A fine line between you and John Doe

He didn't show up for work. He didn't call. Not the job, not his girlfriend, not his friends, not his mother. Silence. They worried. They called each other, wondering aloud, Where is he? His wallet was at home, inside his wallet his ID. Important, that. He does not drive a car. He rides his bicycle. Or he uses Metro. Or he walks.

My niece cried to me, I just keep picturing him hurt in a ditch somewhere.

Inside the critical care unit in a hospital in the medical center, a young man in a coma. A broken arm, a broken leg, a tracheotomy fit to a respirator, a feeding tube in his nose, half his head shaved for draining fluid from his swollen his brain. For five days, his name unknown. Five days of John Doe.

Five long and anguish-filled days. His mother called the police, and every single hospital in Houston. More than once. She filed a missing persons report after the mandatory wait time.

A witness to the hit and run called an ambulance and the police. The police connected the dots after the missing person report was filed. The phone call to his mother serving up a potent cocktail of relief and terror.

The details are unknown, beyond what the witness saw. Type of car known, license plate not known. Somewhere, someone walks beneath a heavy load of guilt. And fear. A nauseating and dark mixture to carry through life.

Inside the CCU, respirator bellows rhythmically rise and fall with a lonely whoosh sound. His mother sits beside him. Monitor lights of green reflecting on her face as she gazes at her son, hands wrung in worry and prayer. The only relief is that he has been found.

And again he has his name.