*****
I'm not sure that 'waking up' is the correct phrase for what happened to me in the hospital. It was more akin to my early twenties and the coming out of an alcoholic stupor: consciousness was knocked back into me and I would come to some kind of awareness with a startling jump, sometimes to discover that I was in the middle of a conversation in a room I had no memory of entering with a person I had no memory of meeting. I slowly became aware of the fact of talking to them and realised that we had been having a conversation for some time, though I had no idea whatsoever of the content; I had to focus and listen to what I was saying to try to work out what was going on and how I had come to be there and not the last place I remember being.
I was saying something but I couldn't hear myself, nor the other half of the conversation. I realised that my eyes were closed so I opened them and looked up at my interlocutor. I knew on some level that this woman was my wife but she didn't look quite right, in a way I couldn't put my finger on.
Standing behind her were two younger people, both of whom were shuffling awkwardly and staring intently at the floor. The same intuition told me that they were my son and daughter although I couldn't honestly say I recognised either of them from their physical appearances. The memories I had of them were all jumbled up so that the same person appeared to be both the age they were now in front of me and the age they were ten or more years ago, producing a strange Picassoesque effect that I found deeply disturbing.
The girl that the part of my brain still operating on reason told me was my daughter looked up at me hesitantly yet expectantly, as if hoping for some kind of connection with me. In my mixed up state I found her facial expression threatening and, seeing me recoil from her, she gave a loud gasp and ran, crying from the room. My wife said something to me but things were getting more foggy again and, taking the cowards way out, I closed my eyes and welcomed the safety of unconsciousness.
Brian: Mental Book 1 Page 12
