by Dawn Brazil
Hospitals are such dreary places it’s comical. They’re supposed to be havens for the injured, a place of comfort. Yet, this hospital has hideous outdated floral décor, starch-white walls, and unsightly linoleum floors. It’s freezing cold, too. I understand the temperature prevents the accumulation and spread of germs, but I can barely form a thought, apart from the icicles forming on my fingertips. Splashes of color are thrown throughout: a bouquet of lilies in a crystal vase on a plain white bureau, a colorful assortment of greeting cards that possibly have the same ‘get well soon’ message, and a couple of stuffed animals, mostly pigs.
But I don’t care about any of that. None of this is comforting. Has he lost his San Diego? Fine. Whatever. I know who can tell me what’s going on here.
“Where’s my phone?” I tussle with the uncomfortable bed keeping me captive. My eyes scan to the left, in search of what will bring me the most relief. A smile stretches across my face at the conversation I’ll have with Ryan. We’ll laugh at some of my guests because neither he nor I care for them. I can’t fathom why they even bothered to come. We’ll make plans for after I leave the hospital…
“Who do you want to call, sweetheart?” my mother asks, walking back into the room. I squint around her and it seems my father has now left. Her voice quivers as if she’s on the verge of tears. I tilt my head in her direction. “Um…honey,” she starts before I can even answer her initial question. “I think you should rest more before you start making phone calls.”
“Why? I feel fine.” Not an altogether accurate assessment of my current health, with lingering fatigue and tightness in my muscles. She doesn’t know that, though. And I’m not telling.
At my words, a collective stare-off ensues. It’s me against every adult present. Their stares are so intense in my direction, they could scorch a normal person.
Thankfully, I’m not normal.
“What’s going on? What happened? Why am I in the hospital, and why is everyone acting so weird?” The horrid white-and-gray linoleum floor receives a great deal of attention at my statement.
“Connie, we’ll see you later,” one of my mother’s friends say. She and another woman gather their purses to exit. My breath stumbles in the back of my throat at her expression as this woman meets my eyes. I know this look; I’ve seen it before—many times before. I loathe it. I swallow hard and collect my scattered thoughts into rational statements.
All at once, everyone shuffles to the hatch. They excuse themselves with whispered words to my mother and ‘the look’ thrown in my general direction with no dialogue.
The atmosphere in the room is disquiet—like the end of a basketball game. Your team is down by two, with two seconds on the clock. The ball flies from your fingers. It caresses the outer part of the rim. The crowd stands, trying to anticipate what the ball will do. Victory and defeat linger to taunt you once the ball makes its ultimate decision. The feeling you get in the pit of your stomach as you await the ball’s final position, in or out. That’s the mood in the room right now.
Am I the ball, teetering close to the edge?
My mother crosses with long strides and sits beside me. “Sweetheart, there was an accident.” She gathers my hand in hers and rubs my palm slowly. No, San Diego.
Her eyes are wide and moist with what… desperation? “You weren’t alone in the car.” She makes circles on the palm of my hand. I want to scream at her to stop babying me and get on with the story. Of course, I know better.
“Who was in the car with me?” A nurse marches into the room as the words slip across my lips. Her all-white shoes screech to a halt and make a grating noise on the linoleum. She takes three more steps into the space, gazing at each of us before turning and leaving. I watch as she scuttles away, not looking back once. I frown at her retreating frame.
“Who was in the car with me?” I ask the question again. My stomach is tied tighter than a sailor’s knot with anticipation. I run down a tiny list of possible people. I shudder at the direction my mind turns.
Mom and I exchange a look I can’t decipher. “It was Ryan.” Her answer releases me from my torture, only to hurtle me into a deeper torment.
If my injuries are severe enough to warrant a stay in the hospital, his would most likely be also. “Can I see him? Is he still here?”
“No, sweetheart… he’s… not here. He’s gone.” She squeezes my hand. I square my eyes with hers to be certain I understand what she’s communicating with her mannerisms.
I tear my eyes away from her sadness and glance at the grey clouds overtaking the sky.
