Central Hospital (Caracas, Venezuela)

I woke up when a ray of light abruptly broke through the cold room when someone opened the window curtains.

"Good morning, Aníbal. That's your name, right?"

A very attractive, blond doctor with a beautiful smile and holding a metal folder asked me. "Aníbal, right?" she prompted.

"Yes, I'm Aníbal," I mumbled. Everything came back to me in a rush and I realized where I was. "How is my dad? And how is my brother?" I asked, worried.

"Your father is fine; he is now in the Admission Office dealing with all the paperwork—"

"And what about my brother? How is he?"

The doctor's expression changed. "He's under observation. He is stable," she said kindly, closing her metal folder.

"Stable?"

Her pager went off. "I'm so sorry, I have to go."

"But, but—" I tried to get up but I couldn't because I had my right arm enveloped in a cast from fingers to shoulder and suspended by a pulley.

As the doctor left the room, my best friends came in. Fat Jorge was eating, as usual. This time, he was holding a bag of microwave popcorn and he had a chocolate stain on his shirt on his immense belly. Ronald and Javier followed him in. Everyone was sporting a strange look, a cross between joy and sadness. I was happy to see them, but my heart jumped with excitement when I saw her: Suhail. She walked in accompanied by Sofia, a friend from school. Everything looked brighter when I saw her beautiful smile.

"Aníbal, h-h-how d-d-do you feel?" she asked me, handing me a postcard with 'Get well soon' written on top of a drawing of a teddy bear being hold by other bears, with the peculiarity that the teddy bear also had a cast on his arm.

"Thank you."

Javier plopped down next to me, making the bed jump a little, which shot an uncomfortable jolt of pain through my arm.

"Double idiot, what do you know about Azael? How is he doing?"

"I don't know, dude, the doctor told me that he was under observation."

Suhail, who noticed my grimaced of pain, grabbed Javier by the arm and hauled him off the bed, scolding him for his carelessness. Javier went over to the couch and sat down next to Fat Jorge, who was opening a can of Diet Coke.

"That means he's fine, right?" he said, spitting popcorns.

The door opened again and my dad walked in, heading straight to my bed. Ignoring my friends, my dad bent over me and hugged me, holding me tight. His face was gaunt as if he had not slept for days, and his chest was all bandaged.

"Dad, is everything okay?"

"Son, how do you feel?" he asked me with a worried tone of voice.

"I'm better, viejo. How's my brother?" I asked him, scrunching up my face a little because of the pain in my arm.

My father looked at my friends, who were waiting to hear the news. When they noticed his teary eyes, they quietly left the room. Dad walked to the windows and opened one of them to refresh the air inside because of the smell of the popcorn that Jorge brought.

"He's not well, Aníbal... Your brother is not well..." he said, looking up at the clouds with sadness.

"Why, dad? What did the doctors say?"

"Azael is in a coma! But we must have faith. Your brother will be fine."

In that moment, my grandmother entered carrying a basket full of pieces of cake. If it had not been for the bad news, I would have been happy.

She approached us and I held her with my good arm as if she were a lifesaver in a wild storm.

"Azael is in a coma, grandma."

"I know, mijo, I know," she said softly, her chin quivering.

"Is it going to be like what happened to Mom?"

"No, it won't!" broke in my dad. "Your brother will get better! Do you hear me? I won't lose anyone else in my family!" My dad left in a hurry, bumping into the furniture. He tore past a police officer just as the man was coming in.

"Aníbal Espinoza?" he asked, pulling out a notepad from his pocket and glancing at my cast.

"Yes" I answered. I tried to sit up on the bed, trying to get more comfortable and look confident. The unease I was feeling must have shown on my face, however, because my grandma was making soothing gestures at me, trying to comfort me.

"What do you remember about the accident?"

"We were going at full speed when we hit something and started to roll around," I explained as the officer accepted a piece of cake that my grandma kindly offered him.

"Were you able to see what the ambulance crashed against?"

"No, unfortunately I couldn't, sir."

"There are no traces that indicate that the ambulance hit something" he said while he took a napkin that my grandmother gave him to wipe his wide mustache.

"Then, how did they crash, officer?" my grandmother asked with a worried voice.

"I'm sorry, I cannot anticipate anything. Everything is part of the investigation." He closed his little notepad and started to leave, but I stopped him.

"How are the paramedics and the ambulance driver?"

"Sadly, they are dead. Actually, you were lucky, because the man who rescued you managed to do it before the explosion."

"Explosion?"

"Yeah. The paramedics died incinerated because of it."

I was speechless. The officer left the room and immediately a nurse came in to check my heart rate and my IV line. Keeping busy, my grandmother tuned a showbiz program on the television in front of my bed, trying to hide and distract us from the anguish that this brief interrogation left behind. From the window I could see the grass of the park that was next to the Central Hospital. Right beneath a big, lush tree sat the Dalmatian from my house and the park looking at me as if it was greeting an old friend. Shit, I thought, that dog again? No way!

The nurse checked my pulse, looked at my eyes and tongue and then left without saying a word.

Suddenly, the man I saw in the hallway talking to the police officer came in. He was holding a really odd staff and was wearing a long, pointy hat that made him look ridiculous. My grandmother stood up from the couch surprised.

"Dr. Salazar, take a sit, please. Would you like a piece of cake?"

This peculiar man sat next to my grandmother without taking his tiny blue eyes off me.

"Aníbal, I would like to introduce you to Dr. Salazar. He was the man who found you on the road and brought you to the hospital. He saved you mijo."

Dr. Salazar left his wooden staff leaning against the wall and I noticed that the tip was carved into a hand holding what looked like a crystal ball.

"Would you like a cup of coffee, doctor?" asked my grandma.

"If you don't mind..."

"Oh, I don't mind, not at all!" exclaimed my grandma, clearly happy to have something to do. She turned to me, "Do you want anything?" "Where are you going?" I asked her, alarmed.

"I'm going to the cafeteria to get some coffee." I was surprised by the tenderness my grandmother was showing to a virtual stranger. "Do you want me to bring you something, mijo?"

"No, grandma, thank you" She nodded, fixed her hair and elegantly swept out of the room.

I turned my attention to the man sitting on the couch and tried to keep a neutral expression on my face, even the bizarre image I had in front of me: A grown, old man dressed like a magician, sitting on a couch eating a piece of cake and an even weirder Dalmatian that was looking at us through the window of my room like he couldn't wait to be part of our conversation.