Forget-me-not

Cynthia

The world was bright and dazzling. Colors sparkled and danced together. They swirled and twinkled. Voices faded in and faded out; soft murmurs that she couldn't quite understand. It reminded her of being underwater when she was a child. 

Beneath the translucent depths, when her silky hair fanned above her head like a halo, everything was muted. The sun still burnt her eyes beneath the water when she glanced up. The warm rays penetrated the pool and made the water uncomfortably warm in the summer. The thought of being refreshed in the cool chlorine shattered upon cannonball impact. 

A soft beeping constantly beeped in the background. Some of the voices were soft while others seemed gruff. When the colors faded away, there was nothing. Copious amounts of time passed loosely. They slipped between her fingers like sand and none of it made sense. 

A sharp stinging smell cut through the air. Soft squeaks from the rubber treads of shoes. The empty echo of silence. Everything was alive and then it wasn't. Right when she thought she was on the edge of grasping the reality of the situation, it slipped just out of reach again. A never ending and exhausting process with no end in sight. 

A female nurse flipped through the forest green wallet hoping to find someone to contact for the woman. She pulled out business cards that had been homed there for ages. A sigh fell from her lips as she continued searching. 

"God, give me something," she mumbled beneath her breath. Her fingers continued digging through all the nooks and crannies. It pained her to see anyone alone in the hospital. Hospitals were never meant for the lonely. 

With surgeries and stitches, tubes and bed rest, patience and a minimum amount of things to entertain you, she wouldn't wish it on her worst enemies. She knew how exhausted and terrifying these situations could be with family and friends, let alone, without them. 

When her fingers brushed against another piece of paper, she slowly pulled it out. A manicured finger brushed over another as she opened the folded paper. Her face lit up when her eyes read the two names with phone numbers following them. 

Not going back to the nurse's station, she bound over to the leather backed seat beside the bed and sat down. She spoke softly to Cynthia once more. "I found a piece of paper in your wallet. I think these two people mean something to you. I'm going to call them for you and try to get them here, so you're not alone." 

Her eyes stared longing at the woman on the bed. Her chestnut hair fell down her back behind her shoulders. A pale gray blanket was pulled up over her lap. She laid on her back with her hands limp at her sides. 

The nurse searched her face hoping for some sort of reaction, but none came. Cynthia's face remained frozen in the same features she came in with. Closed eyes with short dark lashes. A thin cupid's bow pressed together. Thin rounded darkened eyebrows. 

They had to find out her eyes were green from her identification card. Without it, she would have been considered a Jane Doe. Her chest moved up and down rhythmically while she breathed. Beside her, an IV hung connected to her arm where anticoagulant medication dripped and flowed into a vein. 

When paramedics arrived on the scene, it wasn't hard to put the pieces together. A car with a broken windshield didn't sit far from where Cynthia laid unconscious on her back. Her hands were bleeding and speckled with bits of broken glass. A few shards lay lodged into her forehead. Some stuck to her hair. The blunt force trauma to her head caused a blood clot to form in her brain. 

The nurse spoke to her again. "We're going to find someone for you. I'm going to find someone for you, I swear. I'll find your people and reunite you with them again." She pushed herself up from the chair. 

With a final lingering look, she walked out of the room and left Cynthia alone. Besides the sound of beeps, Cynthia's soft breathing filled the air. Nothing good comes from being ejected through the windshield of your car. She was weightless until it all came crashing down. 

Her limbs flailed and she hit the ground hard. The beginning stages of bruises were beginning to tarnish her skin. Before she was changed into a hospital gown, grass stained her jeans and the cold helped drop her temperature. The colder temperatures and the blunt force impact was enough to make her world go dark. 

The earth stopped tilting on its axis. The snow stopped falling. Just like her car, everything came to a screeching halt.