I fall back against the pillows. It’s weird. When I’m meant to feel, I don’t. My head is a universal dumpster of information at this precise moment. I shut my eyes to force my unbalanced mind to register the facts I’ve been given.
“How come I’m here? The accident couldn’t have been bad if I barely feel any pain.” Right. Think this thing through and stop zoning out like a dumb-Alaska.
“The accident happened three months ago. Your wounds have had time to heal.” She leans forward and runs her cool hand along my right cheek. “You’ve been in a coma since the accident. It’s June.”
I suck at the air, but I’m not breathing. She places her hand on my chest. I push it away. I stare into her eyes as I attempt to regulate my inhalation to normal.
Maybe, I’ll die now.
The room spins and turns and I squeeze my eyes shut while my world collapses into heaps around me. “Three months,” I murmur. “They buried him.” It isn’t a question—I’m stating the obvious. Trying to pull the cobwebs away from my thoughts.
I lay in a Denver coma while the love of my life slipped away. I had planned my entire life with him. I’ll have to plan a new life and I don’t know how to do that. I don’t want to do it.
My mother quickly adds, “It feels awful now, sweetheart, but I promise it’ll get easier. Every day. Eventually, you’ll be able to think of Ryan, remember the good times you shared, and smile about them. One day you’ll fall in love again. Normalcy will return. I promise.”
I hate when people reassure you something terrible will be okay with time. I know. Everyone knows. That bit of reassurance is spouted so often it’s like saying the sky is blue or water is wet. The problem is what I’ll do until that ‘time’ comes. What do I do to cope? Do I keep pretending? Or say the first thing that comes to my mind—even if it’s ridiculous and whiny?
“Normal? What the Houston is that? He was the biggest part of any normalcy I experienced. I don’t know who I am anymore.” It seems ‘ridiculous and whiny’ wins most of the time.
“I promise you’ll get through this, Samantha. It’ll get better, easier with each day.”
I don’t want it to be better. I don’t want it to get easier. I want him back with me. What else do I have to give to this vile universe? The room folds and I jam my eyes shut again as blackness on the outer edges try to suffocate me. Even behind my closed eyes, the clouds roll in and the baby piglets oink uncontrollably.
Everything collides—my racing thoughts, my shattered heart, my whole world implodes.
I scream. “Awwwww!” My ear-piercing howl tears through the silence of the room. A nurse and a doctor, who must have been nearby, race into the space.
The sight of them grows my fury. “Get out!!” I yell so loud the darkness on the edges of my mind returns. The gathering storm wants to gulp me whole—skin, bones, and all.
I welcome it.
Chapter 5
My mother backs away from my bed. The doctor, nurse, and my mother step to the side. Their lips move.
I don’t know what they say. I don’t care anyway. I want to feel. And scream. I kick the blanket off, not minding the cold anymore. I shove the tray to the floor that holds my untouched meal. A splattering of clear liquid bounces off the linoleum and the wallpaper-covered walls, and orange Jell-O clings to the crisp white blanket.
When nothing remains in my immediate path to ruin, I snatch a handful of my
curly hair between my fingers and yank hard.
It hurts. I like it.
I need to punish myself. Why did I fall in love anyway? I knew better. Anything requiring you to fall is going to ache when you reach the bottom. Why did I do it?
My mother stumbles over the doctor to get to my side. She grabs my hands to stop me from hitting myself. With nothing left to destroy, I alternate between sobs of despair and howls of anger. It does nothing to cool the icy sensation creeping up my spine.
How could I lay in bed sleeping when they buried him? How could I not wake to say my final good-bye? My heart is a monster. It destroys any semblance of happiness I crave. I should be content with nothing. I am not fit to love, or to be loved. I should be locked away and left to fade into oblivion.
The thing I’ve learned about heartbreaks is, seldom do they come without mind breaks. A piglet oinks in agreement around me.
I’m teetering close to a precipice. I’ll be launched to a place I can’t return from; I crack, and splinter… I cannot undo my descent.
“Let me go,” I murmur. After a few seconds of my mother’s close inspection, she releases me.
