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Written Reality: Fiction

Keeping Vasili Alive

by Andi Newton

Petrov Valasky stared at the body, wondering exactly how long Vasili Brest had been dead. He’d been alive when Petrov came on for his shift at six o’clock. Petrov was pretty sure he’d heard Mr. Brest wheeze a little when he’d entered the room, and, besides, Karinsky would have said something if Mr. Brest had died.

Wouldn’t he?

Pulling a tongue depressor out of his pocket, Petrov nudged Mr. Brest’s hand a little, half expecting and more than hoping the old man would yank the wooden slat out of his hand and rap him across the knuckles with it.

In a rather disappointing display, the late Mr. Brest’s hand fell limply to his side, bounced twice on the extra firm mattress, and flopped over the side of the bed, taking a corner of the sheet with it. Sticking the tongue depressor back in his pocket, Petrov picked up a copy of Pravda from the bedside table – a full cover shot of Mr. Brest emblazoned with the title, “Keeping Vasili Alive” – and used it to shovel the dead man’s arm back onto the bed.

Petrov tossed the magazine away from him, wiping his fingers frantically on his white coat. Not that this was the first dead body he’d ever dealt with, or even the first to become dead on his shift. Not that a lot of people had died on him, either, mind you. But it was the first time that Vasili Brest – the Vasili Brest – had done so, and, to be perfectly honest, Petrov really was not prepared for it. Oh, sure, all the interns on the fifth floor knew somebody was going to draw the short straw on this detail, but it wasn’t the sort of thing that perked up your resume.

Not to mention breaking the news to Miss Anya.

Glancing through the small window centered in the door, Petrov saw the newly made Widow Brest sitting in a chair across the hall. Considering her own poor health, that was as close as the doctors would let her get, but Miss Anya still showed up at five to eight every morning and stayed until the night shift ushered her out – very politely, mind you – at quarter after eleven. Sometimes Petrov opened the door to Mr. Brest’s room so Anya could see him better, and maybe even talk to him if the other patients were at therapy or deeply sedated.

Petrov decided this probably wasn’t the best time for that.

“Not that you don’t look good for a dead guy,” Petrov mumbled, immediately wincing at how disrespectful that sounded. He tucked the sheet in under Mr. Brest’s side, and then patted his pale, cold hand gently.

“How’s he doing?”

Petrov jumped, bumping the bed hard enough to knock Mr. Brest’s arm off the bed again. Placing it firmly back by Mr. Brest’s side, Petrov turned around to find Martin Corvina flipping through Mr. Brest’s chart.

“Any change?” Corvina asked, clipping a ball point pen from his breast pocket.

“Uhm, not really,” Petrov squeaked, inching around the bed to block Corvina’s view. To his dismay, Corvina angled around him and started to walk to the other side of the bed.

“I just took his vitals.” Petrov rushed to intercept Corvina. “BP’s one-seventy over fifty, pulse is sixty-three.”

Corvina flicked an annoyed glare at Petrov. “Not that I don’t trust the abilities of a first year intern,” he grated sarcastically, reaching for Mr. Brest’s wrist.

Desperate, Petrov grabbed the doctor’s hand, pulling him away from Vasili Brest’s bedside. “Please,” Petrov begged. “He just got to sleep, and he’s had so much trouble resting lately.”

Corvina snatched his hand out of Petrov’s grasp. “If he hasn’t woken up yet with you banging into his bed like that, I don’t think me taking his pulse is going to bother him,” Corvina snapped.

Petrov glanced down at Vasili Brest’s corpse, bumping the bed experimentally with his hip. His left arm flopping loosely at the side of the bed, Mr. Brest’s body jounced like a grouchy old man tossing grumpily in his sleep.

Out of the corner of his eye, Petrov could see Anya Brest standing in the hallway by her chair, craning her neck to get a better view of the room. With a sad wave to the old woman, Petrov stepped away from the dead man’s bed. “You’re the doctor,” he muttered, avoiding Corvina’s eyes.

“Yes,” Corvina sneered as he reached once more for Brest’s wrist, “I am.” The doctor’s finger’s hovered barely an inch above the dead man’s mottled skin when he hesitated, staring at the heart monitor as if seeing it for the first time.

As Petrov stared at the dull black screen of the monitor, he could almost picture a flat, white line pulsing across it. “It was off when I came on shift,” he answered, glad that for once he could tell the truth.

Corvina pulled his hand away from Vasili Brest’s wrist. “That’s not hospital policy,” he stated. “He should be on a monitor. If something should happen…”

Petrov said nothing, just stood at the foot of the bed, waiting. Corvina stared, his face going slowly grey and sick, at the man lying in the bed. After a moment, he fumbled with the medical chart, flipping it closed and hanging it, gingerly, on the rail at the foot of the bed.

“I think you’re right, Valasky,” the doctor murmured, backing toward the door. “Perhaps it is best if we let Mr. Brest sleep for a while.”

Petrov nodded morosely. “If you say so, Doctor.”

“You’ll notify me if there’s any change?” Corvina instructed as he pulled the door open.

“Of course,” Petrov agreed quietly, watching Vasili Brest’s arm swing limply by the side of the bed. As the door clicked shut, he found himself wondering, again, exactly how long ago Mr. Vasili Brest had died.

THE END