With All My Senses

reaching out

scars have the strange power

to remind us that our past is real

- Cormac McCarthy

The hospital, early morning.

2 days later.

A memory slowly breaks through my beaten-up mind as the soles of my shoes scrape lightly against the linoleum floors, fluorescent lights showing of my tired complexion. Without much power left to block it, the scene starts to play out in my head as if it's all happening now and not two nights before. It's like filtering through time, reliving every word and sensation.

I see myself walking out of the bar through the back entrance, the door closing behind me, sounds of music, and shouts subsiding. I almost feel the chill of Autumn in my bones, clouds of warm air escaping my mouth as I watch my body from far away. And then I hear it; a sound of a phone connection disturbing the dark night after my fingers dial up a familiar number, voice loud and clear, the memory of it ringing in my ears.

"I need to explain to you what's been going on with me, face to face because there is no other way I can do it. And if you won't let me in, I'll understand that, it's what I deserve anyway".

The scene keeps playing out in my head as my senses let me know that I'm not really there. The sounds of the hospital breaking through the images that fill my thoughts.

I watch as I end the call and slip the phone back into my pocket. The cold air moves around me, stinging my skin but not affecting me much. I feel numb and a bit terrified of what I was going to do, of the confrontation that awaited me. More scared than when I lied on the floor of the old house, raving in pain, and waiting for the end, clawing my way out of this world.

Something sinks in my chest at the thought of that moment. I felt extra vulnerable then, exposed. That day at Phil's bar, when I just hang out there a couple of hours getting familiar again with my list of new responsibilities, I left her a message on the voice mail. The hour was late, and the possibility that she was still awake and that she would pick up were close to zero. It was the way I preferred it. If she answered the call, I might not have said a word and just hang up after a prolonged silence. So, I chose this hour on purpose, a sort of a compromise with myself in the hope that I wouldn't chicken out at the last second. Maybe I was being childish about it, but I had already lost so much in my life, I didn't want to lose even more. I just couldn't.

Not long after, I came back inside the bar just in time to hear the sounds of the karaoke machine waking up to life, the first people already choosing their favorites. I was groaning, trying not to remember the time when my attitude brought me to the top of the bar, hips swaying to the first tones of ABBA's classical number. Give me a man after midnight roaring from the speakers with full blast. It was one of those precious moments when you wish you actually had blacked out. Especially when you can't carry even one tune without luring all the neighborhood cats in, possible sounds of glass breaking on their way. But the music that played that day was loud, and by that time people didn't care much anyway. An attractive girl on the bar making a fool out of herself worked just fine for the entertainment part any night.

_ _ _ _ _

My thoughts are a bit hazy as I walk up to him, gazing at his face and slowly regaining my focus, a lot of things roaming around in my tired brain and not just that memory. It's been a long night and an even longer shift, my first one this week. It happened faster than I thought, getting back to the job at the bar but as soon as I finished talking to Gloria, I was determined to push my life forward whatever was left from it, even if just for now. I've been very persistent with Phil about the fact that I'm working there if he likes it or not, not really playing with my charms but with the demanding part of me that normally didn't show off too much as I wasn't a big fan of people in general. Though my newly regained boss wasn't really fighting me on it, rather all too willing just to see me shut up. "Oh, just start the damn job already, you'll do as you want anyway." My head shakes as I return to the present, a smile still lingering on my lips.