(This story is presented by me, Erix Summerdown.)
Previous Page: Begins
Next Page: Grieving
"She's awake."
I hear murmured voices around me. They are familiar but only that, I can't place names to them yet.
One is of a boy, young and positive, easily amazed by the world. I feel his excitement is directed
toward me. The other is a stranger. older, experienced, very calm and deliberate. He explains a lot
to the younger person, but it is just a droning noise to me.
Listening to the boyish voice, I know little things about the person behind it. I can recall a name,
a part of one. I try to say it, slowly reading out its parts as if it were an important line in a
poem.
"J-... Jay. ...Jay...son."
He is staring intently at me now. I struggle to open my eyes and stare back.
He is a beautiful boy, with a head of full and dark matted hair, and eyes a piercing green. He smiles
bright. He speaks but it is still too muffled for me to understand most of it, 'glad you're ok,' he
basically says. I nod slowly.
I try to think of what I was doing before... waking up in this place: a hospital from the looks of
it, with drab grey walls and polished floors, and a hulk of equipment respiring beside my bed - the bed
is lent forward and has shiny metal arm-rests.
"...I'm, so tired. ..." I croak. I'm really exhausted, from what, remains a mystery. My memory is a mess
of random words and pictures, I can't think of what I was doing before waking here.
"Just rest easy, Mom," I hear Jason say, "You'll be ok."
Mom he calls me, and images in my head click together, like shredded photographs being taped
back together. The young man, Jason, is an earnest young man, quiet and well-adjusted. I know he's a
clever one, he knows a lot of ways into and out of trouble. I remember little things about him; his
favorite animals, colors, movies, hobbies - I know he's just crazy about stargazing; I remember one
or two friends he's made in school, empty teachers' names he would begrudge when he came home, his...
His... Sister. He has a twin sister almost like him, they are twins only in name - they competed a lot
when they were younger, and still try so hard to be different. Why isn't... she... here?
I can't stay awake, I try to blink and my eyes stay closed. Jason and the man continue talking, now
just a muttering sound as I try to wake up again.
When I do wake up, it is just the doctor-sounding man in the room, he steps forward.
He is a shade older than I am, slivered, leather-like skin, wearing a white coat and thin-rimmed glasses.
He carries himself as an experienced man, seeming to have years, if not decades, of research in
whichever end of medical practice I need. ...But what is it?..
"Good morning, Ms. Plainsfield. You seem to be recovering much better than expected."
"Uh... I'm ok." I answer him. I lean forward, the first time I could since waking up. "And it's
Elizabeth by the way."
"Ah, well Elizabeth, if you're feeling up to it I would like to preform a few quick tests, see if
everything is in working order."
Now that I can see the room more clearly, I pause to, taking in the stark, mechanical layout of it.
This is a private room, high-end, I've never seen a room like this in my life. On the far-end of the room
is a grand television, and posh seats on the wall opposite. The mass of machines beside me is a
wonder of medical science - in that I wonder what the heck it has to do with either - one monitor
blinks with numbers and meters, it sits on top three rectangle boxes with a mess of knobs and sliders.
Not that I've seen a lot of EKGs or VISs before, but I have no idea what this machine's purpose is
whatsoever.
"...Elizabeth?"
"Oh, sorry. Go on Doctor, ..."
"Smart, Neropathist Wilson Smart," he answers. I stir the name in my mind, but nothing comes up. He is
a stranger to me. He pulls a folding chair up to the feet of my bed, and rests a clipboard in his arm.
"Ok, let's start with a few questions. Are you in any pain, any sort of distress or anxiety right now? Anything like that?"
"No, I don't think so."
He makes an interested nod, he seems like a good doctor - Good as in he cares a great deal of his patients,
or me at least.
"Do you remember what year this is?" he continues. I struggle to answer - thinking about years sends me.
down a vein of memory, filled with sunny days and blurry calanders. Dates and times are a fuzz in my mind,
events and birthdays a mess of nonsense words and numbers.
"Mmmm... the year is, ...twenty-one..."
The first two digits are easy to remember - For years we all must glance at some date, observe some year.
passing. Of course those higher numbers would stay the same for awhile. But it takes some work to retrace
the last two. It's on the tip of my tongue.
"...thirty... five. The year is... 2135."
