This story begins in the middle.
Or in the end of a dream which he wouldn't remember, but tried to reach once or twice. Some subtleties escape between our fingers. He would let some more of them escape yet.
But waking up is the hardest part.
This story begins in the middle of a sickening and delirious awakening that occurred without greater problems. From the good signs life gives us sometimes, he felt his fingers because they ached, and they ached because they were there. The rest of his pains slid simply.
He woke up because he dreamt for too long, and that for sure wasn't good for health. With eyes shut, he smelled rain and shortbread. With eyes open, milk, honey, grapes and a violent daylight.
And then there was the lady, a nurse as restless as an ant, nice legs and a little too old, and she gave him water for his dry throat and slices of fresh bread and coffee for his empty guts. That smelled really good, and it was a shame that he threw up on the sheets. She trembled here and there and in and out of the room until she got someone to clean that shit up.
They tried it again later, with a bowl of dirty water that tasted like chicken in place of the bread and the coffee. That settled his stomach down. She was a good and old nurse who didn't give a flying fuck about him, and he liked her. When she was gone without a word, he thought he would like to have a cigarette with her and praise her legs.
By then he knew he had a problem in his hands, and he would have to solve it, but there's no way you can solve a problem without a smoke and a pair of trousers, so he just lay there for a while longer.
It was about lunch time when his first visitor came in. The old man brought him a plate of mashed something and some aspirins, but he wasn't interested. There was a tree squeaking and bowing outside the window, in the rain, and he asked the old man a sip of water.
"How do you feel?"
Whatever was that thing he was chewing, that also tasted like chicken.
"How long have I slept?"
The old man smiled and, from a distance, he seemed flaky and yellow.
"Two weeks."
Yeah, long enough to avoid coffee for a while.
The old man took him to the closed window and gave him something to smoke, which was pointless, but caressed everyone's consciences.
"How the hell did this happen, Sinbad? We were really worried."
Ah.
"Well."
He started solving that problem, once it wasn't like someone seemed inclined to get him a pair of trousers. He asked himself who he would have to pay to get back those grapes and shortbreads he saw that morning. Or anything that didn't taste like a flying something.
"Actually, I was wondering if I would have to ask you to tell me my name"
He smiled, sure that he wouldn't feel sleepy so soon.
This story begins in the middle of the story.
