White ceiling, sterile lights. The beeping of the cardiac monitor. The cold air was forced down their throat through a tube. Speech was impossible as was any kind of movement. It felt like their whole body was stuck in a cast. They felt no pain, just a full-body itch. Just what they expected if they were indeed in a full-body cast.
The beeping accelerated as their heart soared, which summoned a nurse. The nurse flashed a light into their eyes, causing them to flinch.
“Awake? Nod if you can understand me,” She said.
They nodded slightly.
“Good. Don’t go anywhere, I’m going to call the doctor.”
The nurse went away before the irony of her demand sunk in. How would they go anywhere if they couldn’t move? The nurse returned a few minutes later with a middle-aged physician lady. She hummed a nursery rhyme as she examined the instruments out of their field of view. Once she was done doing that, she put her face in front of them and smiled.
“Good. Good. How are we, young miss?” The doctor asked.
They nodded slightly. Not much more they could do.
The doctor sighed, “You are okay. I’ve never seen anyone recover as fast as you do. We’ll remove your cast and do a full-body x-ray before start with physical therapy. It’ll take a while for you to fully recover but it seems you’ll be just fine. Look, blink one time slowly for yes, two fast blinks for no. Do you remember who you are?”
They blinked one time, slowly.
“Is your name Gertrude?” Two blinks. “Martha?” They groaned. “Okay, Catherine.” As the one in control of the body, William blinked twice, then winced.
“Sassy, eh?” The doctor grinned. “Let’s try it again. Is your name Catherine Wallenstein?”
“Good. Now, don’t worry about anything. Just focus on getting well, young miss. I’ll prepare to remove the tube from your throat. Mighty inconvenient, isn’t it?”
They blinked once.
The doctor did well on her word. After getting some instruments, she removed the tube from their throat. It was worse than vomiting at a frat party milk-jug contest. William had been there. Their throat itched and burned. With rasp grunts, they breathed, the looming threat of the doctor with a brand new respiratory tube in case they failed enough of an incentive.
The physician dripped some water in their mouth, telling them to swirl it around the throat. There must be some anesthetic or medicine mixed in with the water because their throat got better. The full-body itch? Not so much.
William did a full body check by trying to move each part individually. Fingers, toes, elbows, shoulders, knees, each bounced in the cast one by one. Then the dreaded crotch test. It felt clearly different from what he was used to.
“Ow,” they attempted to speak but just a raspy croak came out. The pitch, however, was way in soprano territory. It wasn’t a dream or hallucination. William was indeed in Catherine’s body.
“Catherine?” they managed to drawl after a few trials.
“Good. ‘U’ okay?” They croaked.
“Hell,” he cursed absentmindedly.
“Sorry. Didn’t mean it. You’re safe.”
“I understand.”
“Did you say something, miss?” The nurse approached, curious. They shook their head. “The cast technician is coming in a few minutes. Hang in tight.”
A lot of people entered the room after a while. The nurse along with a burly woman in a white lab coat with a tool case and a cop.
“Miss Wallenstein,” the cop approached. “You are under custody. After your cast is removed, I’ll have to handcuff you to the bed. Please comply.”
“Who let you in the room?” The doctor chastised the police officer out of their field of view. “You are handcuffing nobody. She is no threat. Out of this room.”
“Ma’am, it’s standard pro--”
“Call detective Martinez now, officer,” the physician lady was having none of the ‘standard procedure’ bullshit. “She is unable to move and will need extensive physical therapy to even stand up. Are you telling me a girl weighing less than ninety pounds who had over forty-five bone fractures is a threat to anyone? Get out now or I’m calling the mayor. And the media. Let’s see what they think of your ‘adequate use of force’. We have elections in less than ten months. She. Is. Not. Dangerous.”
William knew better than to speak with the police when under custody without a lawyer.
“Fifth Amendment,” they grumbled over the sepulchral sound in the hospital room. “Get my lawyer.”
They heard a phone dialing. The call went through and a woman answered, “Sullivan & Rothman, how may I help you?”
“Tell Oliver his client woke up and requested his services,” the doctor said. “He better hurry.”
“Thank you, ma’am. Your message has been sent. Anything else?”
“No, have a nice day.”
“Sullivan & Rothman thank you for your call.”
“Why are you still in the room?” She sharply asked the cop.
“I can’t let the suspect--”
The doctor was losing her temper, “She’s naked under the cast. Are you really staying in the room, MISTER? Is your body camera recording this?”
