The Peacock 79

 "You say he died from a heart attack?" Carl asks.  "What exactly happened?"

"I was at work when it happened."

"You worked in a hospice, I understand. "Still there?"

"I'm on a lengthy leave of absence.  Medical leave.  It was Dad's passing that really pushed me over the edge."

"What happened?"

"I was sitting with a new patient in his room.  He was in stage four colon cancer, and didn't look as if he would be lasting more than a couple of days, max. His name was Russell, eighty years old, and even if he was already a bit delirious, we seemed to have acquired an instant rapport, which happens quite a bit in my field."

"Tell me about the hospice."

"It´s really a beautiful place.  Kind of a rambling, vintage character house situated in a park near the Burrard Inlet in East Vancouver.  It was started by the social services agency that started out of St. James during the early sixties."

"How did you get into palliative care?"

"It kind of happened shortly after I lost Greta and Eric.  I was helping out in the palliative unit at Vancouver General, and they kept telling me that I seem to have a gift with the dying.  I don't know how to explain it, but if someone was in a lot of fear, discomfort or anxiety, I seemed able to somehow help them rally."

"I can sure see that in you.  How do you do it?"

 "I don't really do anything, if that makes any sense.  Nothing.  Or almost nothing.  I do give them medication for pain management, but otherwise, I just sit there with them, sometimes, if they seem to be reaching out, I will hold their hand, but not always.   But what often happens is I go into a kind of a trance state.  And that's when I see the entities."

"Entities?"

"Spirits, if you will.  Ugly, evil spirits, like the Orcs from Lord of the Rings.  Often, but not always. Sometimes they are the spirits of other people.  Sometimes, there is a shining being and that's when peace falls upon us and the patient becomes relaxed and reassured..."