I lie still with my eyes closed. Tears spill, but I refuse to open my eyes to see the lie on their faces or her wretched expression. I can’t handle her sunken eyes and pale skin staring at me. Afraid for me. Afraid of me, maybe, too.
“Florida!” I scream. I crash my right hand into my skull as hard as I can. My body cascades to the left in a downward spiral.
Someone reaches out, and hands, both delicate and rough, encapsulate me. My eyes open. The hands are my mother’s and some hospital staff. I thrash and scratch at the skin on their faces. Why didn’t they wake me? Why did they allow me to sleep? I want to hurt them, too. I want everyone to feel the agony that crashes into me with the weight of an anvil to my skull. It hurts so bad I can’t take it all by myself. Pain is sharp and precise. It’s a dart that hits the bullseye every time.
“Get a sedative, quickly,” the doctor shouts. The nurse scrambles out the room. Still screaming, I watch the soles of her all-white shoes, laced with orange Jell-O, as she exits. It’s not fair others have to suffer, but I can’t control the frenzy inside me. It’s a living thing—growing, breathing, and it cannot be contained. Either they leave me alone or they feel it, too. That is until the nothing washes over me. It hasn’t happened yet. So for now…
I launch myself for the doctor in his pristine white lab coat, his gray slacks are too tight around his midsection…and that stethoscope. The cold stethoscope, like the one Dr. Anthis carries. I want to wrap it around his neck and choke him with it.
I fling my legs out and land a quick blow to his protruding gut. He grimaces and steps away from the bed, but is back at my side in record time. While my mother and a nurse each hold my hands, the doctor grabs both of my legs, rendering me immobile. I squirm and push my body forward. They don’t relent.
Finally, I stop moving, spent emotionally and physically. Except my heart smashes into my rib cage like a sailor trying to break free from the brig.
The nurse with the Jell-O-bottom shoes returns with the drugs. She removes the cover from the syringe and cleans the area with an alcohol swab. Slowly, she releases the drug into my veins.
I blink at the faces of those in the room. My muscles are strained and throbbing. The drug moves through my system, releasing the tension in my body, and my eyelids grow heavy within seconds. Even the crashing thoughts wisp away.
“I need sleep.”
An idea manifests itself… What if I have scars? Scars would justify the air pumping through me right now.
A short burst of elation bubbles through me—even as the drugs drag me down. I reach for my mother’s hand as she is about to turn. “Mirror?” I ask, a slur in my voice.
Her eyes widen and she glances at the nurse across from her pensively. “Okay.” She walks to the opposite side of the room and pulls the purple compact from her oversized bag. She takes an eternity to get back to my side.
I glance at my reflection as she holds the compact for me. The face looking back mocks me.
I shake my head. “No.”
“Sam,” my mother pleads. “It’s not bad at all, sweetheart.” I turn and face the window where the sun has hidden itself behind a large grey cloud. It’s obviously uncomfortable with the scene unfolding in the room.
“Please leave, Momma.” My words are garbled more.
My mother rubs her hands through my hair before she turns to exit. I glide a finger across the lone scar stretching from my ear to the corner of my lip on the right side of my face. My only scar. The only evidence I had been in an accident at all. It’s nearly healed, barely visible any longer.
The only other evidence is my fragmented heart and unreliable mind.
Chapter 6
My eyes flutter as something soft touches the tip of my nose. I brush my hand across my face to swipe it away. Another gentle shove to my cheek sends my eyes springing open. Voices converge around me and I jump, startled at their nearness.
What the Florida?
Fully awake, I conduct a quick inventory of my surroundings. I’m standing, not lying in a hospital bed anymore. I’m in a line; the line stretches out in front of me. I turn, and people are behind me as well. Not one face is familiar.
I glance left, then right to assess the actual location of the line. I’m outside. Enormous bald cypress, white firs, evergreens, and other trees I’m unable to identify are everywhere—on either side of the line. Like they’re shielding our view of something.
The other people in line are wearing their nightclothes. Had they all fallen asleep and awakened here as well? I glance to see what I wear. I’m in my hospital gown still. Except, I have on two—one covering the front and one covering the back. That’s convenient. I wear white high-top Jordans on my feet, and red knee-high compression socks crawl up my boney legs.
