Hello Dearest Penguin People.
This is the latest chapter of Max and Sebastian. It left off with Max finding out that she was going to the hospital followed by a strange dream.
As mentioned by one reader, he thought it odd that I address my readers as Penguin People. This chapter will explain the origins of The Penguin People, though I’m not sure how you’ll feel about it :)
Talking about penguins…a special thank you to P.Q. Rubin for the tipsy little fellow up there :)
As always, thank you for reading.
If you missed the first chapters…please start here.
CHAPTER FOUR
The drive to the hospital was regrettably mundane, with a distinct lack of wailing or gnashing of teeth. When they arrived Number Five bustled ahead to finish paperwork. The endless monologue of statistics and ennui consumed her, with every child reduced to ink on paper, then filed and forgotten.
Max followed in a wheelchair, pushed by a young, lanky tech named Raul. She had tried to refuse.
“It’s policy,” he said.
“Why? Are you afraid I’m going to trip and die?”
He cursed under his breath.
“Now what?” she asked.
They had stopped in front of a pair of elevators. One had an out of order sign.
“Not again,” he said.
“Just use the other one.”
Sweat glistened on Raul’s forehead.
Max glanced at Sebastian who only shrugged.
Raul stomped to the working elevator and punched the Up button. The doors slid open. And yet, he didn’t move.
Max looked around. “Seriously, I can walk.”
“No. Give me a second.”
Raul peered inside. The doors began to close. He made the sign of the cross and pushed her chair inside. Still silent, he kept his eyes glued to the floor numbers as they lit up.
Max gave up and turned to Sebastian who stood quietly by her side. “How come there’s never any cheesy music in hospital elevators?”
Sebastian looked a bit uncomfortable himself, but he managed a smile. “Perhaps they don’t want their patients to feel worse than they already do.”
Max laughed.
Raul glared at her. Who was the little nut job talking to? He took a deep breath. There was a strict policy against strangling patients, even if one really wanted to. He rolled his neck, trying to loosen the kinks in his shoulders. “Just chill,” he whispered to himself. Something wet brushed his ear. He tugged at the crew neck beneath his scrubs, finding it hard to breathe.
He closed his eyes and fought the overwhelming sensation of standing in a roomful of nosy over-sized penguins, all staring at him and pressing in closer and closer, their musty breath misting his cheeks. Why was it always penguins? And the thoughts that arose in his head, they couldn’t be his. Once, he had gone as far as to explain this to his psychiatrist, a tiny man with huge round spectacles that nearly swallowed his face. The doctor had tapped his clipboard with a cheap ballpoint pen, pondered for a moment and then asked Raul if he was afraid of commitment, marriage in particular. He had even recommended that he join a dating service. A month later after following his advice, Raul still heard the voices in his head and remained staunchly single.
The Penguin People were restless today. They had a list. What was that? They wanted sardines? No way. Raul hated sardines. He refused to eat anything that stared back at him.
The elevator lurched up in an agonizing series of sluggish squeaks and thumps. Feeling ridiculous, he ripped open a packet of salt and tossed it over his left shoulder. Max gave him a curious look and he returned it with a glare. Stupid kid. She gave up and looked to his left. She giggled. Then it struck him. She was part of it. This horrible little brat was talking to the Penguin People. He felt his chest tighten as the whispering became more insistent. No, they didn’t want salt, they had plainly said sardines. Also, they didn’t like lime Jell-O and wanted more cable channels and while we’re at it, prettier nurses, please. He rubbed his head as the buzzing in his head grew. Finally, the door opened on the fifth floor with a deflated ding. He shoved the wheelchair through the doors, screaming, “Get your own freaking sardines!”
Max gaped at him.
“What are you staring at?” he snapped, wiping his left ear.
She turned to Sebastian. “What’s his problem?”
Sebastian adjusted his tie. “I have no idea.” He looked over his shoulder and made a shooing motion with his hand. “Go away,” he mouthed. A small group of ghosts, all in various shades of gloom and ash looked at him sullenly and then dispersed back into the elevator shaft.
But Max saw nothing. If anything, the emptiness echoed.
Raul pushed the wheelchair down the dimly lit hall. Above them fluorescent bulbs flickered, one dying as they passed underneath. Unfazed, Raul kept going. At the end, double doors with a security pad waited. A nurse rushed past them and swiped a card. The doors slid open with a tired beep and whoosh. For a moment, Max saw children huddled in glass rooms, attached to tubes and machines that flashed and wailed. She shivered and sank into her chair.
At the last moment, Raul swerved and wheeled Max into a regular hospital room. Anemic sunlight dribbled in through a single window with a view of flat gray cement roofs over a parking garage. Drowsy yellow walls with peeling rainbow decals above the beds greeted her with a yawn.
