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Life in the Comatorium
Me having a happy dream seemed nice but awkward. The only problem was that I didn't remember it well... or right now, at all.
I shuffled the sheets, took my hand, moved it around. I grabbed a handful of nothing and dozed off again. About an hour later, I woke up. The sheets were white. I don't remember changing from the normal black sheets I had. In fact, I usually use that pair for four months, wash it, and use the same ones. That was more awkward than the dream.
What did I do yesterday? I don't remember going to sleep, in fact, I don't remember this whole week.
"My God..." I murmured. It amused me that I remembered M_____ (one of my theater buddies) saying "Hey, It's my God too!" to a freshman table for someone who blandly blurted that phrase out loud.
Where did I remember that from? I don't know... It seemed so close but far away. Probably it was in that dream...
The clock nagged on. Seemed like it kept on going off but I couldn't stop it. Just a constant beep in the background. I wished it would stop, until I fell asleep again. I opened my eyes, I saw black, I shut. "A____..." I heard as I woke up. The beeping was gone, thank God.
I finally raised myself off of my "white-sheeted" bed. As I put my feet to the ground, it occurred to me I felt nice. Well, for better description, I'd have to say I felt light.
Everything looked white-ish. There was no shadows and everything radiated from the sunlight. I looked back at the wall where my bed was. It was gone, the bed and some of the ceiling too. Some side walls also. It seemed to to look like my room was cut like a wedge.
I watched the sun. It was the source of the pure white light. The sky was total white with no impurities. As I started observing everything (which was basically nothing) the sun began to blend into the sky, showing as if that it was not a light source.
Wait... was there even a sun?
There was nothing outside except the light. No ground, nothing. It was kind of engulfing. So, it wasn't a mystery why I became scared. The fear sparked quick too.
I turned to make sure i was still in my original position, sitting on my white carpet.
As fear predicted, the room flew away leaving me in this blinding light. I ran towards it, knowing I wouldn't catch it.
I turned to the light and screamed at the top of my lungs towards it out of anger! My safe place, gone. With my hands pulling my hair, I screamed more and more.
I was falling into darkness. Tears were flying up from me because of upward windage. Half-way in the position of a lost kid, I was now crushing my head with fingers of non-relieved stress. I fell and fell.
I could hear someone pray in the background. It made me feel, somehow, comfortable, and I dozed off to sleep, not sure of what was happening, but somehow felt nice. Brightly lit levitation nice.
It was night, and I was purely awake. I felt around, the walls were there. Yesterday was scary, but I'm alright. I lit my lamp, turned on my PC and sat back on my bed, with my back on the wall. Mindless.
I looked around my room. Every inch had a tripping hazard because of how much junk and dirty clothes I had on the floor. I thought about my friends, I kind of wanted to sob because they weren't here.
I saw my Bible on top of a boot box, and I looked to the bed's table and saw various books. I picked one up, but it turned out to be a medical report. Since it was clearly lame, I threw it into a black hole behind me. I peered into the hole to see it fall. It hit ground about twenty feet down and a spot-light came on it, switching on with the stereotypical sound of "thud".
I wondered what it would be like down there. I imagined me floating to that lower level. But instead of just thinking, I did. Or, instead of me making myself move, my mind moved me. I touched bottom, next to the papers.
Was it papers? Or just a book? I couldn't remember now, but it shown as an authentic doctor's report now, clipboard and all. If it was anything else, it didn't show now.
I was half-way in the spot-light with the other half in total darkness. As my full weight compressed on the now wooden floor, my foot fell through on the dark side, leaving splinters and broken wood on the ground and a little tingly feeling in my right leg.
Staying in the dark wasn't good, it was full of the unknown. So I pulled my leg out and looked at the hole, not in it. A little light shown from a place in that hole. I crawled towards it. The ground cracked all around me (like ice in a cartoon) and let go of the other body of the floor. I fell with full gravitational force towards a bed.
The impact did damage. I hit the deranged wood and huge splinters stabbed their way through my shins. As I bounced up, the screwed up floor I fell with disappeared and I landed face-up on my bed. My legs extended towards the end of the bed, as if I was lying awake thinking about something.
No hope. Just pain.
I was breathing hard, as if this pain was killing me. But, as I looked down, there were no splinters. It still stung excruciatingly. I figured there was some way I could get over this, I just had to calm myself down.
Deep breathing.
In and out.
In and out....
In and...
out...
In...
and...
out...
As I slept, I knew there was someone just outside of my door. A man was talking softly, but not low in volume. His voice was just made that way. He was talking to a female. I knew her voice. It sounded so pretty. She was asking questions... "Is he okay?" I overheard.
I wondered why she would ask something like that. When I realized why, I felt dumb. She must be concerned with my fall yesterday. I guessed he would say something like "Best case scenario for a situation like this" with a semi-hidden pride in his voice. But it came out totally different.
"Well... uuuh, you see..." (I could tell he was inexperienced) "we're not totally sure of what's to come... but he's doing quite fine right now.... But he did have quite... a... uh... spasm yesterday. If you want to, go ahead and I'll leave the room for you two to visit him..."
Two people? wow, two friends. I'm starting to feel better already, not to mention popular...
"I'll just stay out here. You go and visit him..."
Okay, fine! Don't visit me! I bet the other person wasn't a good friend anyways... wow, I'm stuck up.... calm down, Austin... I'm sorry, other "friend". Just you wait out there and miss out on the cool convos me and my "true friend" are going to have. I heard the door shut. I heard the one pair of shoes etch slowly towards me. I heard her sob.
"A_____..."
"Wha-what's wrong?" I wanted to say, but kept silent.
