Decipher | Watty's 2017

LXII. Quandary

Quandary

/ˈkwänd(ə)rē/

noun

a state of perplexity or uncertainty over what to do in a difficult situation

There are certain moments in life that make you think of all of the bad things in your life. They make you rethink the last thing you said to your significant other or they make you rethink your morals in life. Either way, they cause you to reflect on the majority of your life and usually they happen during the times when you can't do anything about it.

These moments always seem to happen when the body thinks it is dying. The body senses deterioration and it signals this to the brain who, in turn, causes you to reflect on the good or bad things in life. This is where we get the phrase 'my life flashed before my eyes.'

The brain's effect on our subconscious is to take us through these moments right before our death, slowing it down and allowing us to relive it before we are gone; however, sometimes the body messes up.

Sometimes the body thinks that it cannot take more but it really is able to. Sometimes the body rushes to this assumption too fast and the memories replay for someone who is not dying, causing the person to receive severe mental trauma. Sometimes the replaying of the memories sends the body into a state of shock and allows it to release less blood than expected in an injury. Sometimes the body has a heart attack from the shock and the person passes before the memories finish.

Although everyone likes to believe that the human body works perfectly, it doesn't, which is why tragedies happen.

The lights of the emergency tent never ceased to amaze me at how bright they were as I opened my eyes for the first time since blacking out in the snow and seeing the entirety of my life being relived in front of me. Swarms of nurses were in the room, taking my vitals and setting up IV fluids; however, it took the glance of my boyfriend to notice that I had woken from the haze I was in after regaining consciousness.

My eyes observed his broad frame walking between nurses to sit at my bedside, gripping my hand in his as he placed a kiss softly on the upper side.

"We have got to stop meeting in here," he whispered, tears spilling through the ducts of his eyes. I laughed slightly, nodding my head in agreement as the doctor walked through the door finally.

"Good to have you back Melissa," he smiled warmly as I nodded back at him. His eyes scanned my chart quickly before looking up at me with wary eyes and returning them back to the file once more. This process repeated until I was sure that he was either going crazy or extremely confused.

"Is something wrong?" I asked the doctor, finding his stare oddly confusing and off putting.

"Have you been getting enough sleep?" he asked, genuinely concerned, which caused Luke's eyes to dart from my face, where they had been the entire time, over to the doctors, fear covering the entire orb.

"She has been waking up in the middle of the night, why is something wrong?" Luke's voice asked warily, taking in the doctor's concerned face.

No matter how many times I had seen the medical staff in my year here, year and a half if you count when I was being held by the White Coats, their quizzical looks always scared me.

"The fainting spell," he began, "it was caused by a massive shock wave running through your body."

Luke's eyes knitted together as we both looked at the doctor, expecting some obvious answer to permit from his mouth. "What does that mean?" I asked softly, not wanting to disturb Luke's state as he seemed very distraught over the thoughts looming in his mind.