Sayu thinks that she is drifting, because there is no better word for it. The trouble is, that she is not sure what it is, or where this it could be. If it is nothingness, which it isn't, it wouldn't be black. Sayu is quite sure of this, and Sayu is not sure that often.
But being sure now seems like the only possible option, for there is too much room for uncertainties. If it really was nothingness, that Sayu was drifting in {which she again reminds herself, that it isn't the case} time would no longer exist and neither would certainties.
She feels cold, and wonders if she is naked. She can't see her own body.
So Sayu remains there, wherever it is, and just stays still.
...
Sayu has stayed still for some time, and feels the roots of impatience as they tug on her. They tickle her, her ankles have always been ticklish. Since there is not much to see, she pretends that she is asleep. Pretending is fun, pretending means being aware, and Sayu likes that.
While she is pretending she is also thinking. It feels as if she is turning dough, as if it is sticking to her. Her mommy always baked with some flour on her hands, so that she could later peel off the sweet mixture. Sayu remembers so much and wonders if this means what she hopes it does. That her mommy , daddy and Light, brilliant Light are also somewhere like this, thinking of her.
...
Not being able to see anything makes her think of death. And Sayu always wonders if she is dead. That would be simple, that would be nice. It would be expected, Sayu doesn't even dare to think for a moment that the world is here for her or for the others. That the world has nothing better to do than wait for her and for others to understand it. If this blackness is death, then it is giving her too many hints.
She is mocked, by this thing that wants to make itself look like death.
Oh, I can't see anything, oh, I feel cold, Oh, I must be dead then.
No, not at all, Sayu thinks.
Trauma and coma are fields of black, in the back of her head. All she can think of is the moment before she hit that floor.
...
... June 13, 2003
The tugging is strong, so Sayu opens her eyes. She is greeted by sterile, piercing light and the unfamiliar sound of everything being alive. Alive and interacting, reacting. Mommy is wailing, hiccuping and gasping, it seems like daddy is too. Then there is Light with his eyes wide open. He is happy.
That should have been enough, that really should have been all that she was seeing. Only it was different. The whole world as Sayu had known it suddenly became sharper, it became ordered. And from that moment onward, Sayu thinks that she can understand how Light must have seen it all along.
...
This is the first movement, Sayu thinks. Like Apollo 11. She descends into this world, bright and untouched, yet prepared. There is no mistaking it.
A nurse is holding her, right under her armpits, careful with the IVs, as Sayu's right foot lightly touches the hospital floor.
The linoleum welcomes her too eagerly and Sayu crumbles. Her knees bend and she feels like a matchstick, snapped before it could burn.
''Shh, it's alright.'' The arms holding her tighten.
But she knows it isn't. There is no straining, or pain. Sayu doesn't even feel cold. Her throat should clench up now, it should burn and her eyes should prickle. But no tears come out as she tries to cry.
She is picked up, since she can see the floor from further away. Her head is cradled as it is positioned on an optimal angle for her too observe the whole ordeal. Daddy is angry, and not only because he is yelling. Sayu can see the way his veins bulge and how droplets pf sweat slide over them. Her daddy is worried and sad, because Sayu is paralyzed.
...
The shapes that she sees now are finite. If vision is like the brain taking pictures and smoothing them out into a video, Sayu can now only see the individual frames. The lined up pictures, disconnected from each other. It feels more real than anything else she might have seen before.
She looks at the nurse's face, and wonders if every person will now have a position that is this exact in her mind. As if they were all given coordinates, Sayu can recall too much in far too many pieces.
Her family is always there, and all Sayu wants is for someone to hold her hand.
The ticking is too loud and not that precise. Now when Sayu relies on patterns, a world that wishes to be understood, has to be based on them. But then Sayu remembers, that she should never think about the world like that.
...
Small sensations return slowly. Sayu is now aware of how the mattress is not sinking as much as it should under her. She is loosing weight.
Her mommy, kneels down next to her bed and prays. Sayu head is still angled the same way, so she can't exactly see her doing it, but she can see the image of her mother in her mind so fiercely that it must be the truth. Sayu doesn't pray, since talking to something in her mind is all she does now.
If only they turned her head slightly, she would then see her in the non-fleeting images that she called her sight now. But they can't turn her head, she knows, because Sayu is still paralyzed.
The doctors can see that her breathing is steady, and that her muscles work as they should. So they take her to a functional magnetic resonance imaging, which is a long name for a brain scan. They measure the rate at which blood is supplied to different parts of her brain. And Sayu can see their surprise when they see how wild and vivid certain parts of herself still are. There are yellow blotches in her sensory area, that lit up as a Christmas tree when she is shown pictures of simple objects or faces. Symmetry, fractals in the way that water spirals down a drain, sequences that can be compressed, rhythms in footsteps, Sayu sees abstractions as compositions of something tangible.
Other parts of her brain seem dead. Her coordination, language and communication skills, her balance. All diluted and messed up.
They show her pictures, of normal brain activity and hers, as if she didn't understand that what has happened to her is not normal.
And Sayu is staring, because this, this firework that is now presented to her is too much. If this is how her brain is now, this painful and hungry thing that asks for constant patterns that it could tear apart, lying immobilized in a hospital bed is the worst strike her faith could have taken.
They even give it a name, her brain activity. Hypersensitive and scattered, with unlikely connections between areas that were never meant to interact. It takes a great toll.
...
She can now shake her fingers slightly. When mommy sees it she starts sobbing. There are flowers on her bedside table. Sunlight catches their petals and all she can think of in that moment is how their perfection is similar to so many other things in this world.
Mommy sees her glancing at the flowers and she takes one out of the vase and holds it right in front of her eyes. Sayu wants to smile, but her facial muscles don't work well, so all she can do is stare at it intently, to show her mother that she appreciates everything so much.
She might never speak or move fluidly again.
Her hospital gown is suddenly too itchy. Sayu wants to shake and scream because why, why when she can finally see so much it all comes down to her being unable and limited. She only wets the bed and the humiliation she then feels is enough to make her want to fall back into the darkness again.
They pat her head and wish her goodnight.
...
It is dark when she wakes up again, and Sayu panics, because what if this time it is real and what if it was always real?
The difference is that she can feel some things now, such as the cotton sheets or the plastic tubes that hang from the back of her head. There is also a mechanical whirring noise close to her, repetitive, a clear pattern which calms her down.
It is night. Her mommy and daddy and brother are back home sleeping. Sayu decides that she should surprise them tomorrow by doing something extraordinary normal.
Her fingers can shake a bit more now, if she presses them close enough together, maybe she could hold a pen between them. Maybe she could do so many things, maybe she could show them how much she really understands. How much more she sees, how, if she was ever sent back to school she would never ever need any help from Light with her math homework. She can see the possibilities, she feels the numbers, she can tell her mommy how her name, Sachiko, tastes letter by letter.
And her brother, Light, maybe he would finally like her, this slightly different Sayu.