Freedom of Sketch

Living

On Day Three, I emerge from the ashes.

The air clings to my unwashed skin like plastic wrap. I swallow hard, still feeling a lingering lump of hysteria collected in the back of my throat. My legs tremble uncontrollably. I hold one hand on the wall to steady myself. Something ethereal sweeps across the back of my neck, and I turn to see an empty hallway. I belong here, I decide.

I slowly follow the sounds of stale conversations and the lingering smell of breakfast. My route carries me past the employee bathroom. I hesitate and test the door handle. It's locked. I've never felt like this before. I scan the ceiling and imagine hanging myself with strips of shredded sheets, then glance at my left hand. If I try hard enough, I can open my wrist with a sharpened piece of plastic from a utensil.

Daniel's fractured image fades into my head. He guides me to his hazy gray hospital room in the Real World. I gently touch the rectangles of white tape holding a tube in his arm, and lean over to put my head on his chest and listen to his heart beating behind the purr of blood in his lungs. A respirator forces air down his throat through a corrugated blue pipe. I comb my fingers through his remaining hair and avoid touching the staples curving like train tracks down the left half of his skull. Despite Daniel's swollen eyelids and the blush of bruises on his cheekbones, I think he is beautiful.

He evaporates, leaving me alone in my own prison. I rest my eyes on my feet. I don't look at the ceiling again.

***

 The first person I see is Tori. Her face lights up when I enter her view, and she hurries to my side to give me a quick hug. Her silky hair smells like citrus. "I missed you!" she exclaims.

"Missed you, too," I croak. It's difficult to assemble words into sentences and even more challenging to speak them, for my mind and throat are both atrophied from lack of use. "What time is it?"

Tori checks her watch. "A little after ten. Do you want me to get you a snack or something to hold you over until lunch?"

We reach the patient phones and the potted ferns standing guard between them. "That would be nice," I say, tracing my finger along the curl of one frond.

I sink into a chair in the sunniest corner of the cafeteria. The square of light holds me still in its warm embrace. I stroke the tabletop, feeling the constellation of chips and imperfections in the paint. I'm glad I haven't forgotten how to feel anything but self-induced numbness.

Tori emerges from the kitchen with an armful of snacks, which she piles high in front of me. "I didn't really know what you felt like eating," she says, "so I got you a little of everything." 

I manage a tiny smile. "Wow, thanks." I reach for a packet of graham crackers and peanut butter.
Tori plops down in the seat across from mine and plays with her hair, letting it down, combing through it with her fingers, then tying it up in a ponytail again. "What made you decide to get up?" she asks.

I take a sip of milk. It soothes my dry throat, so talking isn't such a big endeavor anymore. "I dreamed about Daniel pretty much the whole time I slept," I reply. "He seemed so real, like our souls were connected in a different dimension."

Tori adjusts her position and leans against the table, tilting her head in interest.

I lick my finger and collect some graham cracker crumbs from the tabletop. "I know it sounds crazy, but that's okay. He helped me realize that I wasn't living. I was only existing, and that wasn't good enough for him."

"That sounds like a pretty moving experience," the tech muses.

I nod. "It definitely was. He quoted The Shawshank Redemption: 'get busy living, or get busy dying'. I was busy dying."

"That's a great quote."

I stare out the window at a pair of squirrels chasing each other in circles around a tree trunk. I wonder what it's like to be in a coma. Is it a world of infinite blackness? Do you get to see God, or is that only when you die? Do you feel nothing... or everything?

Tori taps my wrist. "Shiloh, you there?"

"I'm here," my lips say.

The girl nudges me. "Are you really?"

I look at her and blink a few times. "Sorry." I clear my throat. "Just looking at squirrels." A hush settles upon the room like new snowfall. I can't even hear us breathing.

Goal for the day: Get busy living.