Silent As The Dark―A Novelette

Just a Sinus Infection

"Emmaline, I told you you shouldn't've gotten a job at that clinic. I knew you were going to get sick," says my mother as she lies her hand on my forehead. Even though I have a cold, not a fever.

"Relax mom, it's a sinus infection not meningitis," I say sitting up a bit on my bed.

"Okay, but if anything goes wrong call me right away," says my mother stroking my head gently. Her face wears an expression of pity

"Okay mom, go to work!" I shout playfully partly hugging her arm.

"I'll have my phone on all day and we have Ibuprofen for your headache and cold medicine."

"Okay, okay go," I insist.

"Love you more than television," she says. My mother always says that, once when I was a toddler she said that she loved one of her soap operas and I began crying hysterically because I thought she loved it more than me. Ever since then she's reassured me that she loves me more than her Monday night soap operas.

"Love you too," I reply.

Mom begins to leave my room stepping over the books and clothes, she looks back and the muscles in her face move as if she's about to say something, but she reconsiders and ends up leaving. I pull the covers over myself again and let myself fall back asleep.

☾ ☽

I wake up gradually, taking in everything. I feel a pounding in my head, and my stomach's making an awful rumbling sound . I toss my striped bed cover to the side and sit up. I turn over and put my feet on the cold wooden floor. I get up and step a few feet forward to my rug I run my toes through my turquoise shag rug. I turn to my left and open my white wooden door. I turn from my hallway to the hallway connecting to the kitchen as I'm walking my headache gets worse I finally reach the kitchen and go straight for the medicine cabinet. I toss everything out and look for the pain reliever. I see an EpiPen, Tylenol, Claritin, and some Cold and Flu medicine, I grab the Tylenol only to discover it's empty. I can't believe my overly-prepared mother has an empty box of Tylenol. Maybe it's in the bathroom medicine cabinet. I turn around and head down the hallway that leads to my room, only I turn into the bathroom. I turn on the light and open the mirror cabinet above the sink. I look through and see my toothbrush, toothpaste, cotton balls, facial cleansers, toners, a comb and finally I find the Ibuprofen, and turn the bottle over and read over the back, which says,

Directions

Do not take more than directed

The smallest effective dose should be used

Do not take for more than 10 days unless directed by a doctor (see Warnings on carton)

Adults and children 12 years and older

Take 1 tablet every 4 to 6 hours while symptoms persist if pain or fever does not respond to 1 tablet, 2 tablets may be used. Do not exceed 6 tablets in 24 hours.

I press down on the bottle cap and twist it to the right, the cap loosens and I twist it off. I place the cap on the edge of the sink and turn the bottle over into my right hand, one red circular pill comes out and I grab a mini cup from our disposable cup dispenser and fill it with cold water. I toss the pill in my mouth and then swallow it down with the icy-cold water. I place the cap back on the bottle and put it in the medicine cabinet.

Over the next hour I sleep, eat, watch television, and sleep a bit more. As I wake up I notice that my head's still pounding. I begin to walk to the bathroom, and I notice that everything sounds muffled and weird my footsteps sound distant and small. My sinus infection must be getting to my ears, my whole head is just congested. As I open the bathroom medicine cabinet, I try to remember whether I took one pill or two, I remember taking one. I grab the Ibuprofen and twist the cap off, I grab one of the tiny circular pills and another disposable mini cup I fill the mini cup with cold water and swallow down the water and the red circular Ibuprofen pill. I look up at the mirror and see my thin, long face and big brown eyes, my long thick eyelashes naturally curl up because of the small curl to my hair. I examine my thin pointy nose and my bold eyebrows. My hair is in a messy bun, and my lilac shirt hangs sloppily off my shoulder there's no colour to my face I've never seen myself so pale and sickly. Beads of sweat gloss my forehead and my big eyes droop down tiredly.

I feel a horrible dizzy spell come on and I grasp onto the sink to stay up but I am soon falling I hit my head on something hard and everything goes black.

☾ ☽

I feel my eyelids flutter and I know I'm waking up my eyes slowly open I look at the ceiling tiles, I'm not at home, these ceiling tiles have little spots on them and remind me of the ones I've seen in public places. I move my neck around a bit, it's very sore as if I'd fallen asleep the wrong way, I remember now, falling, hitting my head and then blackness.

I look to my side and see my mother sleeping on a couch. I look at my arm which has an IV sticking out of the crook of my elbow. I've seen people in hospitals with IVs I've never had one though, it feel strange I can feel it in my skin and flesh, but it's not painful it just feels sore and a bit numb. I look down at my hospital gown it's blue with little white triangles. I look around the room, the couch my mother's sleeping on is in front of a window, there are two end tables and a skinny long cabinet that could be used as a closet, there's a monitor with my heart rate and pulse. I look at a the IV pole with the saline solution. My mother moves around and yawns she stretches her hands above her head, she looks over at me and her eyes widen to the size of pomegranates.

She says something her mouth moves and I here an inaudible whisper. Her dark brown hair matted and messy, her eyes still widened, and her clothes swished to the side from sleeping.

"Mom," I say frightened, it's the only thing I can say, how long have I been here? Why can't I hear her? Why is my own voice muffled?

She says something else and I am about to say, "What?" when I piece her lip movement and the bit I could hear together, she said my name and the word coma. I put two and two together. Throwing her cheap hospital cover to the side she runs over to me and soon she's by my side wrapping me in her warm soft hug she's squishing me comfortably. I've never been so glad to be hugged. A woman comes in, wearing a doctor's coat. I read her name tag, Dr. Ford.

She grabs a white container from a drawer in the end table by the couch and walks over to me. She gives me a sympathetic look and opens the container. She pulls out a small skin coloured device with buttons in the back and a clear tube like thing attached to it that leads to a circle in the front. She points to her own ears. They're hearing aids, she's holding hearing aids. She puts one in for me and hands me the next one, the left one to put in for myself. I put it into my ears and Dr. Ford grabs my hand guiding it to the back of the hearing aid she places my fingers over a switch and I push it up, I do the same for the other one and she turns them up by turning a round small circular knob-like mechanism on the part in my ear. She drops her hands to her side and steps back.

"Am I going to get it back?" I ask right abruptly, my voice more clear but still whisper like.

"Actually, the opposite," says Dr. Ford. "It's very rare, but sinus infection can lead to hearing loss, usually it's only temporary, but with the Ibuprofen you took..." she trails off and then continues again, "it's very, very rare you probably wouldn't meet another person with the same cause for your hearing loss if you lived fifty lifetimes." She finished. Her voice is also low and whisper-like.

"You will eventually not be able to hear anything, just maybe a bit of ambient noise occasionally with the hearing aids." She says looking me straight in the eyes. "I know it's a lot to take in," she adds.

"No kidding," I say trying to not be mad, I don't know who I'm mad at, myself, her, my mom. How did this happen to me? How in the world did this happen, the odds are basically zero, right? I feel tears coming up in my eyes and I desperately try to blink them away, my mom puts her hand on my shoulder and I completely break down. I let the flood of tears run down my face as if they were a ragged stream. I collapse ungracefully into my mother's arms and cling to her for protection. I hear myself gasping for air between my sobs it sounds muffled and small, but I know it's not.