She walked to a chair and fell in it and was silent, guessing all from what I heard.
I realized I couldn't see. I just was, in a way, paralyzed. The sun warmed my skin. A beautiful, sunny day, with the curtains opened, i guess. It was a nice feeling, like I'm in light, rather than yesterday. I felt brightness around me. I totally forgot about her for a few seconds. Oops...
"My God..." she said
"My God too!" I thought. It wasn't funny now. I felt ashamed.
"You can get yourself out of this. Come on! Just try, Ausie!"
I appeared at her house. We've been planing for me to come over for about a week. My mind raced as before I knew that I would feel uncomfortable here, but I was wrong.
I'm not sure if I ever thought I'd be here. From 6th grade up, I never thought I'd be at the status of being able to walk into her house, even thought, sometimes, I thought I knew her better than most of my friends.
Sunlight sprinkled the room, leaving bits and pieces on the couch, TV, and walls. The room appeared slightly different than I imagined from the conversations on the phone.
I expected there to be no window in this room.
The TV was in a position to where, during the day, it would get annoying to watch since the sun had wide rays covering half of the screen's glass with brightness.
I lied up, stretched and took a relieved breath. Pushing my legs away from couch and self, they lightly fell from tense to loose and touching the floor.
White carpet. It blended (with moderate tones) to the brown... light-brown couch. the walls bore a type of red paint. I wasn't sure if that fit with this kind of "contempo" living room or not.
I remembered fear.
"what am I doing here?" I asked my self out of self-pity.
I ran out of that living room.
I looked to the right, I saw uncertain light. I looked left, It was a normal hallway. I was in a hallway right outside the frame of the living room.
I took a deep breath. Despite what my former "counselors" said, deep breathing didn't help my anxiety
I sat down. This is what I usually do when I don't want people to come near me (or I just want them to feel for me (since I'm afraid of them)) I swept my hand through my hair past normality (another paranoid trademark.)
I could feel how bad I felt in my stomach. I held my breath and closed my eyes. I wanted to hurt myself. Probably bite my hand to relieve some feelings. I opened my to see a prescription bottle. The sound of shoes came towards and past me. I saw lady shoes. Uncomfortable, I could tell, for cheap fashion. With her red-colored toe-nails, she stopped and looked at me.
"why are you here?" a beautiful with age grandma said. But I thought I saw deeper into her soul.
"Won't you hang out with D__?"
That's what I was here for. I accepted her offer of a hand to help me up. She and I walked towards the uncomfortable light. While she walked past the point of the light, where you saw no wall, just beaming rays, I slowly stopped.
I heard voices through it.
"A____.." I heard in a sweet, melodic, fake-upbeat voice. I imagined red hair. I know who it was. I didn't want to be around her.
"NO!" in anger, I said.
"NO!" I screamed.
"NO!" I threw the prescription bottle, that I never picked up. I wanted to throw anything at her. I couldn't. I turned and started punching the wall. Third time and I crushed through with my right fist. I ripped it out, bleeding and all.
"JESUS!!!" I cried out for help.
Breathing like life-support had taken over, and with the certainty of the bottle somehow in my hand again, I ripped the lid off and chugged all the pills. Each one slid smoothly down my throat.
"A____! A____!!!!" Suspense in my mom's once sweet voice picked up. I didn't look at the light.
"Oh Dear God! OH DEAR GOD!" I heard W_____, my step-father repeat over and over, trying to find words to pray for in total stress. I could imagine him sitting in a chair, hands together, rocking back and forth, almost crying... crying.
I felt so bad, I wanted to help myself just to stop their pain, but I turned my back on them anyways. I had my back towards the light. It didn't exist anymore, at least in my mind.
In front of me, D____ was there, crying. with knees pointing towards me and her legs underneath her, she had her elbows on her thighs and her hands covering her face. She was in a breakdown.
"D_____!" I said as I started to run towards her. My emotions collapsed me to the floor too. I felt the way she did.
About ten feet away from me she started murmuring something, slowly inaudible to clearly heard.
"A____...
A_____...
WhY WOuLd YOU do SomeTHIng LiKE THIS?!?!?!"
"I'M SORRY!!!" I spouted out with the realization of what I was doing.
"I'M SORRY...
I'M SORRY..."
I collapsed my face towards the floor, screamed at it and laid there, barely able to breath since the small pain in my stomach was pouring out a massive amount of emotions that was stored. I closed my eyes since I was sick of seeing.
I heard her get up and run away.
"Did you expect to find happiness in this, A____?" Jesus said, sitting there, weeping.
"You know much better than that..." I fell quickly asleep to his voice.
"A____! A____!!!" I heard. Me breathing hard, almost as if I couldn't breath at all out of tiny paper, minnow-sized lungs. I couldn't peel my eyes open, but for a few seconds each time. They stung excruciatingly. My mouth gaped open in terror. My arm, reaching out. I re-opened my eyes for a second to see the white walls in front of me, which my arm was pointing to. I blacked out.
I woke up lying on a highway. Dark night, brights stars. So beautiful. P____, T____, and I did this once. I asked afterwards "What if we fell asleep on the road? What if we just thought we were walking away when we were literally still on the road?" In conclusion, the only thing I can say to that is I would then be talking in my sleep, and I would now still be sleeping there.
I didn't want to, but I tried to get up from the road anyways.
It didn't work. The force of invisible rubber bands held me down. I fell asleep in peace. Unafraid. Incidentally, I woke up on a grassy side of the highway when I checked my surroundings that morning.
"If a blind man leads a blind man,
both will fall into a pit."
-Mathew 15:14b
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