Chapter One, Episode 143 - In Passing - Situationally Theirs

Review, Revision, Edit and Update

When introducing a new character, it is strongly suggested that there must be some connection to past events. In this episode, we don't really know where all the connections are, creating questions to be answered and a mystery to be solved. Future episodes will tell the readers if the writer stepped up to that challenge. 

For this revision, the biggest issues were pronouns. Names repeated too often, sentences restructured so that not every sentence begins with a pronoun. Word crafting about these details has created, I hope for my readers, a more interesting read.

In Passing

The phone wouldn’t stop ringing. Her arm stretched from under the covers, hand pawing her nightstand feeling for her cell phone. The green digital display on her radio said 3:30 am. Groaning, Emmie closed her eyes. Finally finding her phone, she pulled it into the covers and squinted at the call display. Jeremy Crawford. She was suddenly wide awake. Jeremy? Why is he calling at this hour?……… “Jeremy? What’s wrong? What is it?” From the depths of the phone, she heard Jeremy saying something. “What?” Emmie sat up. “I don’t understand what you’re saying. Please, Jeremy. Tell me again. She asked for me?” 

Jeremy hesitated. “Emelina, just come to the hospital. I know it’s late and I woke you, but this young woman may not have that much longer. She doesn’t have anyone else.” Emmie was up at her dressing table. “Jeremy, I have to wake Dez. She’s staying overnight. Can I bring her with me?” Emmie’s mind had gone immediately back to another middle of the night call when she was reunited with Dez. When she realized it was Jeremy, her mind cleared. Quickly, she decided to get to the hospital. The name that Jeremy told her was unfamiliar, but thought it was probably one of the poor homeless people from the shelter where she had volunteered. Always too many young women, aged beyond their years. Too often they didn’t have anyone. “Yes, Em - but just Dez. We can only allow two visitors in at any one time. I’ll meet you at the front doors of the hospital.” Jeremy was relieved. 

It was only by accident that Dr. Crawford was on duty. He and one of the younger doctors had traded shifts. Something about a hot date that the young man couldn’t cancel? He gave Jeremy a quick report on the patients on their assigned Covid ward. Many of the them were almost ready for discharge. Some were still unwell, but were recovering. One woman, admitted from Emergency that evening, was to be admitted to the Intensive Care Unit as soon as a bed was available. For now, she was on a portable respirator - not the most effective - but the best the medical staff could do. There had been a spike in Covid19 cases, making the workload heavy and the exhaustion of the staff great. Before the young woman was sedated and on the respirator she pulled out a scratched and torn photograph. On the back, in faded ink was the name Emelina Eliot. She became more agitated when the nursing staff tried to take it from her. They finally pinned it to her pillow. She settled and slept fitfully, struggling to breathe. When Jeremy heard the name, he hadn’t known what to do or if he should do anything. Finally, all he could do was call Emelina.

~~~~~

“Dez.” Emelina knocked lightly on her sister’s door, hoping to wake her gently, “Dez. I’m coming in. Wake up.”  Rolling over, she turned away from her sister's intrusion. Reaching the bedside, Emmie turned on the brass and silk shaded lamp. Dez pulled her duvet over her eyes. “What time is it, Em? Why do I have to wake up? Did you have a bad dream?” Dez turned back, rubbing her eyes. “Why are you all dressed? It’s…….” She squinted at her watch…….. “ almost four o’clock in the morning.” Dez sat up on her elbows. Not quite wide awake, she was curious and not in a good mood. “Dez, I’ll tell you while you get dressed.” Emmie took her sister’s arm and pulled her up. She got her clothes from the chair where they had been tossed and started to help her sister get out of her pyjamas. “Emmie! What are you doing? I can do it myself. Just tell me what’s going on.” Relieved that Dez was finally up, Emmie sat down in the overstuffed chair by the window. “Ok, I’ll try to make sense of it. I just got a call from Jeremy at the hospital. There’s a young woman there who wants to see me. She probably is positive for the virus - well they don’t have the tests back yet but she's so sick she may not have long left. She’s been very agitated and has asked for me by name. I don’t recognize the name she gave. She’s probably from the shelter.” By this time, Dez was almost dressed, but stopped with Emmie’s last words about the shelter. “Emmie you woke me up out of a sound sleep to ask me to visit someone you don’t even know, that may be from the shelter who is infected with the virus and it’s 4a.m? I’m going back to bed - in my clothes.” And she headed back to bed. “No, Dez. Please. I don’t know why but I have to see this young woman. Jeremy says she looks like she’s been on the street for a long time and doesn’t have anyone.” The sincerity of Emmie’s pleading was enough for Dez to acquiesce. “We have to take time to make coffee and grab something to eat.” Dez tied her trainers and was out the door before Emmie could say anything more. She hastily followed her sister downstairs. Sandwiches, prepared for lunch the next day, were a very strange breakfast at a very strange hour. Coffee in travel mugs for each of them, they set out for Hartley General Hospital. In the stillness of their drive into town, Emmie and Dez had the same thought There must be something more to this for Jeremy to call at this hour.

“Every solution to every problem is simple. 

It’s the distance between the two where the mystery lies.”

~ Derek Landy, Skulduggery Pleasant