Chapter 2: Beginnings are Strange
Everything was different.
Everything was white.
I’d always assumed that white equaled good in my little bit of life experience, but as that whiteness invaded my eyes, I was startled into the realization that I didn’t much care for it as a color. It was too blank, too obviously nondescript. Not to forget, it hurt to look at. Black, now there is an inoffensive color if I’ve ever seen one.
I blinked my eyes at the bright light that was being shined directly at my retinas. My lids were crusty like I had cobwebs behind them from disuse. It took a few times of opening and closing, white to black again and again, before the feeling of rustiness wasn’t so obnoxiously irritating.
I heard someone saying something, but I couldn’t make out the words. Sounded like another language.
“Garble, garble, girble, blibbit,” is what it sounded like to me in my haze.
My ears had a sort of ringing in them like I’d been conked a good one over the head and then forced to sit by the cannon used to mark a touchdown at the school football games. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard a cannon go off, probably not, but it’s LOUD. Fourth of July finale fireworks show loud, if you were sitting on the fireworks when they went off. Yeah, that loud.
With a head full of cotton, I was not feeling my best. Okay, best was not even a good word to describe what I wasn’t right then.
I kept my eyes closed, the darkness behind my eyelids a welcome reprieve from the shocking whiteness of the world outside them, and tried to figure out how I had come to be where I was.
Even my thoughts felt sluggish and unused. It took a few moments before I could even remember my own name, and when that came my other memories clunked along into place as well. Clunk, clunk, “Oh yeah, my name is Lulu. And I’m a girl.” Basically what I thought as I lay there with my eyes still closed, afraid to open them for fear of what I might see once I did.
I didn’t know thoughts could be sore, but as I lay there, wherever it was, I almost winced as I trod mentally through my mind’s paths.
My brain felt like it had been through some major surgery, if that was even possible, or oddly enough, it was more like someone had poked around and rearranged the furniture of my mind, and my thought processes were stumping their toes on the newly arranged areas. Not pleasant, to say the least.
When I eventually got a handle on my mind, I began to flip through the folio of memories to see if anything might explain what happened and most importantly, where I was.
The last thing I remembered was jumping into the river with Tommy…no. That’s not right. The last thing I remembered was hitting something in the water and thinking I was going to die. Shards of those last few moments of consciousness jabbed my mind, and made me panic for a second until I shook off the feeling with the realization that I wasn’t drowning because I was in a bed. I took a deep breath just to prove I still could, and I tried to slow my speeding heart as it worked to pump life saving adrenalin to my body.
I concluded that I must be at the hospital. Tommy must have saved me from the river. So he had come for me! I felt someone come closer to me, and tap me on my left arm. The sensation was raw on my skin and startled me. Every nerve in my body was tingling and I just wanted the sensory overload to calm down. If I didn’t know any better, I’d have said I had forgotten what it felt like to be touched.
I opened my eyes again, this time more slowly so the light wouldn’t be such a shock. I saw through the slits of my eyes, a man peering down at me with curiosity. I opened my eyes more so I could take in this situation more fully.
“Well, he’s new,” I thought with some surprise—and a little dismay. This couldn’t be like one of those movies where I fell in love with my handsome doctor, could it? At least, I prayed not. Handsome would have had to take on an entirely opposite connotation for that to be true.
He was wearing a white lab coat, like a doctor would normally wear, and he had huge glasses that kinda made his black eyes look goofily large and oddly, like beetles. Another rather unnecessary fact my mind noted was the awareness that the doctor was extremely pale for someone who lived in the South. He bordered upon the total absence of color. And he had a shiny bald head with an obvious glare from the overhead lights to boot.
No. I didn’t see love in his future anytime soon. Especially not with me!
I wanted to laugh, but I was under the impression that that might not be such a good idea. I remember thinking I had broken my back, and I knew a broken back wouldn’t like me to jostle it. Can’t be too careful. I only have one spinal cord that I know about.
The man spoke, this time I understood him well enough because he didn’t sound like he was in a Charlie Brown movie. “How do you feel, girl?”
“Girl?” I thought to myself at the oddness of it all. No one had ever called me that before. It was very impersonal and almost cruel-sounding as a title. Add to the fact that he was creepy personified, and I didn’t like it one bit.
I decided right then, that I did not like that man. I couldn’t explain why at the time, but I just knew he wasn’t a very savory character.
