Ice
January eleventh
I was looking up at the ceiling as they wheeled my bed down to
the MRI. I tried to get them to take me to the CT instead so that
I could leave my ring on, but they told me that the best way to
get a picture so I could leave was through the MRI. I had also
got a call from my mother, she was at the airport in Dallas, TX
and was going to be here late tonight and be in the hospital the
first thing in the morning. Honestly, I was dreading their
arrival. My head has been pounding all day and my mother’s
nasally voice and my dad’s sport’s center blasting
from the TV. Plus my mother doesn’t leave me alone when
she’s with me. I don’t want to talk about it.
They put me into the giant machine and told me I couldn’t
move. I tried not to think of how the space was getting tighter
and tighter each second I was in there. Or how it was crushing my
lungs and that I couldn’t breathe. I tried to close my eyes
and forget about it but every time I close my eyes I see his
eyes. Not before long I couldn’t handle it any longer. I
couldn’t help but scream. It was suffocating me, sucking my
life out. If I had stayed in there for a second longer I would
end up like them.
They pushed the button to get me out by the machine just
wasn’t fast enough. It moved like molasses. When it had
come to a halt they inserted liquid into my IV, making my world
black again.
I woke up when I was being pushed down the hallway in my bed
again. I didn’t know whether they just didn’t give me
a lot of the tranquilizer this time or whether my body was
getting immune from how my they have been giving me. I was still
in shock but I was still seeing his eyes whenever I shut mine.
The numbness was still there, surrounding me, making the edges of
my body and mine fuzzy, almost as if I was just a ghost or
didn’t exist at all. Would it been better if I had died in
the accident? I didn’t really believe in an afterlife but
any chance that I might be with them again. They were my real
family.
When I had gotten back into my room there was a lady I
didn’t know sitting next to were my bed was going to go.
She had my ring in her hand, touching it with her fingers,
degrading the intensity of it and what it stands for. She had no
right to have her fingers on my ring. When I had gotten back next
to her I took it face from her and replaced it to where it
belonged, on my finger. I didn’t say anything to her at
first just looked. She was introduced to me as a hospital
councilor.
“I don’t want to talk to you,” I glared,
debating on whether or not I should spit in her face.
“This is going to be hard, you are going to need someone to
talk to,” she waited for me to answer her or nod, or make
any response, but I wasn’t going to give her any of the
satisfaction of that. If she wanted to talk then she could, that
doesn’t mean I had to respond, “We don’t have
to talk about anything heavy right away, let’s keep it
lite.”
“Don’t you understand nothing is lite anymore? They
were my family. I loved him and he’s gone,” I could
tell that I had left her speechless. She was probably new at her
job, a newbie put on the bad case for experience. No job
experience, no husband, and no family. She had never done this
before and didn’t know how to help me.
“This isn’t the end of you. You survived. You have a
heartbeat and are breathing. If you have those two things, you
have a world of possibilities and a chance. With them you can do
anything and it will get better.”
“I don’t care if my heart if beating. If he is not
breathing I don’t matter, I’m not breathing,” I
closed my eyes and tried to keep myself in the room with her and
not giving in to the numbness completely. It would be perfect to
just give in and not feel, but that’s not would they
would’ve wanted me to do, but I am not going to tell the
stranger this. She has no right to know my business.
“Here, I am going to give you this,” she said handing
me an empty moleskin note book, “Write in it, your
feelings, poems, songs, letters, I don’t care. You are
going to need somebody to talk to, even if you don’t talk
to anybody about it. I am not going to read it I’m not even
going to look at it.”
I took the notebook even though it was a ridiculous notion. I
thought that it would have been nice to have somebody to talk to.
I don’t know how she knew that I wrote songs though. Maybe
the newspaper for a concert or a benefit she stopped in at, I
have done a lot of those in the past fifteen years as a pianist.
I wondered if I could get my mother to bring my keyboard. I was
sure that the distinct hum of the keys would make the throbbing
in my head stop and the numbness lessen.
As I was thinking this the doctor came in to talk about my brain
scans. He said that the hemorrhage had not started up again and
this was a good sign but we were not sure yet. He said that we
would keep monitoring it. So I would have to go back into the
death trap machine. He said that I was probably weak on one side
of my body and my legs, I wouldn’t have known because I
haven’t really moved. My speech might have been affected
also. I would also need some facial reconstruction to fix the
broken nose and cheek bone. The scars would need more surgery to
get rid of but I was thinking of not doing it, I could always
cover them with makeup. I asked him about my keyboard and he
thought it might help me.
