This is the second part to my writing contest entry. If you didn’t read yesterday’s post, start there. Thanks!
There’s a sauna-like breath painting a feathery waterfall over my ear, and the hot air trickles into my ear canal. A rogue earwig burrowing. My hand suctions and hammers at my ear. A dynamite implosion sends heated explosions down my neck as my flailing legs squeak against the floor. Colliding with the nightstand, the bedside lamp wobbles and falls. With only sound as sensation, the shattering glass is the least of my worries.
It’s back, I say to myself knowingly. Like a finger rushing along a maze, I read the signs to the finish. Broken glass, fire, her breath.
I gain consciousness in the sterile, fluorescent glow, the medicinal smell. The beeping, in time with my heart, quickens as if someone turned up a dial. I’m safe, I think, seeing myself in the blue-and-white patterned paper hospital gown, my bare, slightly-too-long toenails, the metal handles at my sides, the doctor’s notes on the whiteboard.
A long blink plays a shadowy image. Me on the floor in the dark, kicking into the wall, the tiny shards of glass piercing my side, the warm milk-drip sensation in my ear.
Rushing my eyes open, I reenter the room—to the beep, to the inch-long hair on my big toe. It’s all real. Eyes open or closed, it’s all now. The beeps increase, and hearing them increase makes them spike higher. It’s a spinning, frenzied feedback loop I react to. I can no longer lie in this bed—I must go. The desire to sit up, the urge, the first synaptic firing of intention is everything. The clicking of a starter—endless clicking without catching, stuck, suspended, not starting. This is what I am. Willpower without power. Stranded. Paralyzed.
I scream. I shove. I struggle into a vacuumed void. Voices surround me, white-coated, pale-faced, stone-eyed, stethoscopes dangling, gloves snapping. Stop! Please. I’m awake. The thoughts tear through my mind, shrieking like paper cuts ripping across my eyes. My eyes—they shouldn’t be open, can’t be open. This is a terrible mistake.
The voice is hot as iron in my ear, and it’s not the wind. Death’s relief will not be yours. In between this place and that, you will remain.
The sound that follows is a whirring—a blend of air and machine. It’s too familiar. Overhead, the doctor’s gloved hands hold the device. The smell of fumes: gasoline burning, exhaust smoking up the air. The small silver item he grips, no bigger than a tattoo artist’s gun, ends in a horizontal bar with a toothed edge that buzzes rapidly back and forth.
A gloved hand pulls the tie at my neck free, then the one at my side. My gown falls open, and where there was once a scar, now—tiny cuts, like bloody shooting stars, form a constellation across my front and sides.
Dark. It’s so dark. My legs—I can move them, and I do. I move my hands underneath me, the stinging glass digs in, and I’m up. I head in the direction of the door, feeling the textured wall for the switch. Then there’s reduced friction, it’s slippery and smooth, and I run my fingers over it. To my nose I bring my hand, and the smell of gas.
My eyes are open. Flanking me on both sides are three white-clothed and masked bodies. Dark and light red spray drips from their masks, their elbows, and chests. The voice, deep within me, is the conductor that taps their podium: Attention. Focus. Listen, and listen only to me.
This is my favorite part, it says. The entry point.
I wake up. To the gas. I wake up to the bulging eyes and the ripping of my skin, bone, insides. I find the switch, and it flicks up, like a tongue. The hope to wake only resumes the nightmare. The will to escape only awakens it—once again.
And again.
And again.
Going On 40 