A bright sunbeam decided today that I shouldn’t be let to sleep in. My mind struggles to clear the fog of my dreamless sleep. Dreamless... that’s what all nights have been since… well, I can’t remember. I look around. Not that there’s much to observe around here. I might as well have been in paradise, it’s all so white. White walls, white bedspreads, white curtains, white everything… even this excuse of an outfit I’m wearing is white, now why on earth would I buy something like this? Besides the white, there’s the smell… its unbearable, like everything has been washed 10 times, and then some weird sorta cleanser has been used 20 more times. Does everything have to be so clean around here? There’s some stuff in the room too (maybe just to distract a person from being blinded by all the white). Some medical mumbo-jumbo, a small table with a jug of water on it and a diary...
A diary? What’s that doing here? I know I shouldn’t be reading it, but I can’t resist. Only a few pages have been written in. Before I can do any reading, a woman walks in (dressed in white, you guessed right!) She has a tray with her, with some food on it, and medicines. Something’s oddly familiar about her. Maybe she feels it too; by the way she’s smiling at me. She gives me some tablets, the food is my breakfast. I suddenly realize I’m starving. As I eat she asks me about how I feel today, well - as bright as..uhmm.. She smiles a bit sadly at my sudden loss of words. She asks me to read the diary, says its mine, says I might find some answers there. She leaves me to finish my breakfast and leaves, saying she’ll come by tomorrow as usual. As usual? Was she ever here before?
I begin to read. Well, like I said I haven’t written much. Well to sum up what’s written in there, I have what could be called total amnesia. How I got here, I don’t remember (well, duh!!). But the sad part is not just that. I came here in a very bad state, and even though the fixed me up pretty well (I got out of a coma after a month, just before they were about to take me off life support, having given up all hope), and while I can function as well as the next human being, I have no memory of what I do, even temporarily. And it’s getting worse by the day. I am forgetting even the smallest things. There are sudden moments where I remember stuff, but not more than that. But that’s not what scares me. I’ve written that I’m supposed to read this every day. Every day? I don’t remember how many days I have been reading this. I don’t remember when I got out of a coma, was it yesterday? Was it a year ago? Does it matter? Tomorrow I will wake up again with no memory of today, read this same crap again and ask myself the same questions.
Suddenly, this white room seems a lot smaller. Who ever said light colors create an illusion of space? Now everything I do, every thought I think, I wonder how many times before I have thought it. I haven’t written about whether my condition is curable, which leads me to believe it may not be. I’ve just been asked to write it down, so I don’t go insane wondering about stuff. From what I’ve written, I gather that no one has ever been to visit me here. The guy who found me was the doctor himself. I’ve not yet been told of the cause of my condition, to spare me mental trauma apparently. Mental trauma? Seriously? I can’t even remember my name. I don’t know how old I am. I don’t even know what I look like, no mirrors here.
All I know right now is that I’m choking. I’m choking and there are invisible metal fingers that are clasping my windpipe and I can’t breathe no more. I stumble towards the bed and sit down heavily on it. I need something… but I don’t know what. I look around helplessly, hopelessly at the white around me trying to figure it out. My eyes land on my uneaten breakfast plate, there’s a spoon and a fork. Before I know what I’m doing, I grasp the fork.
After it’s all over and done with, I realize it’s not the fork that killed me. It’s not the metal fingers around my windpipe. It’s not even the blood flowing along my wrist, staining the white bed sheets red and disturbing the flow of white in the room. It’s the uncertainty. It’s the “not-knowing”.
A diary? What’s that doing here? I know I shouldn’t be reading it, but I can’t resist. Only a few pages have been written in. Before I can do any reading, a woman walks in (dressed in white, you guessed right!) She has a tray with her, with some food on it, and medicines. Something’s oddly familiar about her. Maybe she feels it too; by the way she’s smiling at me. She gives me some tablets, the food is my breakfast. I suddenly realize I’m starving. As I eat she asks me about how I feel today, well - as bright as..uhmm.. She smiles a bit sadly at my sudden loss of words. She asks me to read the diary, says its mine, says I might find some answers there. She leaves me to finish my breakfast and leaves, saying she’ll come by tomorrow as usual. As usual? Was she ever here before?
I begin to read. Well, like I said I haven’t written much. Well to sum up what’s written in there, I have what could be called total amnesia. How I got here, I don’t remember (well, duh!!). But the sad part is not just that. I came here in a very bad state, and even though the fixed me up pretty well (I got out of a coma after a month, just before they were about to take me off life support, having given up all hope), and while I can function as well as the next human being, I have no memory of what I do, even temporarily. And it’s getting worse by the day. I am forgetting even the smallest things. There are sudden moments where I remember stuff, but not more than that. But that’s not what scares me. I’ve written that I’m supposed to read this every day. Every day? I don’t remember how many days I have been reading this. I don’t remember when I got out of a coma, was it yesterday? Was it a year ago? Does it matter? Tomorrow I will wake up again with no memory of today, read this same crap again and ask myself the same questions.
Suddenly, this white room seems a lot smaller. Who ever said light colors create an illusion of space? Now everything I do, every thought I think, I wonder how many times before I have thought it. I haven’t written about whether my condition is curable, which leads me to believe it may not be. I’ve just been asked to write it down, so I don’t go insane wondering about stuff. From what I’ve written, I gather that no one has ever been to visit me here. The guy who found me was the doctor himself. I’ve not yet been told of the cause of my condition, to spare me mental trauma apparently. Mental trauma? Seriously? I can’t even remember my name. I don’t know how old I am. I don’t even know what I look like, no mirrors here.
All I know right now is that I’m choking. I’m choking and there are invisible metal fingers that are clasping my windpipe and I can’t breathe no more. I stumble towards the bed and sit down heavily on it. I need something… but I don’t know what. I look around helplessly, hopelessly at the white around me trying to figure it out. My eyes land on my uneaten breakfast plate, there’s a spoon and a fork. Before I know what I’m doing, I grasp the fork.
After it’s all over and done with, I realize it’s not the fork that killed me. It’s not the metal fingers around my windpipe. It’s not even the blood flowing along my wrist, staining the white bed sheets red and disturbing the flow of white in the room. It’s the uncertainty. It’s the “not-knowing”.
I wanted a perfect ending.
Now I've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme,
and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle, and end.
Life is about not knowing, having to change,
taking the moment and making the best of it,
without knowing what's going to happen next.
Delicious ambiguity.
~
Song Recommendation: Breaking the Habit by Linkin Park
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