Enough Oxys and Dave would escape forever. The pain, the nausea, and the bare hospital room would all be left behind. A mouthful of pills would silence the old clock above his door, that constant reminder, ticking away the time he had left before the cancer took him.
Gritting his teeth against the fire in his back, he reached into his bedside drawer and took out the pill bottle he had snuck into the hospital. It had been a back-up plan in case it all became too much. He read the label one last time. Dave McNulty. OxyContin. Take one tablet morning and night. Do not exceed the dosage. He rattled the plastic bottle. Enough to send him off before the nurse arrived for the morning visit. 
There was an excited knock on his door, followed by a young nurse barging into his dimly lit room, singing out, “Good morning!” Flashing her teeth beneath a scarlet smile, she approached. “Good morning”—she picked up his chart from the end of the bed—“David!”
He clenched the pill bottle, hiding it. “It’s Dave,” he snapped, rolling over on the bed toward the window. Only his father had ever called him David, and it usually preceded a slap across the face. 
“Hmm.” She walked over to his side of the bed and threw open the curtains, bathing her youthful figure in sunlight. Dave realized he hadn’t seen this nurse yet. She wouldn’t be any older than his own son, an annoying girl about twenty-four years old, probably straight out of nursing school and full of blind optimism. Someone forced to deal with “Difficult Dave.”
She twirled her blonde braid in her hand and widened her blue eyes, bringing him back from his thoughts. “And how are you today, Dave, who is not David? Ready to fight the nasty?”
“What?” he asked, frowning.
She leaned in. “The nasty ‘C’ word.”
“What’s wrong with you?” He screwed his face at her. 
Holding her smile, she whispered, “Cancer,” and then covered her mouth. 
It wasn’t enough that he had to waste away in a hospital room devoid of flowers or cards from loved ones, but the only visitors he got were nurses, coming in with their false compassion and idiotic ideas on how to help the helpless. “Who are you?” he asked.
“Ahah! Glad you finally asked.” She struck her fists to her hips, saying, “I’m Nurse Nancy, here to fight the nasty!”
He glared at her, then growled, “I think you missed the children’s ward.”
“Hmm,” she said, smirking and looking up thoughtfully, “I don’t think that’s possible here.”
“Look, damn it!” He grimaced as his back flared with pain. “Check my catheters, order me to stay in bed, and get the hell outta here.”
She watched him a moment, biting her lip in hesitation, and then sat beside him on the bed, her peach-scented perfume embracing him. “Cancer causes the body to suffer. Causes a lot of pain.” She stroked the side of his bald head, sending a shiver through his body. “In the short time I’ve been nursing I’ve seen too much physical suffering.” She took a deep breath, laying a hand on his shoulder. “But you…you’re going through something else.”
He closed his eyes and sunk into his darkness. Dave had asked for more pain relief, but they just thought he wanted to overdose. One stray comment about not having anything to live for had ended any self-administered medication and put him on the drip. He squeezed the pill bottle beneath his blanket and gritted his teeth against the back pain. It wouldn’t take much. Drifting off on a permanent cloud of pain-killing medication would carry him away from his deteriorating body. “I’ll take more pain relief,” he said, opening his eyes to her. 
“No,” she said, squeezing his shoulder. “You’re hurting inside.” She looked around his vacant room. “Where’s your fam’?”
“Huh?”
“Family, silly.” She grinned.
He had barely given a thought to his son his whole life, yet being away from work as a mining engineer and all the luxuries his money could buy, crippled on his death bed, Josh was all he could think about. “I was never one for families.” He half-smiled, then quickly said, “I just focused on working hard so I could provide for them.” He softened his voice and said to himself, “But that wasn’t enough for her.”
“Kids?”
He exhaled like it was his last breath. “I have a son…about your age. He turned twenty-five last week…I think.”
“Hmm.” She turned away, watching him out of the corner of her eye. “Is he single?”
Lowering his voice, he said, “I don’t really know him.”
“You know what?” she asked. “I shouldn’t be making it worse for you. I’m sorry. I have to stop getting involved.” She tapped the bed and stood. “I better make my rounds.”
He half-raised his hand, wanting to call out to her to stop, to come back and sit with him, to find the pills and take away his options. But then his father’s voice rang in his head, Still need Mommy to help you, to hold your hand? He frowned and lowered his hand.
