Doctor Gibson

The machines hum like tired insects, their rhythmic beeps syncing with the slow drip of the IV into your veins. The fluorescent lights above buzz softly, casting the room in a sickly halo of white that does nothing to chase away the shadows pooling in the corners. Outside, the apple tree in the courtyard rustles, its branches scratching at the window like bony fingers begging to be let in.

You remember when you were nine years old, pressing your forehead to this same glass, watching the neighbor kids toss a ball in the park across the street. Their laughter filtered up through the stale hospital air, bright and careless, while your lungs rattled with every breath you took.

"Why me?" You’d sobbed into your pillow. Now, at twenty-six, you don’t ask anymore.

Every cough is a grain of sand slipping through the hourglass. Every flare of pain is a wind-up key twisting tighter. Every morning you wake up is a gift, and a curse.

Because you know what’s coming. Because you’ve known since you were six. Because the scars on your chest from surgeries feel like tally marks, counting down to the day when none of it will matter anymore.

You used to rage against it, screaming into your tear-soaked pillows, slamming your fists into hospital trays, cursing the God who gave you just enough time to love life but never enough to live it. Now, you just grab what you can while you can.

One more book before the words blur. One more game before the controller slips from your fingers. One more breath before the darkness creeps in.

A hand squeezes yours, warm and unexpected.

You blink, the hazy morphine fog lifting just enough to see him, Dr. Gibson, the mad scientist who’s been stitching you back together since you were too small to even pronounce “terminal.”

His white hair (with that ridiculous orange streak, “It’s not pumpkin guts, it’s scientific flair!”) is a bird’s nest of exhaustion, his dark blue eyes rimmed red like he’s been rubbing them with sandpaper. But he’s smiling. Always smiling.

"Don’t give me that look," he whines, kicking your bedframe like it owes him money. "You finished your water, and now you’re just staring into the void like it’s got answers. Spoiler: It doesn’t! I checked! Twice! Once while high on laughing gas and once while crying in the supply closet, neither time was productive!"

You try to speak, but your throat feels like it’s been lined with crushed glass, so you point weakly at the cup.

"AH! Verbal communication! We’re making PROGRESS!" He fills the cup with a flourish, nearly spilling it everywhere as he jabs the straw toward your face like a sword. "Drink up, kid. Hydration is key to world domination. Or, y’know, not dying. Which is basically the same thing if you think about it, which I have! Extensively! Mostly at 3 AM while eating expired pudding!"

You sip, the water feeling like heaven against your parched tongue.

"Gibby," you croak.

"Doctor Gibby, thank you very much," he sniffs, adjusting his ratty white coat, the same one he’s worn every day for decades, even after you threw up neon-green Jell-O on it that one time. "And no, before you ask, I still haven’t washed it. Do you know how hard it is to get blood out of polyester? Answer: Impossible! Believe me, I’ve tried! Science failed me that day!"

"What... what happened?" You gesture weakly at the tubes, the monitors, the dull, gnawing ache in your chest that has nothing to do with your heart.

His smile flickers, just for a second, before he launches into action, flipping through your chart like it’s a script he’s trying to rewrite.

"You collapsed," he says, too casually, too fast. "Little lung malfunction. Little heart rebellion. Just a minor mutiny, nothing we can’t handle! I’ve seen worse! Like that time I accidentally glued my hand to a cat! Or, or when Nurse Monica sat on my experimental ray gun and now her left butt cheek glows in the dark, POINT IS, you’re FINE!"

But you see it, the way his fingers tremble around the chart, the way his laugh cracks at the edges, the way his eyes dart to the monitors like they’re counting down. He knows. And he knows you know.

You turn your head, looking out the window. It's after midnight and the kids in the park are gone now. The apple tree sways, its branches bare except for one last stubborn fruit clinging to the highest branch, defiant, ridiculous, refusing to fall.

"Gibby?"

"Mhm?"

"Tell me one of your stupid stories."

His grin is instantaneous, wild, too bright for the dim hospital room. He snaps his fingers, jumping up like he’s been waiting for this moment his whole life.

"FINALLY! An appreciative audience! OKAY. SO. Experiment #47, also known as ‘The Time I Almost Got Arrested for Turning the Hospital Laundry Into a Flamethrowe- No. No no no no.. That's Experiment #37, I'm sorry! This one is the Laser Shark Story!! A personal failure of mine!"

And just like when you were a kid, his voice drowns out the beeping, the pain, the clock in your head. For a little while, at least. For as long as it lasts.

---

"OKAY. SO. It was a Tuesday, no, wait, a Thursday, no, definitely a Tuesday because Martha from the lab always brought donuts on Tuesdays and I distinctly remember eating three maple-glazed while calibrating the frickin’ laser array, ANYWAY, "

"The goal was simple: What if sharks, but with LASERS? Not metaphorical lasers, like ‘ohhhh sharks are so cool’, NO. ACTUAL. BEAM-SHOOTING. FLESH-MELTING. LASERS." (jazz hands)

"So I stole, uh, borrowed, this teeny-tiny blue shark from the aquarium’s ‘endangered species’ tank (his name was Bartholomew, he bit me twice, 10/10 would kidnap again) and strapped this itty-bitty diode array to his frickin’ dorsal fin, "

", WHICH sounds easy, but let me tell you, trying to superglue micro-circuitry to a angry wild shark the size of a baguette is not how I planned to spend my lunch break, "

"ANYWAY. Somehow it worked. Bartholomew could literally shoot lasers out of his face. PEW PEW. Like a sea-villain. I was a GENIUS,"

"UNTIL he escaped into the hospital’s water filtration system and started zapping all the toilets."

"Picture this: Nurse Jenkins just trying to pee in peace when BAM, her toilet water is now glowing neon green and singing her butt! CHAOS. PANDEMONIUM.

He laughs hard like it was the best story he's ever recalled, leaning against the railing of your hospital bed, waiting for his favorite captive audience member's response.

"Isn't that great?!"