Jonah's Prayer

I was brought into the Covid Unit at the hospital
in respiratory duress,
I was in such acute respiratory distress
they had to pump 45 liters of oxygen into my lungs,
and as my doctor told me,
when they start to have to put 45 liters of oxygen
in a minute into your lungs,
people just don't recover from that,
but I did.
After the doctor asked me if I wanted to be
kept alive or have a respirator keep me alive,
I said, "Yes, I have a 14 year old son, and a 20 year old daughter,"
I want to be kept alive."
I left a message for my Pastor to pray for me,
and when she heard I was in the hospital with Covid,
she felt she had to pray right away for me because my life
was in danger.
I went from needing 45 liters of oxygen in a minute
down to 3 liters of oxygen in a minute within 24 hours.
My doctor could not believe it.
"Most people don't recover that quickly," he said;
He had more tact than to say what he was really thinking-"
"Most people in that kind of distress don't recover."
I did recover. I got better.
Was it coincidence?

The next day I remembered the prayer of Jonah to God
after he was spit out by the big fish
on to the land:
Prior to that, Jonah was drowning-

“I called out to the Lord, out of my distress,
and he answered me;
out of the belly of Sheol I cried,
and you heard my voice."

Jean Jones has an MFA in Creative Writing Poetry from Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, Ohio. He teaches English as a Second Language part-time at Cape Fear Community College in Wilmington, and is regularly published by Horror Zine and Aphelion Webzine.

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