She turned back and said, “There’s still time.” She winked and left.
Still time? he thought. I haven’t seen Josh in twenty-four years. This cancer could kill me in twenty-four days.
The second hand ticked around the face of the wall clock, echoing in the emptiness.
He took his smartphone from the bedside table, searched through Facebook, and located Josh’s account. A few years had passed since his last curious interest, but the profile picture was Josh—a version of Dave a quarter-century younger. His tall height and raven hair had always stood out in a crowd. Except Josh now had a son, a boy about two years old. Comments in the photo named him Noah. Dave brought the phone closer, studying the child. Standing on a beach at sunset, Josh threw Noah in the air, Noah laughing, Josh smiling back at him. He swiped through other photographs—a first birthday party, Noah’s birth, Josh’s wedding. The phone began to shake in his hand, Dave’s knuckles going white.
I can’t turn back time, he thought. 
He threw the phone across the room at the clock, striking it and stopping the hands, stopping the infernal ticking. Bursting out with laughter, he rocked his head back, yelling out, “Yes!” He still had it—he had been a champion pitcher as a kid, and decades later, all those extra hours he had practiced alone in a vain attempt to impress his father were still not lost on him. 
The ticking started again.
The hands were turning—this time counterclockwise. Raising his eyebrows, Dave stared in disbelief.
He took a deep breath and unscrewed the pill bottle.
A baseball flew through the doorway and struck the wall beside him, followed by a boy chasing it. Spotting Dave, the boy halted in his Spiderman pajamas like he had been caught in a web.
“Get the hell outta here!” Dave yelled, glaring at the boy.
The child flinched backwards, then ran out.
The pill bottle rattling in his hands, Dave drew deep breaths, trying to calm himself. He noticed the baseball on the floor beside him. An original Rawlings. Dave put the lid on the bottle, hid it back in the drawer, and picked up the ball. Drawing in the scent of leather and caressing the red stitching like the ball was a long-lost pet, he grinned. It had been decades since he had lost his own, the ball his father had given him for his seventh birthday. They had thrown it together in their yard that day. His father had said he threw like a pro. Dave had known it wasn’t true, but it felt real that day—everything felt real. But then, at the end of the day, Dave missed a throw and kept on missing, and his father just shook his head, and said, I really thought you had something there for a second, kid, but I should have known better. He didn’t see his father again for a month after that.
He never really knew the man, but he still thought of him every day.
Dave gripped the ball, wishing he had never let work keep him away from his own family.
He disconnected the drip from his arm and hung his legs over the edge of the bed, taking care to make as little movement as possible for fear of the pain. He hadn’t left his room since arriving. Screw the hospital and all their warnings about spinal damage. 
He staggered into the corridor. Tired nurses with downcast faces rushed about the weathered ward while gaunt patients waited-out their lives in an atmosphere of disinfectant and despair. 
Locating the doors to the children’s oncology ward in a darkened end of the corridor, he entered into a hallway of bright colors. Sunlight filled the children’s rooms, lighting up walls adorned with classic Disney characters from decades past.
Finding the boy alone in room 24, Dave stopped abruptly at the open doorway. The child lay in bed reading a Spider-Man comic, while an old Game Boy rested on his lap, all watched over from above by an armada of retro action figures. A typical seven-year-old, if not for the shadow of cancer. Monitors leered at him from both sides, dozens of get-well cards stood on his shelves, and he wore the tell-tale signs—baldness and pale skin.
Dave grew lightheaded, the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end as he took a half step back, gripping his forehead. The medication had muddled his mind, but the uneasiness he now felt was different. The boy was just like his own son eighteen years ago.
He crouched down to leave the ball beside the doorway when the boy spotted him. “Hey,” Dave said softly, “you left this behind.”
The child remained motionless. 
“I…I’m sorry for yelling.” Dave took a couple of steps closer. That’s the old me.
“I’m not s’pose to walk by myself,” the boy said. 
Dave smiled and said, “Neither am I.” He approached, holding out the ball. 
The child snatched it up. “Thanks.” His brown eyes beamed with life in an otherwise frail body.
“I’m Dave.”
The boy gave a big smile. “I’m Spider-Man.”
Dave rubbed his own chin and said, “You know, I thought so.”
