Shards of Sanity

These narrow hallways that I walk are no substitute for the openness of the outside world. It’s been two weeks since I’ve felt the sun on my skin and I miss it so much. I miss my old life. Even though I wasn‘t the happiest person around, the old days were much better than my current days. I even miss that old piece of toast I left on my desk; I’d been meaning to give that moldy slice of bread a name.

But no, the bread will have to wait to receive a formal name because I’m in a hospital you see, Lakestone Memorial Hospital to be exact. It’s this huge hospital with a gray exterior along the waterfront with long glass windows along the sides that reflect the glittering flecks of sunlight off of the water. The hospital is located along Blackrock Lake in my small town of Hazeldene, Pennsylvania. I’m in this hospital because of an accident that I was in shortly after Easter.

Before I know it the world around me fades into oblivion as my memory takes over.

“Hannah you have to slow down!”
If only she believed those words to be true.
“What are you talking about? This car is barely moving!”
What a lie, the trees were just blurs as the car raced down the asphalt.
“Tyler’s right Hannah! If you don’t slow down we’re going to-”
She never got to finish her sentence.
“AHHHHH! Turn the wheel back onto the road!”
His words didn’t have the power needed to turn that wheel.
Crash!
I was a part of another statistic.

I recalled how I was in a drunk driving accident because of my friend’s poor decision. She picked a few of our friends and I up at my house after a party she was at and by the time we realized she was drunk it was too late. The beers she drank didn’t start affecting her system and judgment until we were already on our way to her house. She couldn’t tell how fast the car was moving so she kept putting more pressure on the gas pedal. Eventually she lost control of the car and steered the vehicle, with us inside of it, off the edge of the road. We ended up in a ravine and only one of us made it out relatively unscathed. None of us died, but with all but one of us in the hospital, it’s hard to say what could happen or how long we might be hospitalized for.

I heard a soft knock on my door. “Skylar?”
“You can come in.” I answered back.

From behind the door appeared my doctor, Dr. Moore.
He smiled faintly at me and my bandage clad body. I wasn’t one of the lucky ones in my group. I was in the passenger seat and at the time of the crash and as a result my head took a direct jolt forward into the dashboard. To make matters worse, the windshield shattered and shards of glass rained down on me and Hannah, who was driving. The air bags deployed and I felt as if I were suffocating underneath the material pressed against my chest.
The fact that my seat belt or strap of death as I liked to call it was strangling me didn’t help either.

“How are you feeling?” Dr. Moore asked.
“I feel like an angry Communist just chucked a brick at my head.” I replied bitterly.
Dr. Moore cracked a small smile. “I see that your sardonic humor has survived the accident.”
“I would sure hope so. That, and my overactive imagination are the only things keeping me somewhat sane in this place.” I remarked.
“All joking aside, I need to give you a quick check-up to make sure your body is healing as it should.”
“Okay, do your job Doc.” I said as I sat up in my bed, wincing slightly as I leaned forward.
Dr. Moore knitted his bushy eyebrows. “What hurts?”
I looked up and quickly removed all emotion from my face. “Nothing hurts.”
“Sklyar,” Dr. Moore sighed heavily, “I know that you want to be out of here as fast as possible but that’s not going to happen if you keep lying about the pain you are feeling.”
“I’m not lying!” I yelled as I felt myself become annoyed.
“Skylar, please, refrain from your adamant tendencies for even just a half hour?” Dr. Moore pleaded.
I sighed and gave into his plea.
“Ok good. I’m just going to carry out the standard procedures; listen to your heart beat, take your blood pressure, examine your eyes, and look at your injuries.” Dr. Moore told me as he removed the stethoscope from his neck.

“Great,” I thought to myself, “now he’s going to put that cold ass piece of metal under my skin.”

I recoiled as the metal made contact with my skin. I never liked the feeling of stethoscopes because when I was younger I associated them with snakes and those creatures were not my animal friends. The examination continued and as usual, I felt nervous when the blood pressure pad tightened around my arm. The light that shone in my eyes was far too bright and the prodding of my bruises made me want to slap someone, mainly Dr. Moore. As he unraveled my bandages to examine some of the cuts produced from the glass that shattered after the accident, I glanced at my right arm.

There were scars of varying degrees on my arm. Some were faint and pink while others were a deep red. It looked like I had dragged a serrated knife across my arm and well, that wasn’t my style. Sure, I’ll admit that sometimes I felt like a good old stab in the arm would distract me from the pains of reality, but I’m no masochist.

Pain does not please me, nor does giving into trials. I rather face obstacles head on than succumb to my own self pity. But hey, some people just care about feelings more than I do and there’s nothing wrong with that; I’m just saying that’s not who I am. I have yet to find something or someone who is my everything, my reason for living, my oxygen, and my greatest weakness.