“Yes, ma’am. It is.”
“The windows don’t open and are made of ballistic glass. There’s only one exit to the room. You have your partner outside. None of my crew feels endangered by the girl. Out.”
They could hear the cop stomp out of the room.
The tall woman used a specialized saw to cut the cast. They had to relocate the IV drip to their left hand and indeed they were stark naked under the cast. The nurse gave them a towel bath, removing the dust and sweat. Their limbs felt sore and limped out on the bed. They could at most twitch them. All strength had left them. After the towel bath, she gained a diaper and a hospital gown.
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“I’m going to do a physical check then we’ll take you to do some x-ray scans,” the physician informed. “Is there anything you want to know?”
William rolled their eyes. Ignoring Catherine for a moment, they asked, “Damage to my body, procedures, prognostics.”
“Humm,” the doctor was taken by surprise by their objectivity. “You heard you’d too many broken bones. That was true. You had dozens of lacerations and almost all of your organs were damaged. You spent days in surgery and it is a miracle you survived. Most doctors would’ve just given up but we didn’t. Sorry, that sounded patronizing. We were amazed at your resilience and recovery.”
It was obvious the doctor didn’t want to answer the question.
“I’m fine with it. Just tell me. Permanent damages?”
“We need to check how your bones healed, that’s why we are heading to the x-ray room. Your internal organs are mostly healed but you lost a kidney, a third of your right lung, and your womb. Sorry, but the fetus had necrotized and the organ was compromised.”
William remembered they had a rapist to fry. “Did the cops collect DNA evidence from the baby?”
“Yes. Detective Martinez got a warrant. They collected DNA samples from both you and the baby.”
They frowned. Catherine explained,
“Hum, right,” they answered both the doctor and ghost. “Need to press charges of sexual assault.”
“We talked to Dr. Hill, your obstetrician. Wait for Mr. McNamara and detective Martinez. I am sure they will be here before we finish the x-ray. Shall we go now?”
They nodded. After a physical check, they were taken to the x-ray room. They felt discomfort on several parts of their body, and William was sure they had at least a few pins in their bones. He hazily remembered the state of Catherine’s body on the sidewalk. She’d indeed broken too many bones. After the visit to the x-ray room, they went back to bed. The doctor adjusted their medication and iv drip personally before preparing to leave. She caressed their forehead with grandmotherly care.
“I’ll check on your x-ray images now to see if there’s any damage to your bones, miss. You must be tired, do you want me to give you something to sleep? I recommend it. We took off your sedatives and once you start to regain feeling in your body, it’ll itch like hell.”
“Yes, please.”
The doctor nodded and the nurse injected something in their IV. Then they blacked out again.
----------------------------------------
As they woke up again, their body itched like a swarm of fire army ants on fire crawled all over them. Every single inch of their body both itched and burned. At least they weren’t handcuffed to the bed.
William decided to call himself “Cat” in their own mind. "William" was dead, his life over. It was undeniable he’d become a female and using the singular they to refer to themselves was getting old.
Cat tried to move around and found she could at least raise her head a bit. She glanced down and saw Catherine… her own body underneath the blankets but felt too tired and sore to try to move around, not to mention the burning itch. Craning her neck around, she attempted to look around. It was a hospital room like hundred other hospital rooms, without any fancy furnishings. At least it wasn’t an ICU, she reckoned. But she was hooked to several machines. Some electrodes ran to her chest and temples, the IV drip, some sort of clamp on her left index finger, and a urinary catheter going into her crotch. She could feel a bag resting against her leg and the tube going out of the diapers.
She tried to talk but found her lips and throat dry. Her tongue felt like sandpaper on the ceiling of her mouth. She tried to gather saliva to wet her lips but even that was hard. Without much recourse, she waited patiently for the spit to gather and then finally regained some precious moisture.
“Water...” She mumbled. Her blood felt like molasses, refusing to flow properly through her body.
There was nobody in the room to listen to her. Then she remembered there should be some kind of switch to call in a nurse. After struggling and fumbling around for a while, she got her right arm free from the hospital blankets and groped around the pillow for a switch. A few failed attempts later and she finally found a button at the end of a cord with the word “nurse” written on it.
A yawning nurse entered her room a long while later. “Yes? Catherine?”
“Water,” she grumbled.