“This is you,” Raul said.
Max limped to the closest of the two railed beds, both empty, and sat on threadbare white sheets. She grimaced. “Then I don’t like me.”
Raul snorted and pushed the wheelchair out of the room. “Wait here. The nurse will be right with you.”
Sebastian followed Raul into the hallway. He watched him ditch the wheelchair and take the stairwell. And yet, Sebastian lingered, unconsciously adjusting his tie.
“Sebastian?”
He turned around and couldn’t help but notice how fragile Max looked, perched on the bed like a hummingbird in an ostrich nest. He sat next to her.
Max’s voice was small. “There’s been a mistake,” she said. “Today’s not good for me. I can come back another day, like the second Tuesday of next year, or you know whenever it’s more convenient.”
“You know I’m here for you.”
She slumped forward on the bed, kicking her feet.
Silence filled the room. Max looked around, and then punched the tired mattress with a petite fist.
“Max?”
She scowled. “Is this it? Is it normal to dump someone in a room and wait for them to implode? Do they really think that the last thing I want to do is watch TV and eat green Jell-O? None of this feels real.”
“It’s real. Normal people die, and it’s not always exciting.”
Max stared at the faded walls. “Then I must be the most normal person I know.” She stared at her feet. “It feels like I’m already dead.”
“This isn’t the end of who you are.”
“You keep saying that, but that’s not how it feels.”
Sebastian leaned in close. “Once there was a real me. I don’t miss him. From where I stand, life is over-rated.”
Max kneaded her hands in her lap. “I’d miss you,” she said.
He smiled.
“How did you die?” Max knew the answer, but she always asked.
“From a heart attack.”
“Sounds exciting.”
“Yeah, it was a real hoot.” Sebastian noticed that his left hand had disappeared, a misty gray clump of ectoplasm in its place. He grimaced and gave it a good shake. Reluctantly, his fingers reappeared. As of late, he had a hard time keeping his body intact.
“Sebastian?”
“Yes, Max?”
“Is there enough of the real you left?”
“What?” He wondered if she had noticed his hand.
“Are you still you?” she asked.
He stared at her, not speaking.
“Is that such a hard question?”
Sebastian looked at her earnest expression and tried to remember the other face beyond it, but that, like everything else, was becoming more difficult by the day.
“It is,” he said. He raised his hands up to his face and stared at them. “The memories from my last body are clear. But I have others, bits and pieces from other lives that won’t go away.” He wiggled shadowy fingers in front of his nose. “If I could understand them, then everything would fall in place.” He was silent for a moment. “Well, at least I hope it would.”
“So, you’re chasing shadows.”
He sighed, his left hand reaching into his suit vest pocket for a cigarette he would never find.
An elderly nurse with a kind face appeared at the door.
Sebastian froze, then melted into a gray puddle on the floor. A few seconds later, he reappeared, a sheepish look on his face.
“What was that about?” Max asked him.
The nurse’s smile faded the slightest bit. “Excuse me?”
“I wasn’t talking to you.”
The nurse put the smile back on, extra bright. “Alright Pumpkin. I just wanted you to know that I’ll be with you in a moment.”
“Whatever.”
The door was empty again. The murmur of adult voices drifted toward her from the Nurse’s Station. Number Five was saying, “But I thought she would be in ICU?”
“We don’t have available beds, but she should be transferred within a day. We have the necessary equipment if she takes a turn for the worse.”
“Is there any doubt she won’t?” Number Five’s voice was as slow and pedantic as ever.
The adults droned on. Max stopped listening. The reasoning behind an available room spooked her. If someone was about to die and give up his bed, she didn’t want to know. She glanced down at her own sad mattress. How many hapless children had breathed their last on its hard surface? It stared back, feigning innocence. She stood and fought the urge to peer beneath it, afraid that a sinister visage would be staring back.
Instead, she turned her wrath on Sebastian. “Why are you acting so weird?”
“I’m not.”
“It’s that nurse, isn’t it? Old Bat Face?”
He turned around. Max’s aura sizzled and popped like an angry cloud. “Careful, now,” he said. “That’s my wife you’re talking about.”
For once, Max had nothing to say.
If you have the inclination…
Dear reader, if you are still confused about why I call you The Penguin People, it’s simply this. When I started Substack a few months ago, all my posts were largely ignored like I was talking to the wind or to ghosts. I knew people were there but I couldn’t see them. I like The Penguin People…and I like all of you…the ones who comment…and the ones that lurk in the mist and never say a word :)
For some reason I always thought it was Penguin People because of Penguin Publishing house (like for those who love books).
Couldn't help but notice Sebastian say "once there was a real me...." like in your bio 🙂
Oh my God, you actually addressed it!