Operation Sunrise

by Marinda Kotze

“Paul! Get up! It’s time.” Charlie’s voice is close to my face. I immediately throw my blanket off and sit up. We’ve been planning this morning for weeks.

“I’m ready. What time is it?” I ask while fumbling for my glasses on the bedside table.

“Quarter past six,” says Charlie. The first rays of morning sunlight flash over him as he pushes himself a little away from me in his wheelchair. The room’s only window is a rectangle above us, woven shut with bars and dust that no one cares to clean anymore.

“Let’s go over the plan again,” says Charlie. He slowly rubs his hands over his thighs, from his hips down to the rounded stumps just above where his knees once were. He was in the army. Stepped on a landmine in Namibia. I also did military service, but I worked in Intelligence.

Charlie knows this hospital like the back of his hand. No one knows better than him how to escape from here.

“At six-thirty, the nurse will come in with our breakfast,” says Charlie. “I’ll wait by the door and block his path while you hit him over the head with the chair.” Charlie points to the wooden chair standing against the bedside table. “Then you grab his keys, and we’re out of here!”

Charlie smiles. His yellow-and-brown teeth gleam like river pebbles in the morning light.

He was transferred to my room a few weeks ago. The matron said the hospital was extra full at the moment, so they had to move patients around to make space.

“And Patches?” I ask.

Charlie’s cat, Patches, hears his name and comes strutting toward me, tail held high.

“I’ll hold him on my lap while you push me,” says Charlie.

The sharp squeak of a steel trolley being wheeled down the hallway snaps both of us to attention.

“It’s time,” says Charlie, pushing himself up against the wall so that he’ll be behind the door when it opens.

Patches follows his owner and jumps onto Charlie’s lap.

The trolley stops every now and then, followed by the jingle of a bunch of keys, a door being unlocked, the coffee pot being picked up and set down again, and plastic trays being lifted and shifted. Sometimes, you hear a few words of conversation before the routine repeats.

The anticipation is too much for me. I stand up and start pacing back and forth between my and Charlie’s beds. I wish there were an easier way for the Organization to get me out of here.

The trolley finally stops in front of our door.

I quickly move back to the chair. I pick it up but then just as quickly set it down again. I mustn’t pick it up too soon.

I sit down on my bed and wipe my sweaty hands on my pants.

A key is shoved forcefully into the steel door and turns one, two, three, four, five, six times before the door swings open violently.

The nurse is a wiry middle-aged man. Without looking up, he starts preparing our coffee and breakfast on the trolley. I slowly stand up and position myself in front of the chair.

The nurse steps into the room with a tray in his hands. “Good morning, Paulie. Sleep well?” he asks.

I don’t really want to make eye contact with him, so I just mumble softly, “Yes, thank you.”

Behind the nurse, Charlie sits in his wheelchair, staring intently at me. Wordlessly, he signals: Now!

I leap into action, grabbing the chair and lifting it into the air. It’s lighter than I expected and nearly slips from my hands.

With everything I have, I swing the chair through the air toward the nurse.

“Paultjie!” the nurse yells, ducking with his arms raised. But it’s just a second too late. One of the chair’s legs strikes him on the forehead. He staggers away from me.

“Again!” shouts Charlie.

I don’t want to. But I have to.

I swing the chair wide through the air. This time, it strikes him on the shoulder. He groans in pain and collapses against the wall, his arms shielding his face.

“Please, Paultjie, no!” the nurse pleads.

I crouch down to unclip the keyring from his hip. He shrinks back in fear, but I’ve already taken the keys from him.

“Give him another hit,” Charlie hisses.

I hesitate for a moment. A cut on the nurse’s forehead begins to bleed.

“No, now you’re taking too long! Why the Organization wants you back, I have no idea. Come on, we don’t have much time left,” says Charlie, pushing himself toward the door.

I run after him and start pushing him further down the hallway.

“Straight ahead,” Charlie gestures with one arm while holding Patches tightly with the other. “There’s an elevator nearby.”

“Stop!” a man yells from a distance.

I increase my pace. The bunch of keys bounces like an alarm up and down in my pocket to the rhythm of my legs.

Heavy footsteps echo from both ends of the hallway. But I’ve made it. Peeling paint decorates the doorframes like dead vines in a barren garden. One of the orange elevator doors shudders open in front of me.

The matron steps out of the elevator. I try to slip past her, but two pairs of strong hands grab my arms from behind and pull me back.

“Paul,” says the matron, “I know you’re disappointed that your family couldn’t come visit you this weekend…”

“The Organization needs me again. I must go!” I say. The matron doesn’t understand how critical the situation is. “Ask Charlie. They sent him to come get me.”

The matron sighs and looks at the wheelchair between us, “Paul. There’s no one in the wheelchair.”

I look down at the wheelchair.

It is empty.

“But… where did he go?” I look around bewildered. Did someone play a trick on me?

Two men escort me back to my room. “Don’t tell me it was all in my imagination. He and his cat were as real as you two are now,” I protest.

One of the men turns to me and says, “You don’t have to explain it to us, Paul. We understand.”

© Marinda Kotze, 2025

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