Apartment 15

My name is Josh Meacham and I am a rational man. I am a man of science, a child of reason and an acolyte of logic. I do not and will not believe in things for which is there is no empirical evidence. I am a proud and confident atheist. In my life, I have encountered many people who believe in what they term the supernatural or the paranormal and I have scoffed at them. "Nature cannot transcend itself", is what I tell them.

There is nothing in this universe that cannot be explained and understood by means of the scientific method and even though we understand only a tiny fraction of its glories, it is by the scientific method that we will eventually come to understand the rest. That is my view and it is the correct view.

After graduating with an honours degree in biochemistry, I entered into a post-graduate course to complete my PhD in Uses of Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy to Determine the Three-Dimensional Structure of Large Non-Polymeric Molecules. Not having been blessed with what is often euphemistically referred to as "private resources" (.i.e. rich parents), I needed a job to finance myself while I completed my thesis.

Through a friend of a friend of a friend, I found myself a pretty good one. About 4 miles away from my campus was a small sheltered housing estate; homes for old people who were still fit enough to live independently but which also offered common facilities such as meeting rooms, a dance hall and, best of all as far as I was concerned, a warden office.

The warden office operated 24/7 and they had a vacancy for someone who was willing to sit the night shift. I applied and got the job and, after a one-day training module, I was doing the job.

Although truth be told, there wasn't that much of a job to do really. It was the day and evening shifts which bore the brunt. The warden office acted as a kind of watchdog-cum-nanny service for the elderly residents all of whom had a dedicated phone in their homes with a big red button which would patch them right through to us. The help required was, for the most part, mundane; an electrician for a broken light switch, a plumber for a blocked toilet or a runner to fetch some groceries or prescription drugs. But by far our most important function, aside from ensuring that the security cameras were all operating properly, was emergency medical help.

The company had a contract with around-the-clock medical service who would dispatch paramedics if needed within 15 minutes of our call to them. For the residents, this was a major factor in their decision to live on the estate.

The night shift was the easiest gig as calls rarely came in after 10 pm. Most of the other staff found this boring and depressing but for me, it was a Godsend. It meant that I could spend all night studying for my thesis, largely uninterrupted. It was exactly what I would be spending my nights doing anyway but, now, I was getting paid for it. Sweet deal.

There were some calls to deal with, though. About a week after I started, I got a call in the wee small hours from an old guy who complained that his TV wasn't working. I managed to roust up a bleary-eyed, surly handyman who want to up the old guy's apartment to see if he could fix it. It turned out that the old feller had been trying to operate the TV with his telephone handset.

There were also a couple of medical emergency calls but neither of them turned out to be serious.

All was pretty smooth sailing until the early hours of 14th May. It was just after midnight and a call came in; a call I will never forget as long as I live, no matter how hard I try.

Whenever a resident called, their location and I would automatically pop up on the screen. This was in case they were unable to communicate clearly due to a stroke, a coronary or dementia. The phone rang and the ID duly popped up on my screen:

"APARTMENT 15. MRS. ROSE GRAHAM"

I answered.

"Hello, Mrs. Graham. Josh here. How are you tonight?"

"This is Mrs. Rose Graham from Apartment 15."

"I know that, Mrs. Graham. How are you doing?"

"My name is Rose Graham and I live in Apartment 15."

"Yes, Mrs. Graham. I know it's you. What can I do for you?"

"I don't feel very well."

"Oh, sorry to hear that. Can you tell me any more?"

"I just don't feel very well."

"Uh-huh. In what way? Are you experiencing any chest pains or shortness of breath?"

"I'm just feeling so unwell, that's all."

"Is there anyone else with you, Mrs. Graham?"

"No, I'm alone."

"Okay, you hold tight there, Mrs. Graham. I'm going to get the paramedics for you"

I switched the phone to the speaker so I could open the chatbox with Medicare Service and type with both hands. They always respond in seconds.

"Hi, Josh Meacham here. We need a medical team for Apartment 15, Mrs. Graham ASAP"

"Noted. Nature of complaint?"

"Don't know. She says she feels unwell but unable to give details"

"Symptoms?"

"Just unwell. That's all I can get from her."

"OK. Hold, please.........Paramedic team dispatched. ETA 15 mins."

"Thanks."

I turned back to the speaker.

"Mrs.Graham, are you there?

