The blizzard was dreadful. Roads were buried—impassable on foot or by carriage. The front door wouldn’t budge, sealed shut by three feet of snow, impossible to dig out. The town wasn’t built for such northern wrath; the houses weren’t meant to withstand nature’s fury. A proper disaster, no jest about it.
And that very night, Eleanor’s father was dying.
A stroke. No ambulance, no rescue team to call—just her, a young neurologist, and the scant medical supplies she kept at home.
Her father had collapsed in the kitchen while putting the kettle on. She hadn’t seen it happen, but spotting a stroke was child’s play for even a first-year student. For her, it was instantly clear: apoplexy. Without a hospital, he wouldn’t last till morning.
She rang everyone she could—even the constables. The reply was always the same: *Your call has been logged. Assistance will arrive when possible.*
No one was coming. That much was certain. But she’d never forgive herself if she didn’t try. She dragged him to bed, his body slack, his voice reduced to groans. Anticoagulants were out of the question. Aspirin, then intravenous prednisolone for the brain swelling. His blood pressure was low, so no bisoprolol.
Now, all she could do was wait. Eleanor moved like a machine, following protocols, textbooks. No emotion—just hollow precision.
Then, as if fate hadn’t had its fill, the lights went out. The flat turned dark, claustrophobic. The furniture seemed to swell, the air thickening like treacle, every sound sharp and grating. Her father’s breaths came ragged but steady. No moaning—small mercies. And Eleanor? She hardly breathed at all.
“Just let morning come,” she whispered, just to hear her own voice, to prove she was still alive.
And in that very moment, a thunderous knock rattled the door.
Fear and relief tangled in her chest. *Help!* Who else would come now? She bolted for the door, bashing into every corner along the way, fumbling for the lock. A blinding torchlight seared her vision as she pulled it open.
“Hello,” said a voice from behind the glare—one she knew, and loathed.
It was just her neighbour. Reginald “Reg” Whitby, a man of boundless immaturity. Detestable. Forty years old but frozen in adolescent recklessness. Unkempt for months, then suddenly sporting a lurid green mohawk. Brawling with the local bobby, unemployed yet somehow *living.* To Eleanor, who’d spent her youth memorising bones and sketching organs, his very existence was offensive. Men like him didn’t belong in decent society.
She tried to slam the door, but Reg wedged his foot in the gap—pure audacity, near criminal.
“Everything alright?” he asked.
“Remove your foot,” she snapped.
She feared him, always recoiling when their paths crossed.
“Fair enough.” He withdrew his foot, lowering the torch. “Just thought you might need help.”
“Not from you.”
“So you *do* need help,” Reg countered. “Got water stored? Any about?”
“For heaven’s sake, the kettle! Or the tap!” She made to shut the door again.
The man was insufferable. But this time, instead of his foot, he left a five-litre jug on the threshold before vanishing into his flat—just a wall away, too thin to mute his drunken singing or his dreadful harmonica squalls.
“Impossible wretch,” Eleanor muttered.
Then it struck her. She hurried to the kitchen. The taps gasped dry. The jug remained on the border between her world and his.
Later, Reg returned with a torch and batteries—something she, the *doctor*, hadn’t thought of. She should’ve been the saviour here, not him.
“I’d like to tell you to go to the devil,” she admitted when he handed her the lit torch.
“Go on, then,” he shrugged. “But how’s your father?”
“Since when do you care?”
“I don’t. But how is he?” His tone was firm.
“Stroke,” she blurted. “Needs an ambulance…”
Reg spun on his worn slippers and disappeared into his flat. Eleanor was left alone. With her dying father. A jug of water. A torch.
“He’s vile, Dad. Truly. A back-alley drunk—you’d have locked up a regiment of his sort…”
The torch, at least, was a blessing. She checked his pulse, dug out glucose from her supplies, set up an IV. Tried the kettle—nothing. Even the gas had given up.
She wanted to weep. A trained neurologist, helpless to save the one person who mattered. All because of snow? What was the point of years of study, of residency? Never had she felt so powerless.
