The October Music: Fourth Verse - Day 15

Till the Day I Die

            The world around me clinks and clanks as tools are moved. I hear people talking to me, about me. Doctors, nurses, family members – though not so much anymore. All of them stand by my bed and talk. They talk about my vitals and how they are steady. They talk about being unable to determine what is wrong with me. They talk about how merciful it is that I am in a coma right now. They don’t know I’m not.

            I can hear everything. I can breathe. I am cognizant of the world around me. I just cannot open my eyes. Cannot move my lips or arms or legs. I am disconnected from control of my world but I am still present, like sitting in front of a radio but unable to reply. I am a prisoner. I am stuck.

            My wife comes less and less often these days. When she does, her voice has lost its worried husk. Instead, the concern has been replaced by a resigned weariness. Her words are the same as always. Pleas for me to wake up and come back to her, but they don’t sound sincere anymore. She’s brought him with her a few times. I think he insisted. I don’t blame her for moving on. Not really.

            My kids have stopped coming altogether. Something about it being too depressing. And they have their own lives. They have tests and dates and prom. They have football games and chess tournaments. They have activities and social lives and routines that would be uncomfortably disrupted by their visits. I don’t blame them either.

            What I do blame is the doctors and technicians. I don’t know how they missed and continue to miss what’s going on. If I could talk, I would tell them to X-ray my head again. I can feel it in there, digging away, munching on my brain matter. How could they not have seen it? How could they possibly not know? It makes no sense, but I suppose I’m losing the idea of what sense is day by day.

             I can feel my muscles atrophying from lack of use. I try to flex but nothing responds. I can feel sores opening up on my back, legs, and ass. I’m supposed to be turned every so often, but the one nurse I call Loud Lori is entirely uninterested in doing her job in that respect. She will come in and sit by me and talk on her phone. She’ll use code words like she’s ‘by the salad bar’ to communicate. I’ve figured out she’s talking about ‘the vegetable’. Clever.

            I don’t know how long I’ve been here like this. Time’s lost meaning. I can sleep sometimes, but not always. I am adrift inside myself, a boat without a tether, and an endless sea of nothing in my mind. I feel the thing eating away and I know that it’s getting close to biting something that I won’t come back from.
​
            I hope it does soon.