Neutrino Blues

Chapter VII

LIMBO

Matty

I woke up form the most horrific nightmare I've ever had and I feel like I'm still in it. I'm in limbo, in between and scared shitless not knowing what is happening. What has happened. Where I am.

It feels like I'm in bed with the worst moral and physical hangover of my life. I have this guilty sinking feeling inside my chest like I've done something terrible but can't recall what it was. How can I feel this way and not know why? Maybe my conscious mind suppressed it but it's still there, haunting me from deep inside. Is it dissociative amnesia? Why the fuck can't I remember a thing?

The sinking feeling is overwhelming and renders me unable to focus. I feel as if someone was standing on my chest and stomach willing to crush me into a pulp. Tears come to my eyes and I start to panic. What the fuck have I done? What is happening to me? Where is everybody?

I can hear myself moan as if from a distance and see myself wriggle in a bed. It's not my bed. I'm all covered in sticky, disgusting sweat slime and I'm shivering because it's cold, so cold, so damn cold. Help. I want to scream but the sinking feeling stops me from doing so. Deep down inside I feel it's not me who needs help and that I've done something so terrible my mind refuses to acknowledge it. I'm in abyss, in limbo, in hell.

I can hear screaming. I think it's a woman screaming but it's coming from afar and I can't be sure; now there are more screams, desperate, hopeless and terrifying. I can't move because of the slime, it's like I'm on strings, someone else is moving my body or actually sabotaging my efforts to wriggle out of the crushing force suffocating me; I feel claustrophobic, I need air, I need space, help me help me help me, where am I, please stop, I'm sorry, whatever I've done I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, please –

I felt a hand on my forehead and opened my eyes immediately. Am I awake now or is it another trick?

– Come down'e. It's okay'e. You have a fever'e.

Italian accent. What the hell?

I looked up but couldn't focus my tired eyes in the semi-darkness. I shut my eyelids for a second hoping to clear my vision but it was even worse when I opened them again. Now the silhouette above me was blurry and the light was hurting my brain so I closed them again which made me sick. Was I drunk? It felt like it but how was it possible? I hardly ever drank and never took any drugs. Why would I now? What have I done?

– You had a incidente, but you okay'e.

Sure as shit don't feel okay. Am I in prison? In a hospital? Am I dead?

– You in hospital'e. Your'e friend'e is here with you.

– My friend? Jimbo! Jimbo!

The woman who was speaking to me and I assumed was a nurse, put her hand on my chest in an attempt to stop me from getting up. No! Don't! The sinking feeling, the claustrophobia, I can't handle it!

– Pleas'e relax'e. I will'e give you mor'e farmaco.

And she did. I felt instantly better and my vision improved. This dangling thing above my head must be a drip and she is fumbling with it making me feel better. Physically better but I still have no clue what happened, fearing the worst.

– I'm sorry!

– You hav'e nothing'e to be sorry about'e.

– What happened?

– You had a incidente.

– What kind?

– Incidente d'auto.