Saving Elijah

where Jimmy was. Eleven years old, he'd been hit by a bus. Oh, Lord, that poor boy looked bad, though I couldn't see him right now, because the curtain was drawn. I could only see his parents' feet shuffling about underneath it.
    The music seemed to be emanating from the corridor outside the PICU. Into the corridor I went, and when I came out I saw a man—not a man, exactly, since the color of his skin wasn't right, it was much too pink, like a television picture that needs a color adjustment. But he was sitting on the plastic sofa near the elevator, strumming a guitar and singing.

    "Where are you going, and what do you wish?"
The old moon asked the three.
"We have come to fish for the herring fish
That live in this beautiful sea."

    He was very gaunt and tall, though I couldn't be sure because he wasn't standing. He had a broad forehead, a wide mouth, fleshy, coal-black lips that were definitely not made of flesh. Dark stuff that looked like twine hung down in front of his shoulders, partly obscuring his face. He was wearing clothing of a style popular two decades ago, when I was in college: bell-bottom blue jeans, a studded black leather jacket, a belt with a heavy silver buckle. The strap on his acoustic guitar was embroidered with peace signs, though at its edges the strap seemed to be covered with mold. And his clothes were tinged with mold, too. His shirt seemed fitted closely to his angular body, a button-down monstrosity, purple and green flower splashes, with a large open collar. He wore heavy black boots caked with mud, and leaves were clinging to his clothes.
    There was no one else in the corridor, and I walked right up to him.
    "So it's been you playing the music?" My voice sounded normal, not robotic, but I wasn't a hundred percent sure I'd actually spoken with my mouth.
    The guitar player just kept playing and singing.

    The old moon laughed and sang a song
As they rocked in the wooden shoe,
And the wind that sped them all night long
Ruffled the waves of dew.

    I was reminded of the folk music of my generation, an acoustic guitar and a simple melody, Cat Stevens, Simon and Garfunkel, James Taylor. Music I loved when I was a hopeful young woman, incapable of imagining something like this could happen to my child.
    "How do you know the lullaby I sing to my son?"
    He played. He sang. He occupied space but seemed to have no weight or mass, and the outer edges of him were fuzzy, like the blurred outlines of a watercolor painting.
    I pointed to his boots. "This is a hospital. The children are sick. You shouldn't bring dirt in here."
    In fact, he seemed to be covered with a faint coating of dirt and green slime, as if he'd recently had a close encounter with a mud puddle. This was my son-saving angel?
    He stopped playing and looked up at me. That was when I noticed his eyes, flat and all dark, not a speck of reflected light, or of white. Perhaps this should have frightened me, but it didn't. Nothing could have been as frightening as Elijah in the PICU.
    Is there some archetypal belief mechanism that comes into play when we find ourselves in the presence of a phenomenon beyond ordinary reality? Perhaps I was able to interpret what I was seeing because I was already way beyond ordinary reality, I was anesthetized with shock.
    "Had an accident," he said. "Ended up in the dirt. Can't help it." His voice was a whisper of wind, with an undertone like the cooing of pigeons. He articulated each word distinctly, as if he believed everything he uttered was significant, and spoke languidly, as if he had all the time in the world. Yet as he talked, he kept those dark lips pursed together as if he had to hold something in his mouth at the same time. An affectation, to be sure.
    "Accident?"
    "Motorcycle. Damned things are deadly, you know. Only loons drive them." He cupped his hand to his mouth and whispered, "And people who think they can cheat the Angel of Death. That one hangs around here a lot. Always nearby."
    I looked around, but the corridor was empty.
    He started to laugh, a twittering sound, like the rustle of tree birds and leaves. "You'd notice him. He's full of eyes. Pretty hard to miss."
    "Eyes?"
    He leaned toward me. "As in when Master Angel Death comes looking for you, there's no place to hide." More twittering. "Should be here any time now, for Jimmy. Could be tomorrow. Next day at the outside." He raised one long pink finger to his lips. "Listen. The Angel is already approaching. You can just hear it, if