I step to the right, outside the line, to peer ahead. “I have no problem running you over to get in here. So you might not want to step out of line again,” the girl standing behind me says. I turn, roll my eyes at her, then turn back around.
“You’ll lose your place in line, and no one’s gonna let you cut, Milk Dud,” someone else yells, but I can’t tell who.
The girl behind me has beautiful enflamed hair and her nose is spotted with freckles. I only notice her freckles because she sniffles and wipes her nose with a wad of tissue she clutches. It takes me a minute to realize she’s crying.
I step back in line and ignore her whimpers. I don’t want to hear her sob story, whatever it is. I have enough issues of my own. Like how I fell asleep in a hospital room and woke here.
The line is at a standstill. This is bull-San Diego. Why the Houston am I standing in this line anyway?
I’m obviously dreaming. Right. Of course.
How do I wake myself? Come on, Sam, think. “Oh, right,” I say aloud. I ignore the giggles around me and close my eyes. With my eyes shut tight, I pinch the skin on my right hand, hard. I open my eyes and peer around.
The girl behind me sniffles and grunts.
“San Diego.” A few people snicker in my direction. Seems I’m putting on a Florida comedy show for these people. My head throbs. I massage it, but it doesn’t help. I manage to get a cramp in my right hand, though. “Florida.”
The person in front of me moves forward. I can’t tell if this person is female or male by the striped green pajamas they wear, and the short dark hair, but they don’t stop for a few seconds, shortening the line considerably.
The line leads to a woman in a booth.
The drugs from the hospital must have obliterated my logically functioning brain. I’m in a deep slumber. From the looks of this place, though, it’s not a nightmare. I glance at the enormous white clouds that litter the sky.
Perched on a cloud, a baby piglet waves back and forth. I turn around to ask the crybaby if she sees the piglet, but stop short. She’s blotting her eyes with a scrunc
hed gob of tissue while a line of something clear runs from her nose to her upper lip.
Don’t worry about it. I’ll wait this ridiculousness out. I clasp my hands behind my back as the line dwindles until my turn arrives. A game of one-on-one is being played out in my belly as I stumble to the all-white booth.
What the Houston am I supposed to say to this woman?
A petite, middle-aged woman with large eyes and dark hair sits behind a giant desk strewn with papers. She’s chewing gum and popping it so loud it sounds like she’s got a mouth full of Pop Rocks.
I glance at Crybaby to ask if I’m supposed to talk to Booth Lady. Crybaby is dabbing the same wad of balled tissue to her nose. I roll my eyes and take my chances with the gum smacker.
I step to the chest-height counter. The gum smacker leafs through a stack of colorful papers as I approach.
“Okay, Milk Dud… what’d ya lose?” The woman behind the booth inquires, not looking at me. She has a strong East Coast accent, like New York or New Jersey.
“Milk Dud?”
“Yes. Milk Dud. What’d you lose?”
“What… I’ve lost,” I repeat, scratching the side of my face.
She pulls her attention away from the paper. Her crystal blue eyes stare daggers at my head. “Ya can’t stay if you ain’t lost somethin.” I’m more confused by her words. “Did ya lose a sock?” She takes a deep breath and rolls her fake eyelashes to the sky. “We got a ton o’ socks hangin’ out around here all day, waitin’ to be claimed.”
I exhale deeply, trying to understand why I’m here and why my brain won’t snap out of this moronic dream.
I close my eyes as a wave of irritation peeks from beneath my calm exterior.
A small voice near me says, “Hey Sammie, remember me?” I open my eyes and turn toward the voice, hopeful I’ll understand why I’m here and maybe wake up. I glance around. No one takes credit for saying anything. The gum smacker sucks her teeth and grimaces.
“Down here. Remember me… we were close. Remember? You named me Pinky.” A lime-green and hot-pink polka-dot sock stands—with the aid of no one—in front of me. It has no visible eyes or ears. There’s no string hanging, and no one is moving their lips for it… What the Houston? This sock spoke to me—using my name.