"Yes"

"The paramedics are on their way. They'll be with you in just 15 minutes."

"I don't feel at all well, you know."

"I hear you, Mrs. Graham, but help is on the way. Are you able to open your door for them?"

"The door is unlocked."

"Good, that's very good. Now is there any more that you can tell me about your symptoms?"

I knew by that stage that I was unlikely to get any more information out of her but we had been told in our training that when a resident called with a medical complaint it was important to keep them talking on the line until help arrived.

"I just feel very unwell."

"Okay, now have you eaten today, Mrs. Graham? Did you make yourself some dinner?"

"I have to go the bathroom now. I am going to put the phone down."

"No, no. Don't put the phone down. Go to the bathroom and take the phone with you so we can talk while you're there."

"I have to go the bathroom."

"That's fine, Mrs. Graham but please take the ph...."

She cut off. I called her back right away but there was no reply. It just rang and rang. I decided to wait a few minutes and try again but then stopped myself on the basis that, if she was perched on the toilet, I might make things worse by forcing her off of it. I had probably done as much as I could do in the circumstances except that I needed to update the medical service. I turned back to the chatbox which was still open.

"Josh again. Mrs. G says door is open and she may be in the bathroom"

"Noted. Will advise team."

I returned to my laptop to pick up my first draft where I had left off. A few more minutes elapsed before the chatbox "pinged" again:

"Paramedics now arrived. Will update."

"Thanks."

Job done. It probably wasn't anything serious but, whatever it was, she was their hands now and I could focus on my thesis again. I had somewhat lost my thread which I found deeply annoying before a twinge of guilt set in about the selfishness of that sentiment. I am not sure how many more minutes passed before the phone rang again and, again, the screen displayed the caller ID as:

"APARTMENT 15. MRS. ROSE GRAHAM"

I answered immediately.

"Mrs. Graham! How are you feeling now?"

"No, it's Amanda Ryan. I'm a paramedic with MCS. Is that Josh?"

"Yes, yes. I was the one who called you. You're with Mrs. Graham then?"

"We're in her flat, yes."

"She may be in the bathroom."

"Yes, that's where we found her; in the bathroom."

"Is she going to be okay?"

I detected a strain in the paramedic's voice.

"Josh, how did you know to call us?"

"What do you mean? The usual way; Mrs. Graham rang me on the hotline, the same one you're using now. She told me felt unwell so I called you guys in."

"And you say, Mrs. Graham called you?"

"Yes."

"Are you sure about that? Was there anyone with her? Could anyone else have called you on her behalf."

"No. I asked her if there was anyone else and she said no."

"When did she call you?"

"About...let's see...yes, 28 minutes ago."

"Are you sure?"

"Sure I'm sure. It's right here on the screen. Every resident call is automatically logged."

"Well, that's got me beat all ends up."

"Why? How is she? Is she okay?"

"No, Josh. She's dead."

"DEAD???!!! You've got to be kidding me! How can she keel over and die that quickly?"

"She didn't. She's been dead for at least 10 hours."

I shot to my feet as if I had just had an electric shock.

"No, no. That can't be right. You've made some sort of mistake."

"No mistake. Rigor Mortis has set in and there's maximum lividity. I'd say around 10 hours. My partner here thinks 12."

I tried to process this but it just floated there in front of me like a fog.

"I...I just don't understand" was all I could say.

"Me neither. We've covered the body. That's as much as we can do. You need to inform the family. We'll file our report."

I hung up without uttering another word. After pacing up and down in a bout of intense rumination, I tried to resume my work but it was futile. At one point, I almost managed to convince myself that I had had some sort of hallucination brought on by too much studying and sleep deprivation. Yes, that had to be the explanation! But, no, because there was her call logged and recorded on the system. There was no denying that.

The following day, I filed my report with my supervisor and the management company. I made it as prosaic as possible; just the bald facts. I never received a response or even an acknowledgment. Nobody wanted to discuss it, including me. Two weeks later, I quit and found myself a job stacking shelves in a supermarket.

I have never recounted this story to another living soul and I never will. It will forever remain lodged in my hindbrain where I no longer have to worry about it interfering with my conscious daily thoughts. Only, sometimes, it does anyway and I hastily re-bury it. That is how I live with it.

I am a rational man. I am a man of science. Nature cannot transcend itself. These are the mantras that I repeat to myself every single day.

[End]