"Very good," he says. I celebrate inward this simple act of recall.
"Now, I need to check your arm very quick." The doctor asks. I offer it right away.
He is tentative as he nears it, careful and deliberate. He studies it vein and artery, for a thousand
different reasons and possible symptoms. He presses his thumbs down, as if checking by feel alone.
I wait for a needle but he takes his hands away.
"That's fine," he says to himself. I take back my arm and look at it myself, fleetingly.
"Now, I'm going to ask some sensitive questions, if you are willing to answer them right now."
I start to wonder just what kind of doctor asks politely before asking "sensitive" questions - my
experience, they are very straightforward: telling news or diagnosis without missing a beat. I almost
turn him away, as these activities somehow exhausted me, and I could just answer him later.
But from the sounds of it, he could be trying to jog a memory from my mind. I think about it, and decide
that I needed to know what he knew or thinks he knows, maybe how I ended up here. "Ok. Go on, doctor."
"what do you remember about, the accident?"
Accident? I remember something, split-seconds and sensations, I shudder.
I was driving down a highway - one I usually take to work... if I could remember what that was - and
somewhere there was... another car. The rest of the road and those driving down it were just grey mist,
this car ahead was the only one I could see clearly: pale red, low to the ground. It was thin - it could
probably carry only two people - tinted, and bright. It seemed new, and the driver young. I imagine he
might have gotten it as a gift.
I start to mutter what I remember best. "I remember a... red car, ...lost control in its lane, it came
across mine, sideways."
I think I braced for impact, there was no time to react, not even to turn the wheel either way.
"I remember... remember the crash. I... I didn't stop, just... slid." The shock of the hit was incredible,
but I didn't stop moving. It felt like I was drifting down a hill, forward. I can't conceive how far I
went, the two of our cars lumped together like that.
"I... I..." Everything from there isn't blank, but it is very feint. I recall no sound, but sunspots of
a vision. And I know one thought, two words, with an awful certainty. My heart slumps as I repeat it,
"...I, died."
...
The doctor, after staying silent, clears his throat and begins to speak again.
"...May I ask you, ...what did you see after that?"
"...After what?"
...
"...After you died."
Previous Page: Begins
Next Page: Grieving
"She's awake."
I hear murmured voices around me. They are familiar but only that, I can't place names to them yet.
One is of a boy, young and positive, easily amazed by the world. I feel his excitement is directed
toward me. The other is a stranger. older, experienced, very calm and deliberate. He explains a lot
to the younger person, but it is just a droning noise to me.
Listening to the boyish voice, I know little things about the person behind it. I can recall a name,
a part of one. I try to say it, slowly reading out its parts as if it were an important line in a
poem.
"J-... Jay. ...Jay...son."
He is staring intently at me now. I struggle to open my eyes and stare back.
He is a beautiful boy, with a head of full and dark matted hair, and eyes a piercing green. He smiles
bright. He speaks but it is still too muffled for me to understand most of it, 'glad you're ok,' he
basically says. I nod slowly.
I try to think of what I was doing before... waking up in this place: a hospital from the looks of
it, with drab grey walls and polished floors, and a hulk of equipment respiring beside my bed - the bed
is lent forward and has shiny metal arm-rests.
"...I'm, so tired. ..." I croak. I'm really exhausted, from what, remains a mystery. My memory is a mess
of random words and pictures, I can't think of what I was doing before waking here.
"Just rest easy, Mom," I hear Jason say, "You'll be ok."
Mom he calls me, and images in my head click together, like shredded photographs being taped
back together. The young man, Jason, is an earnest young man, quiet and well-adjusted. I know he's a
clever one, he knows a lot of ways into and out of trouble. I remember little things about him; his
favorite animals, colors, movies, hobbies - I know he's just crazy about stargazing; I remember one
or two friends he's made in school, empty teachers' names he would begrudge when he came home, his...
His... Sister. He has a twin sister almost like him, they are twins only in name - they competed a lot
when they were younger, and still try so hard to be different. Why isn't... she... here?
I can't stay awake, I try to blink and my eyes stay closed. Jason and the man continue talking, now
just a muttering sound as I try to wake up again.
When I do wake up, it is just the doctor-sounding man in the room, he steps forward.
