FLOATING, Guest post Kim/Domino
They let me sit up today.
"They" are the nice people in white uniforms and white lab coats who care for me.
They feed me, and clean me and take away my pain.
They interrupt my nightmares, but this world is no more real to me than the one in my nightmares. Neither of them make sense to me, not one more than the other. I can see now, but colors are tricky. Mostly I see black, white, gray, but red is coming back, a faded blue, a touch of yellow. What I remember as green is coming more slowly. It seems the primary colors are fighting for attention before the nuances can be recognized. I can hear. Sometimes I hear too acutely. Words hurt, like spears in my ears, sharp, intrusive. I prefer silence. I like quiet. I can taste, chew, swallow, but food doesn't have much importance to me. I don't seem too thin, I guess the fluids they forced into me kept my weight steady.
This morning, one of the nice ladies in white wrapped me up in a robe, and together with a man, transferred me to a wheelchair and rolled me over to the window. I'm so weak, my spine protests at having to hold my torso in place. My arms and legs work, they have feeling now, but no strength. My hands are motionless in my lap as I stare out through the glass at an unfamiliar landscape. The sun is out. I think I see a hint of green in the foliage. In the distance, the mountains are huge and covered in snow. Major mountains, not hills, not a single rise of granite, but a significant range of peaks. That should be a clue to where I am, but it isn't computing.
I watch birds fly from limb to limb, stop, survey, fly again. I watch a silver squirrel scurry up the trunk and disappear into the leaves. I see people in wheelchairs or walking with the precise and careful gait of the wounded shuffle through the gardens, stopping often to rest on wooden benches. The people in white are with them, but so are some others, in brighter clothes, friends or family.
Do I have no friends? No family? No one comes to see me here. No one cares. Teri, who is Teri? While the name is ambiguous, I know that Teri is a man. But who is he and why is his the only name that occurs to me? I asked them if it was my name. They told me my name was Kim. Another ambiguous name. I didn't ask anything else. It makes my head throb to think about things, to try and recall my life. Flowers arrive to brighten my room, a bouquet a week, no card, no trace, no idea who sends them. They're always red. Sometimes poppies, sometimes roses, sometimes flowers I don't remember the name of.
The sun goes behind a cloud, throwing the view into shadow. And then a face comes into focus, black hair, narrow eyes, high cheekbones, a feral, handsome face, one I know. When I raise my fingers to my chin, the image in the glass does the same. My face. I stare at my reflection. I touch my nose, my cheek, my eyelashes. This little bit of motion tires me and my arm drops back in my lap.
"Kim," I whisper and the lips in the reflection move as I say the word. "Who are you?"
I answer my own question, inside my head, an inner voice that says, "I am justice."
But what does that mean?