• BRAIN DEAD

    I woke up sweating. The memory of dream already fading. It was that that fleeting dream had woken me. A car. People screaming. The squeal of brakes out of control. A street full of people all turned towards me, their faces darkened with the expression of smiles disappearing. A man, his face twisted with surprise, horror, pain, guilt, holding back a little girl in a blue dress. The colour of the fabric still blurs my eyes as if it is glued to them.
    I do not know where I am. The room, sinisterly dark, sinisterly quite. After the dream it seems menacing, I feel as if something is wrong, terribly wrong, yet I cannot for the life of me think what. I stumble out of the bed. Creep across the cold wooden floor. Stub my toes on a coffee table. Stifle a curse. My hands flutter about the walls trying to find a switch.
    I blink in the sudden light, after I have accustomed to the ability to see, my eyes meet an unfamiliar room. Red walls, with black and crimson canvases. I start to explore, it is a three room apartment; a bedroom, a bathroom, and a kitchen/living-room. An island cooker, pans all hung up according to size and type and black leather furniture. According to the clock above the 21" TV, it was 4am.
    I suddenly feel sick, my legs give way and I fall to me knees, my head pounding, my heart beating against my ribs like a wild animal trying to escape it's cage, my breathing short harsh gasps, sweat all over me, the room swims before my eyes, I put my head in my hands and scream.
    Lights! lights so bright they burst through my closed eyelids, forcing them open. All around me people are shouting, people in long white coats and scrubs. The sounds that reach my ears are distorted, becoming louder, softer, louder. a heart monitor, the squeak of un-oiled wheels, voices echoing all around me.
    "Is room 405 free?...10cc's of morphine...open that door!...Beverly!"
    Beverly? Realisation sparks in my brain like a broken wire.
    "BEVERLY!" My eyes snap open. The room swirling around me make me feel sick. The red of the walls is blood, the black leather is smoke, the silver of the kitchen, a Ford, 50mph, colliding with a blue Honda.
    I collapse to the floor, the scream still resounding in my head. Weariness swoops over me and kisses my heart.

    I don't know how long I lay there, curled up, my head in my hands, moaning my loss. When I finally stand up, my whole body sends out jolts of pain in protest.
    I jump, a phone is ringing somewhere close by. by the time I find it, it has stopped ringing. I pick up the receiver anyway, and am told to press 1 for my messages.
    "...she's stable now but unfortunately we didn't get to her in time and she's slipped into a coma. I'm sorry Mr Couper, but she's unresponsive"
    "Well-" a mans voice "well, what does that mean?"
    "I'm sorry Mr Couper, but unless your wife show some sign of recovery in the next 48 hours then the chances are she wont come back, I am sorry...." the phone cut off.
    "NO!" my voice slices through the silent apartment like a knife. "No! I'm here! I'm alive!" Tears splash onto my heaving breast, like watery stars.
    "Don't give up-" My sobs shake through my body and make me retch. Shaking, sobbing and shouting I sink to the floor, the phone still in my hand. "Don't..." my voice sounds like that of a frightened childs, "Don't leave me..."

    So here I am. I can still see them sometimes. I lapse in and out of this world, and the one to which I used to belong. So far I have spent a total of 1 hour and 20 minutes in the world in which my family occupy. I clutch at these stolen moments like a rock climber clings to the cliff face. It has been eight years since the accident and I am slowly coming to terms with the cold, unbreakable fact, that I will never see my family again. And it kills me. I am brain dead, so why can't they just let me go?