So let us melt, and make no noise,
No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move;
A week later I was still there, no changes –my body intrinsic but alien –watching visitors sit weeping. Time seemed to pass more quickly, like having a movie on fast forward. No one ever visited past 5 o’clock except dad. I heard him discussing my body’s state with the doctor.
The oxygen deprivation in my brain caused brain damage; it’s funny though, I didn’t feel any different. The doctor said I was only kept alive by machines, he believed I’d never wake up. The sadness radiated off him. Once the doctor left he sat in the corner alone, his body curled into a ball, his face crumpled and his body was shaking from quiet sobs. He didn’t look like my dad then; he looked like one of the people I saw in the war movies we used to watch together –just us at midnight with a bowl of lollies and the sound of blaring guns. Seeing him in so much pain made me cry. I couldn’t comprehend why I could feel the warm tears making patterns over my cheeks but couldn’t comfort the ones I love. Frustration haunted my emotions, hovering just beneath the surface.
I stepped backwards and a glass flew off the table causing it to shatter over the floor. I didn’t know it then – and how could I have anyway? A moment before I’d walked through a bench – but it was me who did that. Dad looked up, his hazel eyes clouded by tears.
“Who’s there?”
“I am, Dad. It’s me!” I shouted this, but it didn’t help.
I could see he was still in shock; fingers shaking violently as he kissed my immobile body on the forehead and left the room. I followed behind him, running to keep his pace; grabbing at his arm but gripped nothing. I stopped though, giving up on reaching out for anyone to find me. Back in my room, I became aware I’d reached the doorway and that it was the first time I’d ventured out.
The hall was illuminated as if the sun was shining through the walls. I could leave! Relief flooded through me, mingled with fear. I ran as fast as I could - down the stretching corridors of the sick people’s prison; past the endless rooms, through the nurses, white-clad doctors, the sad- faced visitors and my dreary fellow patients – and burst out into the parking lot. The lights were so bright, I didn’t see the car until it was too late; I cried out -no one heard me... again. It didn’t swerve; it just hit me… well drove through me. I know why people go insane without company. I don’t want to end up that way. Alone.
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Lines at the start are part of john Donne's "A Valedictation of Mourning"
YOU ARE READING
Circles
Teen FictionWhat would you do if no-one could see you? If no-one could hear you? Em wakes up to find her family mourning her comatose self. She watches, piecing together how she got to where she is.
