by Iorhael
There is a soft shriek followed by flashes of bright light, nearly blinding my eyes. It is morning already. I stretch and slowly pull myself up into a sitting position. Leaning against the headboard, I smile a little at the one who has kindly drawn the blinds, letting sunshine through their narrow slits into my bedroom.
But my smile freezes in the air as I notice that the person neither heeds it nor smiles back. Blood rushes to my head. How could she do that to me– after all I have done to be polite.
I do not let my anger mountain up since she is not ignoring me purposely. Although her eyes shine with friendliness there is simply no recognition. I draw my breath deeply as she approaches rather tactfully–and she…
“Hey!” I cry out. “What are you doing?”
I crease my brow as I watch her hand gently smoothing my knee hidden beneath the blanket.
But it is not my knee she is brushing. It is that face–the pallid, frozen face. The one adorned with squishy cheeks that have lost their agility from lack of use and life.
She keeps stroking them while I sit quietly, trying hard to figure out how all this has happened: I am slouching up here while another me is lying down there. I am wide-awake and can feel the warm sun against my skin while another me is slumping there unconscious, eyes tightly shut, needles piercing his arms, clamps on his chest, and cables connecting his body to machines.
Then I hear a voice. It is garbled and bangs loudly in my ears.
“It’s going to be today, Shawn. Do you remember? They will come and do what they have decided,” says the nurse.
Ah, yes. She must be a nurse, judging from her costume. Glancing around, I assume I must be in a hospital room. Everything slowly comes together but I still cannot understand what she meant. What is going to happen today?
She takes a cloth and dips it into a basin. After squeezing it carefully, she begins to rub it gently over my face.
“I don’t know what will happen to you, Shawn,” she whispers. Her wetted cloth wipes my brow in several strokes and goes down to the eyelids, scraping them lightly one after another. And a strange sensation washes over me, the me who is sitting up. I feel refreshed, as if I am the one being bathed. But I am trying to keep my focus on her next statements.
“I just hope they won’t come to that decision,” she continues as she moves the re-dampened cloth upward over my cheeks, careful not to disturb the oxygen mask.
“It’s almost a year now since the accident, and I feel like I know you well, though we never speak to each other." She smiled. "I – I think I have even fallen in love with you.”
The shock is like a bolt of lightening. No. It is not the fall in love part, but the word, accident. All of a sudden I am being sucked down, no longer sitting up, but lying on my back, occupying the body, my body, a captive within its impassive frame.
And I shut my eyes fast now, and feel as if my head is splitting in two. Painful memories swiftly flood my mind, like a cassette being played on fast forward.
