Going Home

I opened my eyes onto blackness

I blinked, but it made no difference - and when I tried to move, I couldn’t - I was stuck, trapped in this pitch-black void.

I started to panic, giving in to my terror at not being able to move, but then I saw a light speeding towards me in the darkness like the headlight of a train.

This bright, piercing light came closer and closer, moving with ever-increasing speed, until suddenly it was upon me and I was standing in a starkly lit white corridor.

I found I still could not move my body, yet I saw that as I looked around, that the walls were passing by me - somehow, I was moving.

As I was spirited past the rows of doors on either side, I began to notice I was passing gurneys and tables with trays full of needles and vials... and it was then I knew.

I was in a hospital - one of the places I feared and detested the most, and I was there and couldn’t move.

The thought made me shudder, but I turned my attention to what was ahead of me.

As I drew near to the end of the hall, my momentum began to slow, and eventually I found myself stopped outside one of the doors.

The door opened before me and I was propelled inside, where I saw three people.

The two standing by the bed seemed familiar, and I studied their faces, still not able to comprehend what was going on.

Then it hit me with a sickening jolt - this woman, sitting, crying - it was my mother.

In that heart-wrenching moment, I wanted to reach out to her, to find out what was going on, but I couldn’t - all I could do, I found, was watch the scene unfold before me.

I felt a little better when the other woman in the room, a nurse, moved to comfort my mother - it was Jessie’s mum, I noted - this time with less surprise.

It was, of course, no surprise to find her in a hospital - she worked here - but why was my mum here, and why did they both look so upset?

But I couldn’t concentrate on those questions, because even as I thought it, the scene moved and I was standing by the bed, looking down at the limp form attached to the machines

What I saw before me on the bed was something I couldn’t make myself believe.

I was watching my unconscious self; and this me looked ill - very ill.

Forcing myself to keep looking even as I began to feel sick to my stomach, I began to see myself from a stranger’s point of view - the scrawny, pale body; the wavy dark hair hacked off short; the bruises all over - and, worst of all, the complete lack of movement.

At that moment, all I saw as I looked at myself was a corpse on life support, and I was thankful when the scene started to shimmer and back away.

I was taken back down the corridor again, and though I was terrified when I saw that I was headed back into the darkness, I was also strangely relieved.

At least there, there were no strange visions to try and make sense of; it was a place that didn’t keep fading away and skipping around.

And so, when I was standing back in the void, I didn’t panic.
I knew I could change nothing here, and there would be no difference if I closed my eyes, so I sank down on the ground of the dark space and allowed myself to fall into a kind of sleep.