The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike) Part 2047 by Angharad Copyright © 2013 Angharad All Rights Reserved.

Sirens sounded the arrival of the paramedics who told us to keep going while they set up–I was getting used to this. Next they slapped on electrodes and attached them to the defibrillator, “There’s some cardiac activity, so you did well, you two.”

“BP’s shit,” said the other paramedic.

“Okay, I’m going to zap him, stand clear.” Unlike the films where people jump when they’re defibrillated, in real life they don’t move. It didn’t work and I began to feel really anxious for poor Neal. I threw energy into him while the machine analysed and decided to do him again. Nothing. The two paramedics went at the CPR like demons making our efforts seem very amateurish. The machine reported it was zapping him again; as it did I threw as much energy as I could at the supine lab technician and somehow the machine registered a cardiac output–his heart had started. I hugged the neighbour who’d helped cut him down and bounced up and down crying my eyes out. I knew we had a long way to go, but at least he had a slim chance now.

I continued throwing energy at him and the paramedic looked at his machine. “’Ere, Mark, we’ll ’ave to swap this machine it’s doin’ funny things.”

“His BP is almost up to normal–what’s going on?”

I felt the energy was being sucked out of me by my colleague and I tried to get into his mind to tell him to relax and I’d guide him home, but it was too noisy and too busy for me to be able to concentrate, so instead I told him to follow the light and my voice and it would get him safe.

Paramedic Barry was looking at a printout from his computerised defib machine and he couldn’t understand how the energy registered in Neal was twice what the machine was capable of producing, he showed it to Mark who agreed. However, they had cardiac output which was increasing with each beat of his heart. They didn’t know this but I did. I also powered up his brain to restore any lost function and heal any damage. His throat was badly bruised but it would heal itself eventually, though he could have a rather gruff voice when it did.

Despite her shock, Phoebe had packed a case with his pyjamas and a few personal items while all this was going on and she elected to go in the van with the paramedics. I would follow behind in my car still throwing energy at him to try and stop brain damage or kidney failure. I reckoned we’d got there just in the nick of time; a few minutes later and he’d have been too badly brain damaged for even my magic to work.

About three quarters of an hour after we’d rescued him, Phoebe and I were sitting in the waiting room looking at the same tired posters or ancient magazines I’d read so many times before. Maybe I should take them in some Cycling Weekly, even if the nineteen ninety five copy of Country Life had an article on dormice with some cute photos. It somehow found itself falling into my handbag–it was one I didn’t have.

The doctor on A&E came and spoke to us. “You found him?”

I answered that we had.

“You’re relatives?”

“I’m his sister,” said Phoebe.

“Okay, I’d like permission to do a scan, it’ll take about an hour to check out as much as we can, but mainly head and neck.”

“Sure–carry on.”

“They’ve got a better vending machine up in the restaurant, why not go and get a coffee, you can’t do anything for an hour?”

That wasn’t strictly true, I’d been constantly sending love and energy into him trying to heal him as quickly as possible–I didn’t need another baby any longer than was absolutely necessary.

As we walked up to the restaurant, Phoebe looked at me and said, “What do we tell Gloria, and when?”

“I don’t know but the more pressing question is...”

“Is what?”

“Whether I have chicken soup or Bovril?”

“Cathy, be serious.”

“Where food is concerned I’m always serious.”

She rolled her eyes and looked away shaking her head. I opted for the soup–it was a mistake–it was like something we used to get at the swimming baths when I was a kid being teased by my companions because I had small boobies to their pancake flat chests.

As I sipped the grey tinged fluid which had little floating bits of some long desiccated vegetation I was taken back to my early school days. “You sure you’re not a girl, Watts?” demanded Dennis Waters as he poked me in the tit. “I don’t see any bulge in your bathers.”

That was possibly because we’d been standing in the corridor for ten minutes since leaving the pool and I doubted his was much bigger in the cold draught blowing in from the open window.

“Cathy, Cathy,” Phoebe said loudly and poked me–but not in the boob.

“Uh, sorry kiddo, was miles away.”

“What’s the soup like?”

“Dreadful, why?”

“I’ll have the cappuccino, then.” I heard her inserting money into the machine and then the small plop as the cup was released and the rushing of all sorts of fluids or powders into it. “Not too bad,” she concluded after a couple of sips. “Is he going to make it?”

“I don’t know.”

“Can’t you ask your sources?”

“Like how?”

“How would I know? You’re the miracle woman.”

“I don’t feel very miraculous at this moment.”

“I could see all the energy you were shoving into him.”

“You could see it?”

“Yeah, as soon as you touched him.”

“I wonder if any of the others did?”

“They didn’t say anything.”

“No but I upset the machine the paramedics used.”

“Wow, so it’s measureable?”

“What is?”

“Your energy output.”

“I have no idea, but I have messed up the odd electronic device.”

“Like computers?”

“Yeah, like that.”

“Better keep away from my iPad then.”

“Don’t worry, I’ve modified the energy so it doesn’t do it any more.”

“How did you do that?”

“I told it I wouldn’t use it again if it messed up another device–it hasn’t done so since.”

“What about the defibwhatever?”

“It didn’t mess it up, just gave a reading far higher than they were expecting.”

“But they’ll think it’s faulty?”

“That’s their problem.”

“Finished?” she asked and took my empty cup and dumped it with hers in the bin. I stood up and burped getting a sort of aftertaste which was about as far from the flavour of chicken as I was from Homo erectus.

We wandered back down to reception to be told Neal was still in the Diagnostic Imaging Department. In other words he was still stuffed in a dustbin while someone ran a lawnmower around it.

“Are you stealing that magazine?” she asked me with a horrified expression.

“No, merely relocating it. It has an article about dormice.”

“They’d all be pensioners now, wouldn’t they?” she giggled.

“Probably all dead by now, they only live about five years, probably less in the wild.”

“Aww, poor things.”

“Life is brutal I’m afraid and dormice don’t have much defence against it.”

“They’ve got good teeth, can’t they fight back?”

“The only thing I’ve known them bite is survey members and your brother.”

“What, they bite people?”

“Occasionally, why?”

“I was holding one earlier, if you remember.”

“Yeah, the one who bit Neal.”

“What?” she gasped and looked at her hand before going rather pale and keeling over before I could grab her.