A Modern Witch Tale
By M Howard Talbot
Proofread by
Alexander B King
Lights, noise, pain. Erik’s mind was filled with confusion. The bus… He had gotten
on a bus, a bus home after graduation and a couple of parties with friends, he had found a seat and went to sleep. It was six hours to home and the ride was shorter if one wasn’t awake. He had woken to screams as his butt lifted out of the seat and the world started spinning. The few things he ran into weren’t bad, but suddenly the bus stopped. From four years in college studying physics he knew that a body in motion stayed in motion until acted on by an outside force. The bottom of the canyon stopped the bus, then the bus stopped him.
It was Amara’s first day working in the small rural hospital and she had been assigned to ER. In this little hospital the ER was never busy. But then busses don’t go through guardrails everyday either.
Her eyes, as usual, got a few stares. With one gold and one crystal green she was a little out of the ordinary. But she was used to that.
The Hospital’s office personnel were on the phones calling everyone in. Other hospitals in nearby towns were sending them as many nurses, doctors, lab techs, and ambulances as they could spare. The ER wasn’t all that big, so rooms were being cleared and equipment was being drawn from storage and rounded up from unused rooms.
Word had it that eleven were dead as the scene and forty-two injured.
One of the young Doctors waved her over and said, “You’re new here, and this is about to get messy. Are you up to it?”
“Doctor...” Amara glanced at his name tag, “Royal, the women in my family have been in medicine since before it was called medicine. I’ve been helping with the sick, the broken, and the dying since I was fourteen. To pay my way through nursing school I worked in a mortuary. I think I’ll be fine.”
He looked at her and his head tilted a little saying, “If that’s the case, nurse…?”
“Sorry, Doctor, but I haven’t been given a name tag yet. I’m Amara Bruxa.”
“Well, nurse Bruxa, head over to station one and make sure everything’s there and you know where it is. We won’t have time for hunting around. If I call for it means I need it now. Understood?”
“Of course doctor, during my orientation I was shown where everything is but I’ll check to make sure nothing's been removed or misplaced.”
That got a tight eyed stare and a head shake.
“Doctor, I have a photographic memory and I don’t just look... I see. It’s a family trait.”
Before he could say any more the head nurse yelled that the first ambulance will be here in five minutes and Amara glanced at her watch, 11:15. Then she turned and hurried over and started checking the drawers.
As the gurney came out of the ambulance what little breath Erik had was taken away by the shock of the wheels hitting the sidewalk. Each expansion joint the wheels hit sent waves of pain smashing through him. There was nothing in his twenty-four years that had prepared him for this. The looks on the faces around him were grim and had dirt smudges on them. He had been towards the top of the tangled wreckage that had once been a bus. The screams and moans around him had been cut off when the ambulance door slammed shut but still echoed around in his skull. He was rolled into a brightly lit room full of people in white and bright colored scrubs. As he was transferred to a table someone very close by screamed. He looked up and saw a grim faced young doctor. He looked around and saw a young nurse placing sensory equipment on him. He tried to tell her he was sorry he was such a mess but groans were all that came out then there were more screams that he realized were coming from him. He looked up into her eyes… one gold, one green, and the room started spinning.
He woke up in a hospital bed and the nurse with the strange eyes was wiping his forehead with a cool, damp cloth and telling him it was all right. She told him he’d been here for five weeks drifting in and out.
Over the next two months he felt the strength seeping back into his body. The young nurse was always there helping him eat and helping him walk. In no time at all he was ready to get out of the little hospital and found he didn’t want to. He asked the nurse her name once and was told Amara Bruxa. Bruxa? From what little Spanish he remembered he asked, “Doesn’t that mean witch?”
“Yes and no, it Portuguese, but we are good witches.” she said with a smile.
“How about going out to dinner with me after I get out?”
A smile played across her lips and she said, “I thought you’d never ask.”
Two months later they were married in a small ceremony with some friends and family. When they came home from the honeymoon he found a letter from a major research lab he’d always dreamed of. His first big breakthrough came two weeks after their first son was born. Two girls later and he was one of the top people in his field.
The weakness came over him not long after the grandkids went off to college. Amara had looked at him with her gold and green eyes and said, “It’s time to retire, dear.”
She was right, of course, and they took a cruise around the world. After coming home the weakness got worse and he found himself confined to bed. She was always there by his side with a bit of sadness in her lovely eyes.
One morning he felt the darkness close around him but he felt no fear, he felt no pain. All he felt was love and as he looked up into those loving eyes he said with his last breath, “Thank you… thank you for a long and wonderful life….”
The young nurse looked up at the frowning doctor working so hard to stop all the bleeders in the young man on their table in the ER. “Doctor, the cart says all brain activity has ceased.”
“Damn. We never had a chance with this one. Ok let’s call it,” He looked up at the clock on the wall at the end of the little hospital's ER and said, “eleven twenty eight.”
Looking over at Amara he said, “I like the way you work Miss Bruxa. Leave the clean up for housekeeping and let’s get scrubbed up and get on to the next one.”
With the hint of a smile the little nurse answered, “Of course, Doctor. I’m sure between the two of us they will all have a long wonderful life.”