Is it
normal to keep having these waking dreams?
I hear sirens; really loud buzzing in my ears
like a fly is caught there. I flick up
a hand to brush it away but there's some sort of resistance. I can't lift my hand. I am swaying over to
one side and now back to center, in a nauseating movement. Am I lying flat on
something hard? Could I be in some sort
of vehicle? My eyelids are too heavy to
lift, feels like something is resting on them. I can lift one of my legs a
little way and so I kick out and feel the thwump of an impact on what feels
like soft flesh. A grunt answers my
action, confirming its accuracy. When did I get so unfit? So weak?
There's an
underlying sound of panting, of asthmatic breath being heaved into constricted
lungs punctuated by the occasional dry cough, and still the sirens above it all
whine piercingly. I try to lift the
other arm to meet again that same resistance. There are voices now, deep and unrecognizable. I strain to hear the words, their meaning but the wheezing and
the shrieking get in the way.
There is an
unpleasant smell here too. Strongly
alcoholic: whiskey. Ned used to smell
like that. Don't go there, Cade. Also I think I am hot, very hot. I must have a fever. Yes, I must be delirious. Mom will come soon and give me medicine,
stroke my hair and cool me with a damp cloth, which she will wipe tenderly
across my brow. And she will speak
softly to me about her dreams, about how much I mean to her, about how I am her
treasure and that whatever happens she will always love me.
Relaxing
for a minute despite the nausea, I try
to work out what is happening to me. I'm in a moving vehicle, it's dark or maybe my eyes are closed. If they are closed maybe I can open
them? I concentrate hard, trying to
ignore the fly in my ear. That persistant
buzzing fly. No. They won't open. It's
still dark. Am I scared? I can't decide.
I'm
draining away.
Then I feel
someone grab my arm and I lash out with my feet again. "Leave me alone," but the words are locked
in my mind, my voice won't work. There
is something I have to stop him doing. I hear a voice, a familiar voice but I don't know whose it is. It's a man's voice. "Whatever happens don't let them give you an
IV."
Instinctively
I push the man away again as the sirens stop at last and I feel the motion
cease and a sound of doors swinging open under force. More unintelligable voices and a refreshing blast of cold air
caresses my hot body. Now I am being
carried into a building, wheeled along a smooth floor where the smells are of
blood and antiseptic and fear. The
sounds of footfalls are echoing beneath the buzzing.
I am
becoming more detached from my body. I'm losing my senses one at a time. Did I take something? Was it drugs? Is this another dream? The motion stops but my breaths are still
shallow and painful. Someone lifts up my arm and speaks, not to me, to another
person in the room. Finally I crack my
eyes open a slit and glimpse a blur of white coats.
It's a hospital. A very strange
one. There is something I must do.
I have to remember.