Answering him I managed to croak, “Super duper…” with my usual degree of sarcasm. My voice was a little scratchy, and sounded different, most likely from disuse.
He smiled uncomfortably, and looked momentarily at a window facing my bed. I couldn’t see out of it since it was like one of those one-way mirror-like windows you see in police shows. When he finally turned his attention back to me, I was unnerved by my situation. This definitely wasn’t Kansas anymore, and I wanted to click my little red heels together and disappear.
“Do you feel up to some tests?” He asked semi-excitedly.
Tests! Hooray! It was like he’d won the lottery by being my doctor, and if only I would let him poke and prod me he would be the happiest man on earth. Fat chance bucko. If anyone was going to do some poking, it would be me…with a sharp stick…in his eyes.
I frowned. “Shouldn’t my family be coming in to see me?” I thought and then shrugged. I didn’t understand hospital protocol.
“Suuure,” I replied hesitantly. I don’t think he would appreciate what I really was thinking. I was beginning to feel more uncomfortable, if that was even possible, and I didn’t want to make that guy upset by refusing “tests” or whatnot. He was sinister and at the moment he had the upper-hand.
I looked around my room to get an idea of my surroundings, just in case I had to bolt. Strangely enough, there wasn’t any hospital equipment. The only thing in the room, besides me, was the bed on which I lay.
The sheets and even my own clothing were white and crisp. I took a sniff to see if it smelled hospitally, but the only thing I smelled was the slight, fading scent of licorice. I shuddered vehemently. Licorice was awful, and the last time I accidentally ate it I projectile vomited for two days. Nasty stuff. Ewww. (I now refer to licorice as the flavor and scent of evil, and if they actually start manufacturing a perfume—or weapon--line from that scent, I fully expect royalties. So, dibs.)
That was weird enough as it was, but I just attributed the smell to a bad decision in laundering (a monumentally bad decision) and the lack of equipment to the fact that I was fine, and didn’t need an IV or anything. Thanks goodness! If I had woken up to find a needle stuck in my arm I might have lapsed back into a coma.
If I had been smarter or less absorbed in the now, I might have interpreted that to mean something wasn’t right, but I had always been a very trusting person.
Call me gullible, because it would be true.
At least, back then it would.
The man (who hadn’t said his name by the way) nodded enthusiastically (too enthusiastically if you ask me), and proceeded to scribble something down in his notebook. The scratchy noise of the pen on the paper was out of place in the sterile white room.
The door slid open noiselessly and disappeared into the wall and a nurse came into the room to stand on my right side, the door sliding back into place to hide whatever lay outside this room. No doubt more white spaceage. I noticed offhandedly that her white uniform seemed in an ideal relationship to the rest of the décor.
She had a stethoscope and she started to take my blood pressure and listen to my heart. The metal of the stethoscope was cold and I let out a tiny gasp as it touched my bare skin. I watched this all with a guarded interest, because I had always wanted to be a doctor or a nurse when I grew up, but mostly because I didn’t trust them completely down in my gut for some reason. I was making sure she wasn’t about to drug me or anything hinky.
The lady smiled at me, and I noticed that she was really pretty. Flawless skin, perfectly coiffed hair pulled into a smooth bun at the nape of her neck, and straight white teeth framed in smiling red lips.
Those lips were what tipped me off at first. Her smile…something was off about it the more I observed her. It appeared to be fake. Her lips were too tight, too controlled.
She didn’t appear to be willing to stop smiling. I watched her more closely, scrutinizing her every move, and it became increasingly apparent to me that she was exceedingly uncomfortable around my person.
Her body language was quite explicit about that.
She moved stiffly around my bedside, like she was terrified that I might bite her or something equally dangerous. Like wink or sneeze or whatever. I turned my head ever so slightly to follow her movements, and I saw her flinch away and then catch herself before she could jerk too much. Weird.
“What’s that about?” I thought with a small frown.
People were usually very open and at ease around me. I was a very nonthreatening person. Hel-lo, look at me, I’m about a hundred pounds of helpless, white girl. Maybe she had a phobia of tiny people.
But that nurse, I came to realize with some shock—because the idea of such a thing was almost impossible in itself to grasp—was scared of me. Of me.
