Who Was She

She looked like she didn't know what to do, so I took control of the situation.

"Hello," I said with a faint smile on my face, even though it hurt me more than anything to smile. I was nauseated, my head was spinning, and the only thing I wanted to do was to close my eyes and curl up.

Yet, she continued to sob, so I glanced about. There were just the two of us in a small room without windows. I was laying down in what looked like a hospital bed while she, this mysterious lady in red, was sitting next to it.

The atmosphere reeked of disinfectant and urine.

It seemed odd. I didn't remember being unwell or being admitted to a hospital. Her presence next to me felt even odder.

The room looked to be a no-frills intensive care unit in a poorly maintained hospital. My bed in one corner of the room was covered with thick layer of dust. An IV drip was attached to my left arm, while a heart rate monitor was on the right. The broken pieces of what appeared to be medical equipment were scattered about as if by a child who grew bored and went to play with something else. The ventilation was insufficient, and the air-conditioning unit made a gagging sound like a person who was about to take his last breath.

The lady in red closed her eyes. The tears ran down her cheeks, leaving tiny lakes on my dusty pillowcase which for some reason did not absorb in.

She was clearly out of place here in her stunning red gown with a long, layered skirt. I've never seen anything more gorgeous in my life, maybe once in an Italian movie. The dress fabric. I traced it with my eyes. It had an incredible vitality about it; it looked vibrant, full of energy.

I tried to sit up in bed, but it hurt me even more than when I was smiling. It was like someone took a rusty knife and dragged it from my neck down across my chest until he hit the bed and then kept pushing until the point reached my stomach.

"What happened to me?" I asked, wondering at the same time who she was.

"Do you not know?" she asked. Nobody but my grandma has ever spoken to me with a voice like that, and she was definitely not her.

I shook my head, which felt like it was a cracked walnut and someone was trying to take its insides out with a spoon.

"You were poisoned... Some kind of neurotoxin," she whispered and tears started rolling down her cheeks again.

I closed my eyes, It was extremely hard to keep them open. It didn't make me feel any better, so I opened them back, trying to concentrate.

She had a brilliant crimson lip color on. She didn't appear to be someone I knew. All of my girlfriends weren't nearly as beautiful or passionate as she was.

"Who are you?" I finally asked, my voice sounding far too faint for a guy who wanted to make an impression.

"Your wife," she said with a hint of sorrow, "I was told that you could die soon."

I whistled. It was a wimpy whistle, but it still hurt my throat and made me cough violently until I tasted blood in the back of my mouth.

Wait a second? My wife? Was she implying that I was married? I was single. I knew that even if I were half-dead.

Anyway, married or single, there were other more pressing things on my mind now. Who poisoned me and why?

I looked up at the ceiling, trying to figure out what had occurred the day before. I was at my office when suddenly my partner Arturo came in and told me that we needed to make a very important decision. He said we had to choose between giving up something we had worked on for months now or only accepting the transaction only under one specific circumstance.

I told him that I really didn't like those decisions and that it felt like we were gambling with people's lives, but then he said that if we wanted the company to stay afloat we had to choose one of those two and that he already picked.

Then I recall us going down to the bar for a drink. Arturo had ordered a Martini, dry. I could still see him putting the olive into his mouth, smiling, not swallowing it.

I don't remember leaving the bar or anything else that happened after that.

Now, this hospital, and this woman in red who claims to be my wife. Okay, let her be my wife if she insists.

I didn't have the energy to argue, furthermore, I began to enjoy having someone mesmerizing like her care about me that much.

"Where's Arturo?" I asked, making a wager with myself that she knows everything.

"He was taken to jail," she reported without hesitation.

Bingo. Her presence and that red of her dress gave me just enough energy and willpower to hang on.

I surveyed the room looking for anything that could help me live. On the table next to my bed there was a small brown glass vial with something inside it. It was probably the antidote.

"Do you want anything?" she asked.

I moved my eyes to the glass vial on the table, then I closed them, suddenly wanting her to leave me alone. "No," I said, "Thank you, dear, I am going to take a nap."

She got up from her chair, turned around, looked at me for a few moments with that concerned expression on her face before going out of the room softly.

As soon as she left, I opened my eyes, focusing my thoughts on the glass vial. Then I looked at the door again; nobody was there.

Quick, I stretched out for the vial and grasped it firmly. With my hands quivering, I opened the bottle and poured the liquid down my throat. Warmth began to seep into my body, my eyelids fell.

"You're safe now." I heard her voice clearly.

I opened my eyes, but no one was there.

Never since I've seen her again.