“I can’t breathe!” It was the merest gasp.

I looked at Jake. His lips were blue.

Only three days ago, he’d dismissed it as “Just a flu, mate.” For two years now, his opinion was, “That COVID thing is a beatup. A good way for Big Pharma to fleece the mob, and politicians to get rid of freedom.” When I got vaccinated, he said, “Tom, you’re a wimp and a sucker.”

But now, he couldn’t breathe, and his lips were blue.

An ambulance might arrive in two hours. “Come on,” I said and hauled him out of his chair by his shirtfront. Lucky I am into bodybuilding. Over my shoulder in a fireman hold, and I raced for the garage.

What’s a speed limit when the centre of your life is dying? Lucky there was no traffic to speak of this late at night, so I floored the accelerator and ran a couple of red lights.

As I near-skidded around a corner, a siren-wail split the air, and blue and red lights flashed in my mirrors. I slowed, and powered the window down.

Cop was beside me, herding me for the kerb. I shouted, “Hospital! Dying man!”

A beam of light speared from the cop’s side window, blinding me, so I turned my head but kept going. It shone on Jake’s face.

The cop pulled ahead and speeded up. I followed, and in another minute we stopped at the Emergency Department of Box Hill Hospital.

I clicked two safety belts open, raced around the front, hauled Jake out, over my shoulder again, and sprinted in, never mind checkins and such administrative bullshit. “Oxygen, quick!” I shouted, hoping he was still alive.

Bored people hid behind their masks in a half-full waiting room. In an eternity of maybe ten seconds, double swing doors burst open, extruding two nurses wheeling a stretcher. Oxygen mask on Jake’s face, then we lifted him over. I had enough attention to be surprised that one of the nurses looked ancient.
The stretcher disappeared behind the doors swinging shut behind it, and I was ready to collapse with tiredness.

Woman behind me said, “That’s all very well, sir, but crashing the car would have done him no good!”

I turned. It was one of a pair of cops, a nice-looking girl even behind the mask. Fellow beside her was my size and build, dwarfing her.

“Sorry. I’m normally a careful driver, but…”

The bloke said, “We’ll let you off this time. Hope your friend makes it.”

“My partner actually. Legally married and all.”

The mask didn’t hide the unspoken disgust on the girl’s face, but then I am used to it. They walked out, but fella standing behind a sort of a lectern by the door said, “Sir, you need a mask, and please check in.”

So, I did go through the administrative bullshit after all. Then he directed me to a glass-fronted hole in the wall, where I needed to do the same for Jake. Then I asked if I could sit with him.

The middle-aged clerk picked up a phone, and after a while said, “He is already in ICU, and no visitors are allowed there. No point waiting, Mr Barrow, we’ll phone you with an update in the morning.”

I did drive a lot slower on the way home, and went to bed, but not to sleep.

Struggled up at 5 a.m., shower and a couple of cups of coffee, then I phoned the hospital. Push this button and that button, and “A moment, I’ll put you through,” then on hold forever, and at last an efficient Sergeant-Majoress voice, “Mr Jacob Crawford? Hmm. We intubated him on admission, and he is in a stable condition.”

“He’ll survive?”

She laughed, but without humour. “I’m not gifted with prophecy. He is doing as well as can be expected, but… but I get very impatient with all these unvaccinated people overloading our system. Today is my fourteenth day on duty, so, PLEASE DON’T CALL AGAIN!”

She disconnected.

Phew. She had my sympathy, but hell, I couldn’t very well ring back to apologise. Perhaps I should make a donation to Eastern Health.

I wished I could go to work to have something else to focus on, but of course was required to isolate, because of Jake’s “just a flu, mate.” Couldn’t even go to the gym.

So, I forced some breakfast down and did a massive workout, including 200 pushups, 20 one-handed chinups with the left hand 18, with the right, a half-hour on the treadmill at max slope. Another shower, and hardly a dent in the day.

Surely Madam Sergeant-Major was off duty by now? I risked another call. This time the eventual answer was from a male, not her, thank heavens. “I have good news. Only an hour ago, we extubated him. He is now conscious, and actually, just getting therapy on swallowing again.”

“THANK YOU! Uh… when may I visit?”

“Normally, he’d be in ICU for another two or three days, but given the flood of cases, he may be moved to a high-care ward this afternoon.”

I’ll definitely have to make a donation to Eastern Health.

Another phone call at 12:30. The first answerer told me, “No, Mr Crawford is still in ICU. Please check again tonight.”

Rats.

Another savage workout, then I cleaned the unit until it looked new, and at last it was getting dark. That’s ‘tonight,’ isn’t it?

Reaching a human was even slower, but then, jackpot, and “I’ll put you through to the ward.”

This one sounded like a little girl. “Mr Crawford is conscious, and can whisper at least. He’s been able to cope with some fluids. He has requested some things, so we were planning to contact you in the morning, and—”

“May I bring them in right now?”

She gave me a list. Typically, first item was his iPad. That’s what he writes his poems and reads books on. Maybe the silly bastard had a poem in his head about “only the flu, mate.”

So, into the car, and even driving legally, I eventually arrived. The little girl voice belonged to a middle-aged lady short enough to fit in your pocket, but a direct gaze saying, “I’m in charge here.” She showed me to the correct one-bed room and left.

Jake was asleep. A catheter bag hung off the bed, and two drips went into him, and wires and things all over the place presumably connected to the science-fiction display doing its thing above his head. I wondered how complex the ICU must be.

I settled in the bedside chair, too small to be comfortable of course, and did the only thing possible: nothing.

Eventually, a young fellow from someplace like India entered and did the obs. This woke Jake, whose eyes settled on me. “Tom,” he whispered, then a smile on his face, returned to sleep.

In a perfect Australian accent, the nurse said, “You might as well go home. He’ll be improving now.”

He was right, but I badly needed a coffee or three. I had to change my mask on exit from the ward, and a thorough scrub with that alcohol stuff, then found the cafeteria.

That old lady sitting by herself seemed somehow familiar. Got it! Put a mask on her face, and that’s the nurse with the stretcher in Emergency. I got myself two cups of coffee and a sticky bun and approached her. “Excuse me, may I sit here?”

She looked up. “We do have to keep distancing. There are plenty of empty tables.”

“Yes, but I want to thank you.”

“Oh very well, on the other side, and let’s avoid breathing on each other.” Then she smiled, and I remembered long-dead grandmother. As I settled on the chair (too small), she said, “Hey, you brought a COVID case in on your shoulders, with the police!”

“That’s right, Jake Crawford.” I ate half the bun in a couple of bites. No replacement for dinner, but the sugar hit did help.

“Your friend?”

“We’re married.”

Instead of the usual reaction, she lit up. “Isn’t it wonderful that it’s legal now? One of my granddaughters married another girl. But my shift is staring in a quarter of an hour, so I’ll have to go soon.”

I blurted out, “Aren’t you rather…”

She laughed. “Too old to work? The health system is flooded, and many nurses are sick themselves, or need to isolate, so I’ve come out of retirement for now. Look, you’ve got to die of something, sometime.”

“COVID seems rather a nasty way.”

“Getting born is nasty—all that pressure, head squeezed, it must feel terrible. But it’s only the transition. Same here. You have a body, a nasty transition, then you go on without a body. Anyway, nice to have met you, and good luck for your, um, huswife?” She stood to go.

Looking at her back as she walked out, I thought, Thank you for sharing the planet with me, Grandmother.