Undercurrent Haze

Prelude 2

I felt an excruciating pain in my body. On a level it was unbearable. I only heard the sound of a fan overhead and a sound of static from some sort of a machine near my head. Nearby I could hear a little chirping of the morning nestlings and for a change, the repelling stench of the place I was in changed into the smell of lavender freshly picked from the garden and this time I was not faced with the adverse challenge of trying to open my own eyes but that was something that happened on reflex.

I opened my eyes to see a pale ceiling. I wanted to chuckle to myself for even thinking that I would be greeted with otherwise the blue sky for the instance. The whole room was lit with early morning rays that seemed to be coming through the windows most probably located behind me. I turned my eyes and just as I registered there was a monitor along with a few other machines and I was not stupid to not see right through the smell of discarded medical materials... I was in the hospital. More like, on a bed, in a hospital cabin with some definite serious injury... that I cannot seem to remember.

As it is moving my body is an undesirable test to me at this moment but also the fact that my throat felt inexpiably dry and made it impossible for me to call out for any other living soul other than me. My head was very uncomfortably placed on a bed with a pillow that is almost flat. I knew I was not paralysed when I was able to move my fingers and the machine near me detected the change in me due to the anxious fidgeting and created an obnoxious sound which caused, well much to my pleasure, people coming in to aid me.

I opened my mouth to ask for water but I choked on air at the dryness of the throat. Slowly the bed where I had been laying for so long started up and the upper part rose to make me sit up in an almost sitting position with all sorts of support around me.

These nurses, I believe who appeared in blue uniforms, did not need to be told twice and one of them held a glass of water near my lips. I never thought that water could taste so good but I believe the water I was made to have was more of food of life than mere water, and this is no exaggeration. I did not even realise that I was this thirty.

The barbed twitching in my limbs calmed down and I saw the women note in a few data that the obtained and scurried away in a rush except for one of them- a woman probably in her early forties, short and smart, auburn hair tied neatly into a cute bun and a distinctive mark in her attitude that shows finality who took time to organise everything around me along with a plate of cut fruits from the table that made very little sense to me as to its presence there if it was not for a visitor... a visitor? The person even brought a basket of fruits and a bunch of lavender flowers placed neatly on a vase on the bedside table. To be honest, it is extremely thoughtful but something heavy and cold set upon my insides when I got a glimpse of those little petals on the table.

Who would come to see me? Who do I have? Family... why cannot I remember anyone or anything... a gyre started closing in and I was in the bottom of that when the beeping in the machine started and I did not quite know what it was that stressed me.

The nurse in front put the glass of water aside while some others tended to other parts of either the machine or the bed. The pretty nurse with blue eyes held a bit of sympathy for me. The colour reminded me of the convergence of the ocean with the sky... something very vaguely familiar when the woman gave me a tight-lipped smile that created little fine lines beside her eyes... the strange sense of familiarity washes over me but still, I could not seem to place this anywhere... I just cannot seem to remember... remember anything... something flashed back and forth in front of my eyes and things started to look back but nothing appeared constructive enough to answer questions... nothing that I understood... nothing that I remember...

Remember...
Remember...

"What though the field be lost?
All is not lost: the unconquerable will,
And study of revenge, immortal hate,
And courage never to submit or yield."
~John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book I

There was water all around me, it was dark, too many voices overhead... and just as these started to appear, it disappeared soon after. I jerked up with a start snapping back into the present and saw faces looking at me with concern. The blue-eyed nurse came with a soft small face towel and patted on my face with it most possibly trying to get rid of the perspiration. I gulped being at a loss of words and at a loss of question as to what I may be here for.

I finally saw the entire room for the first time. It felt as if the blood on my head had finally settled and the breathing took a normal pace when I was made to sit up with support. But what I see in front of me is not pleasant... to be honest; it is quite far from pleasant actually.

Physically, I am plastered and one look would say that I am mummified alive. But not only that, I hardly felt any sort of pain for this instant. I am out of sorts when I thought perhaps, just perhaps, the rest of my body is paralysed but I was saved of this misery when I could move the free toes on my plastered leg and creped arm.

Hand over heart, not to be surprised but I am in a hospital for starters.