Hospitallers

Dundun-dundun-dundun-dundun-dundun-dundun-dundun-dundun.

Jason Bourne's theme was the only sound in the hospital room. Elder Masi had unfolded the room's convertible chair into some sort of cot that was too long to be a chair and too short to be a couch, but he nevertheless managed to fall asleep. Elder Hoskins was on the other side of my hospital bed, taking in all the TV he could during this rare opportunity for questionably legal entertainment. I, of course, reclined on the bed, unencumbered by tubes except for the monitor clasped around my pointer finger. Other than the sterile walls and my hospital gown — which I would have probably never gotten away with had I decided to use it, say, tracting — it was a Friday night back home.

TV was a brief luxury while we were in the hospital, but were were determined to enjoy it while we could. We had determined that such entertainment was allowed if we were imprisoned for three days in a hospital room, but we weren't quite ready to run that theory past President Koyle. I just couldn't imagine what Jonah had done to keep himself occupied for three days while inside that whale.

"So ..." asked Elder Hoskins after Jason Bourne finally strangled the CIA assassin after a fifteen-minute chase across the rooftops of Tangiers. "They find what's wrong with you yet?"

"Nope," I said.

"Didn't you get the spinal tap results back?"

"Yup."

"And ...?"

I shook my head. "Dude, I don't know. They didn't tell me anything."

"And what do you think it is?"

This was the first I'd had this conversation aloud. "I don't know," I admitted, taking my gaze from Jason Bourne's latest victory to the ceiling. "Maybe ... stress. When I was sixteen, I had meningitis, followed by something called cerebellitis, which is where your cerebellum gets inflamed. I couldn't talk or walk right for a month. Some of the other symptoms were the same as they now."

"You think it's this ... cerebellitis?"

"I hope not," I said. "I told the doctors about it, and that's why they did the spinal tap. But they didn't find anything."

And they never will, Elder Hoskins' eyes said.