Join the new world

"Please try to sit still, sir. We're going to run some tests on you." the nurse said. The truth was that my body was still adapting to actually sit up at all. Based on what I've overheard - which was sketchy at best - I had been out of it for months. The exact digit was vague, but somewhere between six to four months could now be chalked off my spent-awake-life. With the body running on fluid nourishment my muscles had taken a vacation, and were not escpecially fond of being woke such suddenly. Still, for the last couple of days my food had improved from a clear cocktail of sugar and medicine to chicken soup base. It was only a matter of time before they allowed me to try out my teeth again.

For now though, the nurse was instructed to poke around in whatever cavities she could find - which through my mask was harder than it might seem. Getting the mask of was even tougher, although I had woken with it at the side of my bed. I also noticed it didn't smell like it had before, and the stench of sterility was something that took quite a while to get used to - like someone had washed your old pair of jeans.
The nurse had already cleared my nostrils as they removed the oxygen, so she started with my ears. They were by far the easiest accessible holes in my head. After cleaning up the impressive amounts of wax, she quickly had peek in with one of those cone-monocular thingys.

"Ok, sir. I'd like to take your temperature now - so if you could just...", she said - handing me an old thermostat. I was not about to put it up the back door, so I simply clinched it in my arm pit and took a few relaxing breaths. It would take a minute or something for it to get the numbers correct, and so the nurse went about preparing the next investigative took - a plastic jar for urine.

"So, what's been happening while I've been out", I asked the nurse. "A whole lot. The alliances have fallen appart. Wars are all over the place.", she said while mainly focusing on her work. "Still though, it could be worse", she continued. "Food is cheaper than ever, and the new tax breaks have more or less made everyone self sufficient. Still, the economy is as shaky as ever.". At the end of the sentence, the thermometer beeped. I handed it to her and in return I was given the plastic container and a meaningful look. "I'll be back in a few minutes. If you'd be so kind...". "I get the idea.", I said. She pulled together the curtains around my bed, to improve the sense of privacy I guess. Still, I was the only one in the room. To me it seemed overkill.

I heard the door slam and I began focusing on my new objective. Actually, I was glad she hadn't asked me to go number two in whatever. Peeing in a jar really wasn't that bad. It took some "encouragement" though, to get the flow going. Running a tap was out of the question, since it involved far too much effort to produce a cup of pee. Instead I turned into myself, and tried to focus on flowing water. It took a few attempts, since the memories of Copenhagen's sewers were the first things to come to mind - and that didn't prove inspiring enough. The murky waters of Öresund meeting a small stream around my childhood home was able to get that tingling sensation going. From there on it was pretty straight forward.

"It's nice to see you're back up.", a voice said from the other side of the curtain. As most men would react in such a delicate situation, I was startled. This wasn't a public restroom, and I hadn't heard the door open or close. Maybe I had been too focused on the task at hand. In hand. Whatever. The startled twitching made aiming for the cup almost impossible, and I had accumulated quite a pool at this point. My attempts to stabilize the stream of fluid and at the same time balance the container proved to bee too much to process. I spilled, mostly on myself.

"This really isn't appropriate", I told the voice behind the curtain. I could hear a box of cigarettes opening, and as I attempted to clean myself and my surroundings with the wipes on the table by my bed the voice lit the cigarette. Judging by the smell, it was a fancy brand. When I felt sufficiently clean to begin a dialouge, I drew aside the curtain. Sitting in the chair across the room was Stente. Looking fancy as ever in his suit, and smoking a delicious smelling - and probably very carcinogenic - cigarette. "What are you doing here?", I asked him. "Just making sure my money are being well spent. That you're getting everything I've paid for. This is the best healthcare money can buy these days. It seemed that you could use it."

He seemed uninterested and/or bored. Stente was by all means good in my books, but had at one point been one of my political rivals - someone I had to wrestle with in order to rise in the ranks of the Norsefire party, later to become Aurora. "Flitwick sent you, didn't he?", I asked. He turned his gaze to me, and became most serious. "Flitwick is dead. Has been for quite some time.". The news shocked me. Flitwick, the powerful politician - fierce in both mind and mouth, had joined the long series of dead Danes. It didn't make sense. "Who did it?", I asked.

"No one knows. The police found him dead at his house. No traumas, no poison or foreign elements. It seemed that he just passed away in his sleep.". I couldn't believe it. Something shady was going on. "Geez. First Grev Per, then HrBjorn - now Flitwick? Who's next?"
"That's partially why I came", Stente continued. "You were awfully close to joining them in afterlife. It surely would fit the pattern. More Danes are dying every day."

The nurse returned, and didn't seem very surprised to see Stente in the room. Instead, she remarked that the patient needed rest and peace - and certainly wasn't to be disturbed while being tested. Stente nodded, handed her a 100 Kroner bill and asked to see my charts. After glancing at them quickly, and asking a few brief questions he closed my file and turned started to head for the door.

"Get well, and make it fast. This place is costing me a fortune. Give him a sponge bath, he missed.", he said and winked at me. He left, the nurse completed her tests - and then gave me quite a clean up. Let's just say she used more than just the sponge.