Then Reg reappeared.
“You’re in a bad way, Eleanor. I know trouble when I see it.” He was bundled in Arctic-grade furs, like some polar explorer from an old photograph. A duffel bulged in his grip, stuffed with woollen sleeves and knitted socks spilling out.
“I don’t trust you. But come in,” she relented.
“Not staying,” he said, stepping inside. “But we can get your dad to hospital. You’ll mind him—you’re the doctor. I can walk snow. And he’s a fighter. Between us, we’ll manage.”
He unzipped the duffel, hauling out a thick sleeping bag.
“Bundle him in here—Uncle Edward… Mr. Hartley…” Reg faltered, boyish in his awkwardness. “Your dad,” he finished. “Got splints?”
“Yes. I’ll set them.” Her reply was crisp, automatic—like hospital triage when the wards overflowed.
“Splints first, then the bag,” he ordered.
Eleanor wasn’t used to taking orders. Usually, *she* commanded. But tonight, she needed none of her usual control—just help, hope, someone to share the weight. And the last man she’d ever choose had given her all three.
“Manage *what*, exactly?” she asked, securing the cervical brace.
“One mile to A&E,” Reg said. “If the mountain won’t come to Muhammad…”
“We’re trudging through *snowdrifts*?”
“Your lot don’t teach that, do they? I can’t stick a needle in a vein either. Different trades.” He adjusted his shaggy cap. “Your dad’s spine sound?”
“Who?”
“Your *father*,” he grunted, rummaging in the duffel.
“L5-S1 herniation, mild. Muscle relaxants advised.”
“Can I carry him two flights, or we need a stretcher?”
“Stretcher. Definitely.”
“Right.” Reg vanished into the dark stairwell.
Metal clanged below, muffled voices arguing. Then, a shout:
“Bugger off, you toffs! And you, Liam—show your face ‘round here again, I’ll rearrange it!” Classic Reg.
Eleanor sighed. This was hopeless.
More clattering. More voices. Then footsteps.
“Quiet now, no smashing,” Reg announced, reappearing with neighbours in tow—the Jenkinses from downstairs. Hardly her favourites (perpetually skint, always borrowing), but they carried a stretcher fashioned from old pipes and a groundsheet. Sturdy enough.
They bundled her father into the sleeping bag, hoisted him onto the stretcher. Reg took one end, the Jenkinses the other.
“You mind the IV,” Reg ordered.
She didn’t argue. For once, things were unfolding without her command, and it was almost… pleasant. She held the drip; the neighbours bore the weight.
Chaos followed. Reg hauled the stretch on plastic sledges like a draft horse. Eleanor focused on keeping the glucose from freezing, trudging on archaic “hunting skis” from Reg’s inexplicable stockpile.
Reg ploughed ahead on snowshoes like tennis rackets, never straying.
“Got a profession too,” he said suddenly. “Geologist. Mostly desk work now, but I’m field-trained. Too late to change.”
“Why the drink, then? No better life for you?”
He shrugged. Silence held till they reached the dim glow of A&E, where generators hummed and orderlies scurried. Eleanor tried to take charge—demanding scans, barking at nurses—but Reg, bear-like, gently reined her in.
Only when her father was wheeled away, the empty glucose bottle prised from her grip, did she sag.
She dozed on a sticky hospital bench, Reg sitting vigil beside her—quiet, as if wary of disturbing some unseen thing hanging in the air amid the night-shift bustle.
Doors banged. Exhausted medics shuffled past. Time oozed, thick as molasses.
“Dr. Hartley?” A night doctor roused her gently. “Your father’s stable. Well, as stable as post-stroke gets. Moved to Ward Five.”
“Thank you,” she mumbled, lips cracked.
As she stepped out into the snow-dusted dawn, she realised that sometimes help comes not from polished heroes, but from the most unlikely souls, rough-edged and flawed, yet willing to walk through storms for a stranger.
