The beep-beep-beep was a reassuring sound that brought him back like the sing-along bouncing ball; if he were safe at home the sound might be the soft cricket in the clothes dryer downstairs signaling that the load was through. If only life had not speeded up. .

But it had, and now they’d put the pain on mute, along with everything else-the up, the down, the light-and they’d set him adrift in the dark with nothing but the beep. So he tried to scan along but the rhythm kept slipping away. Which figured, because he’d been thrown out of high school band-alto sax-on account of he couldn’t keep the beat.

Then he coughed and sparks lit up a corner of his mind, enough to get him oriented and he knew that he was waking up, and he understood that the dogged beep was the pulse of his heart hooked to a machine.

Which meant he was still here.

He was alive and laid out flat on his back with his eyes shut tight and he didn’t have the strength to open them, so he’d just lay back for now, all alone in the dark, waiting for the lights to come up.

Surfacing, he flashed on chemical nondreams and artificial sleep. His lips were gummed together, and when he parted them a parched numbness puffed his mouth and his throat and it felt like he’d been French-kissed by the creature in Sigourney Weaver’s Alien. Then a sharp electric pincer prodded his right wrist four times-jit-jit-jit-jit-and made his fingers jump.

Now he was being moved because he felt the stale hospital air slide over his face, and he heard splashes of sound like underwater voices that became clearer until distinct words spilled down and trickled on his face.

“Train of four,” the first female voice said.

“Doesn’t that hurt now that he’s coming around?” a second female voice asked.