“Oh, dear. Right away,” she took a plastic bottle with a long flexible straw and offered the tip to her. “Drink slowly. Don’t suck, let me squeeze the bottle. It’ll feel like torture, but you need to trust me. Drink it slowly.”
She was right. It did feel like torture. She wanted nothing more than to suck that bottle dry and then another ten. But the nurse did well on her promise. Once she tried to suck on the straw, she pulled it out.
“No sucking, miss. Or you’ll go without water. The IV will keep you hydrated anyway.”
Cat nodded. The straw came back and she patiently drank the water, moving it around her mouth to wash it.
“Do you want to spit it out?” The nurse empathetically offered. Catherine nodded. She produced a banana-shaped tray and gently tilted Catherine’s head so she could not spit it out but drool the water and mouth gunk she washed out. It felt awful.
“In the morning I’ll come to brush your teeth before my shift ends, how does that sound?”
“Good,” Cat tried to smile. “What time is it?”
“A quarter past midnight. More water? You can drink this bottle, and then I’ll try to get you some porridge to eat. You must be hungry, right?”
As if on cue, her stomach protested mightly. Cat retched as an acidic burp escaped her throat but managed to keep the precious water from coming out. The nurse raised the front of the bed, propping her into a slightly reclining position.
“Thanks,” Cat said once the water bottle was gone.
“The porridge will take about half an hour to come. Do you want me to turn on the TV?”
“Some silly channel,” She suggested and the nurse left. Cat wasn’t ready to face the news. She just closed her eyes and enjoyed the sounds of some late-night cartoon channel. After a few minutes, she felt her body react to the water. She pumped her right hand to get the blood running. Once she regained feeling and movement in her arm, she touched her face.
Cat tried to reply mentally but got no reaction.
“Are you there, Catherine?” She asked out loud.
“Can you hear my thoughts?”
It seemed that Catherine was better able to think than Cat was. The ghost of the former owner of the girl’s head probably didn’t need a brain to think. She gave up on trying to imagine how that worked.
[Said the girl who jumped out of a building,] Cat did as she asked and sub-vocalized.
She didn’t hear Catherine’s reply because remembering what happened caused all the pent-up emotions he couldn’t feel as a disembodied soul to come crashing like a tsunami-earthquake combo on Fukushima Daichi. The grief from losing his perfect life and his perfect fiancée and everything else in between struck him like a starving heavyweight boxing champion low on ear-vitamins.
The girl on the hospital bed started to cry. William still remembered the sharp, sudden, and instant pain of having one’s neck snapped. The joy of his last phone call with Dahlia forever tarnished. He wailed thinking of how devastated she should be right now. Worse yet, he was now his own killer. She dreaded to see firsthand how huge the damage to his own life was.
That combined with Catherine's own precarious situation. He had no idea yet, but the girl’s life was no rose garden either.
[Look, if I’m going to live in your shoes, I need to know more about you. For starters, I don’t see any flowers, visitors, or even a ‘Get Well’ card. Did you live under a rock?]
[Where do you, I… we live?]
[Isn’t that in New Jersey? I had a client who lived there. Lots of nice houses.]
Cat tried to remember what Catherine wore when they died. He believed it was fine designer clothing but it was ruined along with their bodies and mostly drenched in blood.
[Rich kid?] Cat “kindly” left the spoiled part out.
“Then why nobody visited you? Does anyone care about Catherine? You must tell me all about your mother and your family situation.]
As Catherine talked, no, bragged, about her life in detail, Cat grew angrier and angrier about her decision to commit suicide. They ignored the mental distress she was put under but it was obvious the girl would have no problem raising a kid with that amount of money.
Mrs. Wallenstein was a wastrel because Cat didn’t want to use a harsher word and put a rift between the two body-mates. But she came out as petty and vain, throwing her life away and ruining William’s in the process.
Cat’s anger at their predicament boiled over. Bound to the body as a passenger, Catherine felt the rage building up as the heart monitor soared.
“I don’t want your apology, you useless bimbo! Fuck you!” Cat shouted out loud. Catherine went silent after uttering a mental whimper.
Cat’s shout summoned a nurse and a female cop. “What’s the matter?” The nurse asked. A male arm wearing a suit jacket appeared from behind the door to block the cop’s entrance.
“I’m sorry, ma’am, but I require time with my client before you interrogate her,” the owner of said arm said with a well-articulated and well-modulated voice that fits extremely well with the words “expensive lawyer”.