(Every concrete memory I have from going under for my wisdom teeth)
The doctor tells me to squeeze his fingers and I know it is only to help get the IV in my vein but I imagine he is holding my hand to help me feel better. I am staring down the mask on my nose at its dark pink interior, trying to decide if it smells like anything, inhaling to determine odor, not because someone is telling me to. The last thing I hear is the beep beep beep of the heart monitor, which sounds just like it does on TV and I think how clichéd, how stereotypical. I picture the green blinks and listen to the beeps and think, that sound is me. I am crying and the nurse I do not like is telling me to stop, which is exactly what I wake up to, so I don’t realize it is over until she says I can go home when I calm down. Nothing is visible, not even the blackness of closed eyes. I give up trying to see anything and wonder what shoes I am wearing. Someone asks me what color Gatorade I want and I become aware of a refrigerator without seeing its glow or hearing the seals pop as it opens. I don’t feel my mouth move or hear the words but I know I am saying “I don’t care, I don’t care,” which is a lie because I only like red, but I am scared and angry and desperate to go home and trying to sound like an adult so I say “I don’t care” when I really want a red one. The nurse I do not like says, “give her whatever we have the most of,” which makes me mad because it isn’t nice and sad because I know it will not be red. I know she is talking to someone, but I can’t hear them. I have no idea whether I am sitting or standing, moving or staying still, and I try to determine what shoes I am wearing because I cannot remember and it is something I want to know. Everything I know comes from an inside-out awareness, since all I can see or feel is a fuzzy nothingness and I can’t hear anything except the voice of the nurse I do not like, which comes sharply purple and brown through one side of the nothingness. Then hands I think are my dad’s but hope are not because I know I am a mess and it is embarrassing.
(Next thing I know, I’m waking up to a dislocated jaw and a purple Gatorade. I wore my green Converse high-tops. I apparently managed to take them off and change into PJs before getting into bed, but I have no memory of this, or of the car ride to my house.)
2 comments:
This is way cool. Way cool.
"Everything I know comes from an inside-out awareness..."
This almost seems out of place. It feels like a moment of clarity when throughout the rest of the passage you can't find any - I feel like you're not in your head anymore if you can say this. Maybe if you said something referring to everything being inside-out without the strict reference to how you're perceiving everything. The rest of the passage (which is why it's so awesome) seems to be just pure perception.
That's a good point. Hm. I think I remember fuzzily wondering how I knew stuff since I couldn't see/feel/hear anything, but you're right in that it seems out of place.
Will fix. You rock.
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