Me & Her

Me

I'm falling into the world against a pillow of voices. Not her voice, not yet, but other people's voices. I haven't heard so many sounds in what seems like forever.

Fearing that my mind is playing tricks, I listen for that distinctive ticking, ticking like a clock, but it has disappeared. It's gone. It isn't there anymore, I can't hear it. I can't hear it. That means the room has gone too, but that...that means so has my safety. So has everyone's safety. No. No. No.

My eyes hurt. They're open, but they hurt. For a moment, I think I've gone blind. Or perhaps all that time asleep has left my vision comatose. A bright light is falling onto my skin – maybe it's Heaven, if only I deserved to go there. If only I believed.

My mind clangs, as if someone is smelting metal in my occipital lobe. Is she with me? Is she inside my head? Searching the cobwebs of my consciousness, I cannot see her anywhere. Cannot feel her presence. A fist rubbing against the back of my skull. Cold knuckles on my neck. No. She is gone. She can't be gone, but she is. My mind whirrs and I nearly scream with laughter. She's gone, she's gone. She can't hurt me anymore.

Abruptly, the light shrinks away, forcing me to reach my hand out to grab it. To hold something again without it slipping through my fingers. At once, a man's face hovers over me, and I realise that he is the one holding the light. A penlight. At least I remember something. He's dressed like the sheets of my bed, all in white. He has a kind face, taught despite the softened laugh lines, but I don't know who he is or what he's doing. Again, he shines the light into my eyes, as if trying to find the source of my vacant expression. He pulls back, puts the device away.

"Do you remember your name?" he asks, but it's muffled, and I don't want to answer. The sound isn't something I can trust. A rustling of leaves beneath an oak tree. A snake in the soil. Moments pass. He repeats the question, but as before, I do not answer.

"Can you hear me?" he asks, readying that strange light once more.

"Don't. Please," I choke out, the words foreign on my tongue. How long have I been unable to speak? How long? The man puts his light away again, smiling down at me. His eyes sear through my barriers, and I am suddenly a baby staring directly at the sun. As the man asks a nearby woman dressed in blue to fetch a glass of water, I remain silent. I don't know who he is supposed to be, this blur in white robes. I cannot trust him. But I have to find out if I can.

"Who are you?" My throat is dry – unused. It burns, like scalding water rather than flame. Of course. I understand. She was my fire, and now she's gone.

"Where am I?" The woman scuttles into the room, still dressed in that same blue uniform. Or maybe it's green. I don't know. In that white room, devoid of colour, I could only rely on memories to supply something more than monochrome. As she passes me the cup, a passive paper cylinder, my hands shake.

The man looks sad for a moment but pulls up a chair to sit beside me. To be close to me. Human touch, the very presence of flesh and bone, is a sensation which has been absent for what seems like centuries.

I raise the cup to my lips, drinking the contents in one long sip. Life rushes into me and I force a smile. Again, I wait for the voice, her voice. But it doesn't come. It occurs to me that it might never come again. Never again. The man starts to speak, as if he has been preparing these words just for me to hear.

"I'm Doctor Steele," he says. "You're in Calgary Hospital. You've been in a coma. For three years".

The water in my mouth tastes of nothing.