Day 1: July 9, 2012

Day 1: July 9, 2012

Beep…beep…beep…beep…

A rhythmic sound keeps going and going in my ears.

Beep…beep…beep…beep…

What the hell is that sound? Oh my God. Shut it up. Five more minutes!

Beep…beep…beep…beep…

I roll over to get rid of that freaking alarm clock, well I try to anyway. My body does not seem to cooperate right now. Maybe I am dreaming.

Beep…beep…beep…beep…

Maybe if I ignore it, it will go away. Off to deeper sleep.

Beep…beep…beep…beep…

Okay, it really is not going away. I am really going to break whatever that thing is. Okay, me, time to wake up. Open your eyes.

I can’t.

Panic begins to set in. I can feel it moving in from the chills running down my back to the sick feeling growing in my stomach. Why can’t I open my eyes? Okay, me, wake up! Wake up!

My right arm moves slightly, sending needlelike pain up to my shoulder. Okay, I can feel pain, so that means I’m still alive. You don’t feel pain when you’re dead, because that would totally suck.

A thin line of light slowly breaks through the darkness that engulfed me. My eyelids refuse to budge, but my brain fights through the pain. Great, now there is throbbing pain in my head in addition to the needles poking my right arm, and the heavy weight over my eyes.

Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!

A bright light breaks through, nearly blinding me. My right arm instinctively moves in to shield my fragile eyes. After a minute or so, I slowly move my arm to reveal the world above me. A gaping hole in the ceiling greets me. Tangled wires peeked through the hole. A spark flashed periodically. Midday sunlight shines into the room through the broken window barely covered by a tattered blue curtain that is struggling to hang on to its hook. The white walls boxing me in definitely have seen better days. Most of my body is lying right beneath the sunlight, and it is getting really, really warm.

Beep…beep…beep…beep…

Oh, for the love of… I turn toward the sound coming from a broken machine thing lying on its side, busily measuring away something. The wires coming from the machine lead to the unknown under the remains of a bed a couple feet away.

Beep…beep…beep…beep…

Maybe I’ll just tune it out.

A groan escapes my mouth as I make another attempt at sitting up. No other pain accompanies my present headache, which I take as a good sign. My right hand rubs at my forehead in a fruitless attempt to remove the pain in my skull. I do not see any blood on my body or my immediate surroundings. My clothes are dirty with grime, nothing more. I am wearing some kind of blue two-piece pajamas thing. What are they called again? Scrubs? So I guess I am a medical person or something.

I reach into my pockets to find, nothing. Not even a wallet with my identifying information. Great, I don’t even know who I am. I think my name is…J…John? Jack? Jerry? Joey? None of those words sound familiar to me.

A piece of paper partially trapped under that Godforsaken machine caught my eyes. The ink is smudged. I can barely make out “R/O MRSA” written at the top. Other than the machine, the bed, the piece of paper, and random broken glass, there does not seem to be anything else in the room. No water. No food. And it is too warm in here. Without AC running, this room has to be at least 90 degrees.

I try to get up on my feet, but my jelly-like legs cannot support my body weight, sending me careening back toward the linoleum floor. With adrenaline pulsing through my veins, I gather what strength I have in my arms to move myself across the floor toward the opened door leading to the dimly lit hallway. My body protests and I barely manage to inch my way. By the time I reach the shady oasis away from the sunlit oven, I am so tired that I collapse into another deep sleep. The last I see is the green glow of the digital clock in the hallway telling me it is 13:00 on 7/9/2012.