He is a shade older than I am, slivered, leather-like skin, wearing a white coat and thin-rimmed glasses.
He carries himself as an experienced man, seeming to have years, if not decades, of research in
whichever end of medical practice I need. ...But what is it?..
"Good morning, Ms. Plainsfield. You seem to be recovering much better than expected."
"Uh... I'm ok." I answer him. I lean forward, the first time I could since waking up. "And it's
Elizabeth by the way."
"Ah, well Elizabeth, if you're feeling up to it I would like to preform a few quick tests, see if
everything is in working order."
Now that I can see the room more clearly, I pause to, taking in the stark, mechanical layout of it.
This is a private room, high-end, I've never seen a room like this in my life. On the far-end of the room
is a grand television, and posh seats on the wall opposite. The mass of machines beside me is a
wonder of medical science - in that I wonder what the heck it has to do with either - one monitor
blinks with numbers and meters, it sits on top three rectangle boxes with a mess of knobs and sliders.
Not that I've seen a lot of EKGs or VISs before, but I have no idea what this machine's purpose is
whatsoever.
"...Elizabeth?"
"Oh, sorry. Go on Doctor, ..."
"Smart, Neropathist Wilson Smart," he answers. I stir the name in my mind, but nothing comes up. He is
a stranger to me. He pulls a folding chair up to the feet of my bed, and rests a clipboard in his arm.
"Ok, let's start with a few questions. Are you in any pain, any sort of distress or anxiety right now? Anything like that?"
"No, I don't think so."
He makes an interested nod, he seems like a good doctor - Good as in he cares a great deal of his patients,
or me at least.
"Do you remember what year this is?" he continues. I struggle to answer - thinking about years sends me.
down a vein of memory, filled with sunny days and blurry calanders. Dates and times are a fuzz in my mind,
events and birthdays a mess of nonsense words and numbers.
"Mmmm... the year is, ...twenty-one..."
The first two digits are easy to remember - For years we all must glance at some date, observe some year.
passing. Of course those higher numbers would stay the same for awhile. But it takes some work to retrace
the last two. It's on the tip of my tongue.
"...thirty... five. The year is... 2135."
"Very good," he says. I celebrate inward this simple act of recall.
"Now, I need to check your arm very quick." The doctor asks. I offer it right away.
He is tentative as he nears it, careful and deliberate. He studies it vein and artery, for a thousand
different reasons and possible symptoms. He presses his thumbs down, as if checking by feel alone.
I wait for a needle but he takes his hands away.
"That's fine," he says to himself. I take back my arm and look at it myself, fleetingly.
"Now, I'm going to ask some sensitive questions, if you are willing to answer them right now."
I start to wonder just what kind of doctor asks politely before asking "sensitive" questions - my
experience, they are very straightforward: telling news or diagnosis without missing a beat. I almost
turn him away, as these activities somehow exhausted me, and I could just answer him later.
But from the sounds of it, he could be trying to jog a memory from my mind. I think about it, and decide
that I needed to know what he knew or thinks he knows, maybe how I ended up here. "Ok. Go on, doctor."
"what do you remember about, the accident?"
Accident? I remember something, split-seconds and sensations, I shudder.
I was driving down a highway - one I usually take to work... if I could remember what that was - and
somewhere there was... another car. The rest of the road and those driving down it were just grey mist,
this car ahead was the only one I could see clearly: pale red, low to the ground. It was thin - it could
probably carry only two people - tinted, and bright. It seemed new, and the driver young. I imagine he
might have gotten it as a gift.
I start to mutter what I remember best. "I remember a... red car, ...lost control in its lane, it came
across mine, sideways."
I think I braced for impact, there was no time to react, not even to turn the wheel either way.
"I remember... remember the crash. I... I didn't stop, just... slid." The shock of the hit was incredible,
but I didn't stop moving. It felt like I was drifting down a hill, forward. I can't conceive how far I
went, the two of our cars lumped together like that.
"I... I..." Everything from there isn't blank, but it is very feint. I recall no sound, but sunspots of
a vision. And I know one thought, two words, with an awful certainty. My heart slumps as I repeat it,
"...I, died."
...
The doctor, after staying silent, clears his throat and begins to speak again.
"...May I ask you, ...what did you see after that?"
"...After what?"
...
"...After you died."