I looked at my reflection in the glass in front of my bed. Lines of worry creased my familiar yet alien features. I hadn’t given much thought to how I looked before then, but now I examined my face for anything that said, “Fear me” and came up empty.
My grass-green eyes just stared back at me, looking puzzled. Those freckles that always became more prominent during the sunnier summer months were still spotting up my face. The only thing a bit obviously different was the fact that my hair looked a little more well cared for than my normal bird-nesty look, but that should be something that would be attractive, not scary.
I looked the same as I always had, sort of —physically speaking. Except perhaps I was more adulty? Is that a word? Anyway, I didn’t look as if I was a teenager any longer, at least, not any teenager I had ever seen before. It was something about the way my features fit together perfectly, as if had been tightened into perfection in my sleep. Double weird.
My cheek bones were more prominent, baby fat gone. My skin was clear and glowed with health. I had good color like I had been out in the sun for a few hours, and didn’t look like I had taken a dip in the river and been almost drowned. No bruises or blemishes of any kind were visible anywhere that I could see. What was wrong then?
My attention reverted back to the doctor, who I noticed had been observing me in silence. His dark eyes were off-putting in their flatness as I met them solidly with my own.
“Soulless eyes,” I thought secretly. Eyes that you automatically know you can’t trust. His eyes were black as night. No depth of feeling pervaded my glance into his eyes, and I knew without knowing how I knew, that he was not someone I would want to call if I ever needed help. He was just as likely to leave me to die than give any aid.
I also knew that he wasn’t a doctor. No one with that much distaste for life could be a doctor. Unless he was one of those evil doctors that did experiments on unsuspecting people. In that case, I was in trouble. But I had to let him think I thought he was a doctor. That I also knew with extreme certainty. It was best for me to play along until I could get myself far away from him. Far, far, far away.
“What happened to me…doctor?” I asked worriedly. “Did I break my back?” Perhaps the nurse was just afraid of jostling my injuries. That would make sense. Just keep diverting his attention. Maybe he’ll leave me alone. Go torture some other patient.
He laughed, and it sounded to me like a fake laugh, or maybe I was still disturbed over the nurse’s reaction to me. I didn’t know. In any case, the sound grated on my nerves unlike anything I had ever encountered before. It was a strangled, mangled sound, verging on a cackle. A very disturbing cackle. Cacklers were automatically people I didn’t like. Boy, he sure was working hard to be the person I disliked the most. Already he was near the top, with Hitler and Albert Fish.
“You died,” he said as matter-of-factly as if he was stating what he had for lunch a week ago. Yes, definitely a Fishian type.
Needless to say, I was speechless. Actually, speechless was a generous description. I managed to stammer a reply, “Wh-what?” and to my ears it sounded sort of like I was speaking underwater.
He said it again because I was obviously dense, “You died. It was quite quick, though, I assure you.”
He smiled comfortingly at me, or at least he thought so. I don’t think anyone has had the nerve to tell him that seeing him smile is like watching while a doctor gives you shot with a HUGE needle. Pain-full.
I nodded, okay, I can dig it. Being dead is probable if what I remember happening actually occurred. Which I distinctly remembered, it had. It ain’t every day that you get to experience drowning to death, so I think I’d remember my own death. “And Tommy didn’t save me…” I remarked silently.
“Oh then that explains why everything is white. This must be heaven,” I said drawing a conclusion as I looked around expecting someone to walk in and give me my wings and halo. Ahhh the beauty of disillusionment, how swiftly it crumbles.
Nothing like that happened, and I was forced to remark, “But it seems that heaven is severely lacking in ‘heavenliness’…”
He looked at me in confusion to see if I was joking—so wasn’t—and seeing that I wasn’t—I don’t joke about heaven—he laughed dryly causing me to pause in my musings to stare at him because he had evidently developed a sudden case of insanity.
Otherwise, why laugh at my heaven theory? It was entirely possible, but considering the fact that he wasn’t exactly my version of an angelic host, I was most likely a bit off base with that assumption, I must admit now in hindsight.
“You died, but this isn’t heaven,” he explained. “You are indeed still on earth, and still a…human.” He concluded his explanation with a half smile that made a shiver go up my spine. Creeeeeepy.
Obviously, to him, dying wasn’t that much of a big deal, but I, on the other hand, was totally freaking out by that point in his clarification. I had finally grasped the idea that I had supposedly died and wasn’t now in heaven. Talk about a let-down.
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