The boy closed his comic and asked, “Really?”
“Yep, I could tell by how fast you ran out of my room.”
Little Spider-Man held the comic up in front of his face, trying to hide his smile.
“Spider-Man is my favorite,” Dave said, shooting a hand to his back, grimacing as pain flared. “I… I better go.”
Lowering the comic, the boy looked at Dave with concern and asked, “Will you come back?”
Dave grew lightheaded, the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end as he took a half step back, gripping his forehead. The medication had muddled his mind, but the uneasiness he now felt was different. The boy was just like his own son eighteen years ago.
“Ahh…Where’s your mom and dad?”
“Mom’s always here. She just left.”
“Well…”
“People don’t visit. And Mom doesn’t like comics.” The boy rolled his eyes. 
“Okay, Spider-Man.”
“Promise?”
“Sure.”
“But Spider-Man won’t be here, okay?”
Dave paused. “What?”
The child tapped a pile of comics beside his bed. “I’ll be another superhero.”
“Oh,” Dave said. “Of course.” He shuffled towards the doorway.
“Hey,” the boy said.
Dave turned back.
“I’ll go home, won’t I?”
“Of course you will.”
“Think so? I don’t want to live here.”
Dave shuffled back. “My son was in this same hospital when he was your age.” A lump formed in his throat. He forced a swallow. “He beat his cancer.”
The little Spider-Man sat up, asking, “Yeah?”
“Sure. And he wasn’t even Spider-Man. You—” Dave held out an arm and fired an invisible web from his palm. “You could swing out of here whenever you want.”
The boy grinned and hid his face in the comic. 
Dave fought his way back to his room, one hand clenching the corridor handrail and the other gripping his back, constantly stopping for breath. 
A vase of daffodils sat on his bedside table. Hunched over, he grasped his bed to steady himself, stared around his otherwise empty room, and then ran a hand through the flowers, searching for a card that wasn’t there. He plugged his drip back in and collapsed to the bed with a gasp of relief.
Visiting the comic book boy hadn’t been hard. Why couldn’t he have done it for his own son? Paying Josh’s medical expenses had buried any self-doubt he’d had at the time—he had saved him. Dave trembled. I wish I could redo it all.
He took his phone, located his son’s number on his Facebook account, and pressed it. He watched as his phone app dialed on the cracked screen, his finger hovering over the End Call icon. 
Dave hung up.
It was too late for him and Josh. He had sixty-hour weeks and constant work travel to thank for that. He dropped the phone on the bedside table, closing his eyes. He would catch up on the pain medication and see little Spider-Man in the morning. 
The morning breakfast trolley squeaking in the corridor, and daylight at the edges of his curtains, woke Dave to his otherwise-silent confinement, save the backwards-ticking clock above the door. Any chance of further escape from reality was over. The pesky nurses would be in with their checks and questions. How are you today? they would ask. A little more dead, he would reply. 
He thought of the boy, laying sick in the children’s ward. Dave would visit him one last time, keep one commitment in his life. Forcing himself up, Dave slid his feet to the floor and felt a tingling sensation rise up his legs. 
His door groaned open, accosting him with light and chatter from the ward. Nancy hurried straight to him. “Dave, you can’t move around!” Her expression pained. “You’re going to cripple yourself. You know the tumor’s right on your spine.”
His back tightened and he grimaced. “I was just going to the bathroom.”
“Use the bottle,” she said in her soft voice, sitting down beside him. “Dave, where did you go yesterday?”
“I…I had to get out.” He looked around his empty room. “This place is killing me.”
“We searched the whole floor for you.”
“There was a boy,” Dave said. “I was just returning his baseball.”
She watched him, pursing her candy pink lips.
Pointing to the doorway, he said, “In the children’s ward.”
“Dave…” She dropped her expression. “You’re not well. The doctors are worried about your mental health…I’m worried.”
“I’m fine,” he said, looking at the bedside table and noticing the daffodils missing. “Where’s the flowers you put there?”
“I didn’t give you flowers.”
“Well, someone did, and now someone’s taken ’em away.”
“Dave, you’re not well.”
“I’m fine,” he snapped.
“No,” she said firmly, “you’re not.”
He slid back into his bed. “I’ll rest. I promise.”
