trembling hand
to the woman, who stamped something on it in shimmering, gold ink.
“There you go. Just follow
the golden brick road, and you’ll get to Heaven’s gates. Move along now, I’ve got people to see.”
Brian slowly backed away from the kiosk and glanced at the back of
his hand. There, staining his white
skin, was a tiny, golden angel.
“Oh, shi-… poop,” he whispered, staring at it in shock. He was now sure that this was no
opiate-induced dream… it was real.
He was dead.
If only he knew what was to come…
***
