The Seven Gifts Read Online Free PDF Page B

scientific sidestep provides us with our
story.
     
    We begin on a Monday morning, a no more
inspiring time for the denizens of this land than for those of any
other. Even for Cartesian Reductionists the weekend is the weekend
and, weekends being what they usually are, Mondays for them are
much as Mondays are for anyone, whichever particular Universe they
may inhabit. So Sonia, the nurse who tended Nellie Matilda in the
daytime, was not at her best.
    "Come on, Nellie!" she grumbled. "You've got
to take these pills."
    "I don't want any pills," said Nellie
wearily. "Just leave me in peace please."
    "But you must take them," said Sonia.
"You'll die if you don't."
    "I'm quite happy and ready to die," Nellie
said calmly. "I've lived my life and it is over. There is nothing
left for me here, and it is time now for me to move on."
    "Move on?" queried Sonia. "What are you
blethering about? I said you'll die if you don't take the pills; I
did not say you would move on. What is wrong with this place
anyway? You won't find a better hospital in the land. Now be a good
lady and take your pills."
    Nellie sighed. "You don't know what I'm
talking about, do you?" she said, knowing well what the answer
would be.
    "No I don't!" snapped Sonia, "and if you
don't take your pills I'll call the doctor and he'll make you, like
he did last week. You should know better at your age, causing all
this trouble to those who are trying to help you." And she scowled,
with the smug disapproving look of one who knows best.
    Nellie resigned herself to her pills and
said no more. The prospect of being force-injected by that arrogant
and ignorant old doctor was too much on a Monday morning. But when
Sonia had gone she lay back quietly on her bed with her arms down
along her sides and closed her eyes. After a moment or two's
concentration she climbed thankfully out of her painful old body
and set off to find her husband.
     
    “Oh, Nellie," William Johnson groaned, when
he saw his wife approaching with that damnable silver cord still
attached to her body, “haven't you got away yet?"
    “No dear," she replied. “Those maniacs are
determined to keep me alive, come what may. You would think they
would have something better to do with their time. I can't stop
long; it is the middle of the morning back there and the doctor
will be doing his rounds shortly. If he turns up and thinks I'm
dead, heaven only knows what he will do to me. You know what those
types are like if you don't do what they know is good for you. I
thought I would just pop over and see how you are; I'm finding it
difficult to get out at night now with all these drugs inside
me."
    “I'm fine," said her husband. “I've got
plenty to do, but all the same I am looking forward to you joining
me."
    “So am I," said Nellie with real feeling,
just before the approach of the doctor caused her to disappear,
back to whence she came.
     
    Nellie Matilda woke up as the doctor came
into her room. She felt that almost irresistible desire to fall
back into her dreams that she knew from past experience signified a
visit to the new world that she longed so much now to be a part of.
Not yet though, it would seem.
    “Good Morning, Nellie," the doctor greeted
her with a smile. “How are we feeling today?"
    “I'm fine thank you Doctor," replied Nellie,
“apart from the usual. But there is no point in grumbling to you
about that, is there?"
    The doctor sighed. He had heard this every
morning for the past four months and was beginning to find it
rather irritating. Why was it some people could never appreciate
what was done for them?
    “Nellie," he said in that exasperated tone
normally reserved for recalcitrant children, “how can I convince
you that we are doing our best for you? Life is precious, Nellie,
and we are on oath to preserve it wherever and whenever we possibly
can. Besides, I could be sued if I did what you want and the
Society for the Rights of the Citizen got to hear of it. Good
Heavens woman, you