“Please, Dave. I don’t know what the doctors will do to confine you.” She got up to leave. “I’ll be back more often…to check on you. They’re making me.” She lowered her face, holding his eyes. “Any more walking around could paralyze you.”
“Okay, Nancy,” he said, forcing a smile.
She thrust her hands to her hips, turning her head to the side in a superhero pose. “It’s Nurse Nancy!”
Dave chuckled. “All right.”
She left, closing the door and leaving Dave in the half-lit room. 
He got straight up, pulled out his drip, and scurried into his dressing gown. Opening the door, he peered down the hall to see Nancy enter an adjoining room. He slipped out and headed to the elevator. He needed something first. He kept an eye out for suspicious nurses, carefully placing each step, fighting numbness in his legs. Sweat broke on his forehead and his hands trembled as he held the handrail in the lift on the way to the ground floor.
Dave stood motionless, his body pressed against the elevator wall as the doors opened to a group of waiting nurses. They stood still, staring at him. A young girl from the group stepped forward and asked, “Are you okay?”
Dave gritted his teeth and just looked at her, his back ravaged with spasms. 
“What’s your name, sir? What ward are you from?”
He put his head down and hurried past her. Finding the gift shop, he purchased the first comic book in sight and headed back to the children’s ward. 
He stopped at the boy’s doorway to catch his breath, squirming at the knot of pain in his back. The boy lay asleep in a warm room, embraced by daylight from his window. Taking deliberate steps, Dave crept over and placed the comic beside the child, and then turned to leave.
“Hi,” the boy rasped.
Dave looked back to see the boy’s eyes slowly open, his body still, his chest barely rising with each breath. “Hi,” Dave said, “you look tired, I’ll let you sleep.”
“Stay,” he whispered.
Dave sat on a chair beside the boy and held up the comic—Batman Annual #24, with Batman standing in a darkened cityscape, holding a limp Robin across his arms. “I bought you a new one. Today you’re Batman!”
The boy’s eyes shot to the comic, while his face remained sullen. “Robin,” he gasped.
“Pardon?”
“I’ll be Robin,” the boy said. “Read it.”
Dave read it as the boy watched each page. The boy pushed himself up higher on his pillow to follow a fight scene between The Joker and Robin. His eyes widened as The Joker knocked Robin out. Batman swung in, scooped up Robin, carrying him to safety. A smile grew across the boy’s face.
Dave laid the comic on the bedside table, and the boy said, “Did you read—” He broke into a fit of coughs, and Dave took the boy’s hand. “Did you read to your son?”
Slumping back in his chair, Dave said, “I…I wasn’t a good dad.”
The boy squeezed Dave’s hand and started coughing again. 
Dave wiped at his own eyes and stood, saying, “I’m going to get you some help.”
“I’m all right. Aren’t I? I’m going home soon.”
“Of course,” Dave said, winking. “But even Robin needs help sometimes.”
“You’ll come back?” He tried to sit up and slumped back down, his eyelids falling. “And read again?”
“Real soon.”
“Promise?”
Dave grabbed his own back, wincing. “I promise, Robin.”
The child’s eyes closed. 

Dave laid the comic on the bedside table, and the boy said, “Did you read—” He broke into a fit of coughs, and Dave took the boy’s hand. “Did you read to your son?”
Slumping back in his chair, Dave said, “I…I wasn’t a good dad.”
The boy squeezed Dave’s hand and started coughing again. 
Staggering into the corridor, Dave searched for help, remembering he hadn’t ever seen a doctor or nurse in the children’s ward. Fighting numbness in his legs, he urged himself through the doors into the chill of his own ward. He dragged his body forward, each step unfelt by feet grown numb. Concerned faces watched him and voices spoke, but all seemed distant. 
Entering his room, he found the daffodils back on the bedside table and a Toy Story “Buzz Lightyear” on the floor. He scanned the rest of the room, and then looked behind him to see Nancy rush in. 
Dave’s legs gave out and he collapsed.
Two days later, Nancy stood beside Dave’s bed, with thunder rumbling outside, while a doctor explained what Dave already knew—that medical checks revealed his spinal cord was severed. He could no longer feel his legs. A wheelchair now sat beside him. The daffodils and Buzz Lightyear were gone.
“You know,” he said to Nancy after the doctor had left, “I honestly don’t care. I just want to spend time with the boy. I blew it with my son. I made the choice to put work before family.”
