Time doesn't exist, for you. In the white expanse of a hospital room, the sixteen years of your life have disappeared; there is only Now. A brain injury has turned you into a stranger, but with each painful piece of progress you gain new awareness...
Your hospital room had been originally designed for four patient beds. But it's inappropriate to house head injury patients together, so its four sets of curtain tracks on the ceiling sit empty, where curtains will never hang, to create privacy around beds that will never be there. Your own bed proudly claims the entire space, making the tracks nothing but ornamental ceiling adornment.
One of the track sets may be useful though—the one positioned over the padded mats in the corner of your room, where your physiotherapist makes you practice walking.
The mats are firm, but they still have a little give under the weight of your heels. On warm days, like today, their plastic covering feels tacky under your toes. It tents as it rises with your foot, before it lets go and collapses gently back down with a soft, sticky sound. You hate the mats on warm days.
Your physiotherapist—a slight, bird-like thing with a soft voice, called Carla—is watching your feet, waiting for you to walk towards her. She's not holding your hands this time. She wants to see if you can do yourself, without falling or veering sideways like a toy car with a jammed wheel.
You take one step.
'Good, good,' she says, beckoning you to take another. You do. In a perfectly straight line. 'Wonderful! Keep going!'
Another step. And another.
Straight. Strong. Stable.
'Really well done!' she says, still not looking away from your feet. 'Keep coming toward me.'
It's all you can do, to keep your laughter from bubbling out. You almost feel bad—she's going to be so disappointed when she looks up and sees what you're doing. She's so excited to see you walking in a straight line for the first time.
Of course, you wouldn't be able to do it, if your arms weren't stretched above your head to grasp the empty curtain track up there. Just as the track is about to curve away, you reach the end of the mat, and stop.
'That was great!' Carla says, delighted, and finally looks up. For a moment you are both smiling, but then she sees your arms bracketing your ears, and she looks higher to where you're still using the curtain track to keep you standing, steadily.
Her face crumples. She doesn't find this as funny as you do. 'Oh, no! Now you have to go back, and do it again. Properly.'
This strips away your amusement. Although the track had made walking easier, it still wasn't comfortable. You already ache where your thighs meet your hips, the joints still pulsing from the movement. And now you have to walk the length of the mats again. Maybe your curtain track idea wasn't so witty, after all.
Your trick is outed now, so you don't bother with discretion. You take wide reaches along the track, like a monkey along a branch, quickly dragging yourself back to the starting point. You turn around, and let go. Your arms come down, slowly, testing your balance.
All good, so far.
This extra pain is your own fault, really, so you just grit your teeth and exhale heavily through your nose...and take one unaided step. You teeter, your chest leans forward, and your arms fling outward to maintain your balance. You can see your feet are a normal width apart, but you feel like you're walking a tightrope.
You teeter less, on the next step. You expect Carla to look up this time, to check you're not cheating again, but she's still watching your feet. She probably knows you're not cheating. Your walking is rubbish.
Another step. Teeter. Balance.
The edge of your mat looks further away than it did before, and off to the side. You must be walking in a curve. You try to correct your path in your next step, deliberately angling back the other way.
The adjustment throws off the equilibrium you had, and your arms windmill as you tip forward, your knees locked. You catch your fall with palms flat on the mat. Great. Now you look like a croquet hoop.
And you're stuck. You try to push yourself up, but can't build the momentum. You walk your hands toward your ankles, but your legs won't bend, and now your balance is gone and you're going to fall and you can't save yourself and you hear your pitiful whine and...
Then there are hands around your wrists. Carla.
She lifts your hands from the mat, and slowly returns you to a standing position. She doesn't say anything. Then she lets go, and steps back to the edge of the mat.
Your breathing is fast and laboured, like you've just run a marathon, not walked the length of a mat that probably wouldn't be much longer than you, if you lay down on it. Your legs hurt, but Carla's close now. You probably only have two more steps.
It turns out to be three, but you wonder if Carla had discreetly moved backward, perhaps as payback for the curtain track trick.
'Good,' she says, not as excited as the first time. 'We'll do it again tomorrow.'
You know Carla comes every day, but this moment is the furthest you'll be from your next session, so when she helps you back to your bed, you feel good. And you decide that the track trick was still worth it. You smile as you remember it.
Then you keep smiling, because you know that tomorrow you'll remember it again.
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