City of Fools

I felt the world cave in around me. How could this be? It was too much to process, and, eventually, it faded. It faded to black.
“Tay? Tay, can you hear me?”
The voice was distant, accompanied by a pressure that I could barely feel. I ran towards it; there was nothing to see. A big white room, with no windows and no doors. It was cold and stern, like winter air cutting at my bare arms. I ran, fighting against this force holding me down. I fight. I lose.
“Tay! Can you hear me now? Can you hear me?”
The voice is louder now, the pressure stronger, verging on pain. There is light, warmer; friendly. My vision is distorted but there is a figure. I reach for his face. My eyes adjust. I am happy to see him. He smiles. He shouts, he kisses my face. He is happy to see me. I adjust. I remember.
I scream.

I awoke from my seemingly everlasting nightmare to a soft voice, a sweet melody. I opened my eyes, slowly, getting used to the harsh, bright lights. The music stopped.
“Tay? You’re awake?” He was whispering cautiously, like I was a ticking time bomb. Justifiably so.
“Shh,” I struggled to speak, my throat dry from not drinking in however long. “Keep singing.”
I sunk back into reality to the sound of his voice, a beautiful welcome.
“I didn’t know you could sing.” I remarked. He just laughed.
“I didn’t know you could sleep for three days. I guess we’re always learning.”
“So,” My voice was croaky and sore, barely even there. “My mom died.”
Alex squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, before moving his chair over next to me, taking my hand.
“Yeah,” He sighed, playing with my fingers. “Two years ago.”
“I just…” I sat up, taking the plastic cup if water he offered to me.
“I don’t understand how… I could just forget.”
He looked down, his expression unreadable. As usual- it was a one way street; he was a closed book- sealed and padlocked, in fact- and I was predictable, my features a translucent visor to the cogs in my brain.
“You don’t know the details yet, Tay. For now you just need to… be awake.”
Regardless, I couldn’t help but roll my eyes at him. “I’ll try my hardest.”
He smiled, leaning forward to kiss my head before pressing a button to call in the doctors.
“Why are you calling them?”
He laughed at me, running a hand through his hair. “You’ve been out for three days, babe. I think they may be interested in your consciousness.”
Three men in ridiculously clean long white coats immediately bustled in, prodding at me as though I was a lump of meat.
“Can you hear me?” One of them shone a light in my eye without warning.
“No.”
I heard Alex’s stifled laughs as I pulled faces at light guy.
“Very funny,” He grumbled, adjusting some sort of drip linked up to a needle in my hand that I had previously neglected to notice.
The guy looked as though he’d aged far too quickly, with set in frown lines and wispy hair unevenly streaked with grey. His presence made me feel uneasy.
“When can I leave?”
He sniggered at me, the sound sharp, spiteful.
“Eager. You need to be checked first.” He turned on his heel and stalked out in several uneven steps.
The remaining two doctors were younger, and looked slightly bewildered. They gave me an apologetic look and shuffled out after him.
“They do realize I’m not broken, like, physically?”
Alex smiled and shook his head at me. “It’s all to do with your brain, y’know. You didn’t just sleep for three days because you felt like it. I don’t even think that’s possible… But there’s been neurologists in and out poking around you all the time. It was pretty unnerving.”
I finally clocked something whilst processing his words.
“How long have you been here?”
He shifted and rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly.
“As long as I’ve needed to be.”
“Alex,” I rolled my eyes at him, sitting up to look at him properly; lying down suddenly making me feel like a patronized child. “How long have you been here?”
“Well, I left to like, shower, and eat. So three days minus like two hours. Two days and twenty two hours. Roughly.”
I smiled, shaking my head as I pushed my hair back from my face, acknowledging how disgusting I must have looked but consciously ignoring it.
A moment of silence ensued and I felt like I was sinking, slowly but surely.
“Alex,” My voice was smaller, weaker. Shaken. Like myself.
“My mom died.”
He slowly moved to sit next to me, pulling me into him, encasing me in his existence. He kissed my head and sighed lightly.
“Yeah,” He whispered.
“She did.”

Eventually, once establishing that I was not severely mentally crippled or hazardous to others, they let Alex take me home. Well, his home. I wasn’t supposed to be alone. After I’d showered and shaken off my seventy two hour sleep; I curled up on Alex’s sofa to try and comprehend what had actually happened.
“So all the times I went to the movies with my mom,” I’d began as Alex walked over, setting two cups down on the coffee table. “I was actually alone, talking to no one. And every time I answered the phone to her, it hadn’t been ringing. And every time I-”
“Tay,” He whispered, sounding pained. He sat opposite my and leaned over to take my hand. “Stop torturing yourself.”
I shook my head, my throat closing up as I channelled all of my strength into trying not to cry. “And when we were at my apartment that day, there was no one there. I was arguing with nothing. I walked in and screamed, at nothing.” I broke down, leaning forward with my head in my hands. I refused to look up, even when I felt Alex sit next to me, his arms wrapping around my waist, his head resting on my shoulder.
“It was a defence mechanism,” He tried to explain softly. “You couldn’t process it so you pretended it didn’t happen. Your mind-”
“But that’s not it!” It was safe to say that I was now hysterical, as I jumped up and paced the room. “I made her a monster! She was always the best person in my life. She made everything okay. Then when she, when I… I made her awful. I blamed her for leaving and I created this version of her that lived to hurt me. And I can barely even remember how it felt to see her smile.”
“I can barely remember how it feels to see you smile.”
I sighed, exhausted. I didn’t want him to make me feel better. I wanted him to agree with me, I wanted him to tell me that I was wrong, and I was awful and fucked up beyond all recognition. I wanted a reason to scream.
“Don’t turn this around, Alex. I’m currently trying to process how much of a blindingly awful person I am.”
He shook his head, walking towards me slowly, lifting his hands for me to take. I instinctively reciprocated, his touch offering me the kind of comfort I didn't deserve.
“You’re not an awful person. You’re not even a bad person. You’re a wonderful person with the patience of a saint. You processed grief a different way to others. But now you can tackle it. And we can work through it together; because that’s how we’re gonna do things now. Together. And now, we’re gonna talk about your mom, the real one. You’re going to tell me all about her, because, god, what I would have given to meet the woman responsible for bringing someone like you into the world.”