She gave him that concerned look again, pursing her now apricot-colored lips and staring at him in silence.
“Why do I feel like something’s being kept from me?” he asked. 
“Okay, then,” she said. “What’s this boy’s name?”
“Rob—” He stopped. “I don’t actually know.”
“Did you get in contact with your son?”
“I promised to go back.” He took a breath and stopped as his back ignited. Why couldn’t that part have gone numb?
She tilted her head to the side, and said, “To your son?”
“Yes…No,” he said. “To the boy.”
She crossed her arms, and said, “I don’t think there is a boy.”
He gave a confused look. “In the children’s ward. Down the hall. Where my son was.”
“Dave, I’m sorry.” She got up. “I shouldn’t be getting so involved. This is all new to me. I’m going to get the psychologist to visit.”
“No, damn it!” He took her soft hand. “I just want to know how he is. Can you check on him? The first room on the right past the doors.”
She stepped back out of his grasp. “Okay, I’ll check for this boy if you ring your son.”
“Thanks, Nancy.”
She gave him the phone and left.
Thunder broke outside, lighting his room in a flash. He pressed Josh’s number.
The phone answered. A male voice said, “Hello.”
Dave tried to slow his rapid breaths.
The voice again said, “Hello.”
“Is this Josh?”
Rain thrashed against his window.
“Yes?”
“It’s Dave…Your father.”
The call timer ticked over on the phone as Dave held his breath.
Josh hung up.
Dave threw the phone at the clock, stopping the hands. A moment later, it started to tick backwards again. “Damn it!”
He ripped out his drip and dragged himself toward the wheelchair. Clawing the bed for grip and clenching his teeth, he edged his lower body across the mattress inch by inch, pulled himself over the wheelchair, and then dragged his legs down. 
Wheeling himself into the boy’s room, sweat beading from his forehead, he found the room vacant. He rolled around the darkened room, looking at the empty shelves, the made bed, his mind numb. He died, he thought.
He ripped out his drip and dragged himself toward the wheelchair. Clawing the bed for grip and clenching his teeth, he edged his lower body across the mattress inch by inch, pulled himself over the wheelchair, and then dragged his legs down. 
Wheeling himself into the boy’s room, sweat beading from his forehead, he found the room vacant. He rolled around the darkened room, looking at the empty shelves, the made bed, his mind numb. He died, he thought.
From beneath the bed, the corner of a comic book revealed itself. Dave went over and picked it up. The Batman comic. He dropped it on his lap, pounded his fists on the wheels, and then rolled back into his own ward.
He would get back before Nancy returned with her lies.
He would take all the Oxys.
A child’s laugh drifted out of his room. 
Dave slowed down, rolling in to find Josh waiting with little Noah.
Dave snatched his wheels, his eyes wide. The daffodils were back and Noah held the Buzz Lightyear by the hand.
“Dad,” Josh said, approaching with a worried expression. “What are you doing? I said I’d come back.”
Motionless, Dave stared back and forth between Josh and Noah. “Josh?”
“Dad.” Josh knelt in front of Dave, and Noah came up behind his father, beaming a smile. “I leave to get Noah and come back to find you out of bed. The last time I left you broke your back!” Josh held Dave’s hand. “I thought the worst had happened this time.”
Josh wheeled Dave back to his bed and reconnected the drip. 
“You’ve been here with me?” Dave asked.
“See what happens when you unplug your medicine?” Josh grinned at Noah, shaking his head. “Silly Grandad.” Josh softened his voice, and said, “Of course, Dad, you did the same for me. I remember getting those new comics each day.”
Dave looked down to the comic on his lap. 
“What’s this?” Josh asked, picking up the comic. “Batman Annual #24, 2001.” His eyes shot to Dave. “Wow, what a classic! Eighteen years old and in perfect condition. I think I had this one.”
Dave’s mouth hung open, and he slowly said, “I found it in the children’s ward.”
“What?”
“The children’s ward down the corridor.”
“Whoa,” Josh said, “the children’s ward? Dad, you know they moved the children’s ward to its own hospital…years ago.”
Dave spun his wheelchair back toward the door, almost pulling the drip bag from its chromed hook. The old clock above the door stopped him in his tracks.
It now ticked clockwise.