literature

Delirium

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People don’t laugh when you’re delirious.
Instead of laughing, they sort of crowd around, give you that pathetic, sympathising gawk like they’re trying to grin, but they aren’t sure if it’s appropriate or not. Like telling a joke at a funeral to the guy sitting in the pew next to you because the silence is too overbearing and all you want to do is strip from your black and hit the road. You know they’re really feeling awkward when they stand back and try to ignore you; sometimes they just leave, because it’s different rubbernecking for a real live person than an inanimate transit accident. The people who do stick around try not to make eye contact, and ask other people, never you, if you’re all right.
“Doctor, is she going to be okay? Doctor, is this normal?”
Of course this is normal. Fuckin’-A! Whole thing’s a bleedy riot.
Why can’t someone apart from me just laugh and pretend nothing’s happened?
It doesn’t matter that I’m smeared with blood and shaking from head to toe.
I’m grinning.

Wait. We can’t go in at this pace. What’s happened’s already happened; you’re missing the best part. We have to go back to the beginning.
Stop. Rewind.
Play.

Slow motion. Just a few frames per second, a clicking sound in the background.
Go.
The tracking button doesn’t work and the batteries are dying, so the screen is peppered with white noise. A gap in the tape where there’s only black where there isn’t supposed to be.
Pause. Stop. Rewind. Play.
Normal speed, chugging. Slow-mo again.
The soundtrack’s cut out.
Play. Play.
Rolling.


It’s all dark, then it’s white. Contrast and white. White. But this isn’t death; I know it’s not death. But what it is, I don’t know, and there’s nothing to feel, so I just lay there.
White.
Something’s missing. Something, and I can’t place it. I just want to fall asleep, rest, close my eyes, but they already are closed, rest, sleep.
I think I already am asleep. That’s why I don’t feel.
In my head, familiar voices, familiar phrases, words that have already been said and done. Faces I recognise. A plot unfolding. Nostalgia, and I just want to go back to it. Right to that place and time, and I can. But there’s something more important. Something I need to remember.
In my head it’s October, but the ground is freezing.
I’m shivering, but my ears are warm.
Slowly, sit up, prop under the arm like a kickstand, watch the world around through an orange veil. I know it’s white. Everything looks too warm, but I know it’s really white. And I don’t know why.
There’s blood down a fissure in the broken orange screen, and it grips me. Quick, pull off the mask. Quick, take a good look around.
Quick, see the blotches of red – real bright red, like special effects in a Quentin Tarantino film, fresh red – specking and dotting the frozen powder, the white backdrop. Quick.
See the cliff, and wonder if you’re really alone.
My tongue, roaming the rows of teeth to make certain they’re all there, still captivated by the blood. Unconvinced, scoop up some clean snow and eating it, spitting it out. Make sure the blood’s even mine.
Of course it is, idiot. I must have bit through my tongue.
But I don’t remember anything that happened. I should feel pain.
I’m not broken, I’m not dead, but I should feel pain.
Look around, ears ringing. Trying to recognise this place, by can’t. Some people might imagine the prospect of death is the worst, most frightening feeling in the world – and if it is, the prospect of not being able to remember must not be far behind. Maybe they’re neck at neck. It doesn’t matter, because at the moment, all I can do is try to make up excuses for what happened.
In my head, a sneaking suspicion it’s still October.
My ears are still perfectly warm and I’m still shivering, and my senses are all overcome by a throbbing pain with movement now. But at the same time, I don’t feel. It’s cold. I know it’s cold like I know it’s white, and like I know how terrible the red looks on that background. Wondering dimly if someone will see the blood, and wonder whose it is, like I did.
Collapse again, and tell myself to go to sleep, too tired to be afraid. When I wake up, everything will be normal. Because it’s a dream; I won’t remember this dream, but that will be fine. Irritating, and I’ll try to scoop up the threads, but eventually it will all be forgotten.
I can’t sleep.

Pause.

(Flashback to a time where I lay on my back on the cold snow with searing pain rocketing through my chest, and I am unable to breathe for minutes on end, struggling against that knotting hurt. People that ask if I’m all right and tell me I’m just winded, and all I can say through a single gasping breath is ‘Can’t…….breathe…’ and I’ll strain and lay on my side until everything opens up. There isn’t blood above the surface that time, and I can remember everything perfectly well, and all I fear is a broken rib, wondering things like ‘What if it punctures my lung?’. Fast-forward to a point where I can breathe, but it hurts, and I can get up, and everything is all right, even if it hurts and strains to breathe, because everything is all right…)

Play.  

Scrape, scrape. Like hockey. People try to slow down when they see red, though, people try not to spray you, try not to run you over. Thankfully they’re good at it.
I’m still on the ground.
People are getting down on their knees like they’re going to pray – but I know they aren’t, because my father is a redneck hick, and can’t stand Christian Bible-thumpers. He’s also an ex-ski patroller, and it’s got to be the only reason I’m glad he’s there. At least he can confirm my head isn’t cracked open and I’m not on my way to being dead.
Or whatever he does.
Some other familiar faces beneath those chunky helmets, others in the distance, some gone. I don’t remember ever joining with them. I know they are, (That’s Debbie, that’s Dad, maybe in the distance, stopping, that’s Mike, where’s Amy? The twins? Are they with us? I don’t care.)  I know… what we’re doing with them. I can’t place when. I can’t place the time. I can’t make the connection.
This feels so familiar, but I’m with the wrong people. Debbie shouldn’t be here.   
Maybe it’s a weekend. Maybe this is Fernie, Lake Louise, Castle. Maybe we’ve been with them all day.
Maybe it’s morning.  
“What happened?” someone asks.
“…dunno.”
“Can you get up?”
“…no…”
But I can talk, apparently. I want to cry, but I grit my teeth and don’t allow myself that kind of satisfaction, even while my eyes are wet with icy snowflakes and the pain in my head. But I know it isn’t a dream anymore.
But I can’t remember. There’s isn’t another feeling like that in the world. Knowing there’s a part of your memory that isn’t there, and it should be.
People who star in amnesia flicks, I realise, are bad actors. They probably can’t imagine what it’s like, probably never experience it before.
I’m wondering if it will come back even as it trickles, slowly.
I think my dad asks me if I know what date it is, where we are, who we’re with. Again, what happened.
I can only mutter, “Last thing I remember doing’s writing…”
Like some crooked déjà vu. I can see the faces in my head.
At some later time I’ll realise the cause of the accident, and relay it back to mentally writing. Later, and I’ll laugh at it then. Me, the idiot with her head up in the clouds. Or, at least, in New York City with the notorious Raegen Fallor planning a mass freak show snuff murder on the set of Deadman Productions.
Lucky I was skiing instead of say, driving.  
Debbie is mortified. My father has to explain to her that that’s what I do, I write, I’m writing a book. That’s usually when people ask me what it’s about, what the title is – right now in this place in time, that information it irrelevant and the only people to tell don’t care. He says maybe that’s what I was doing this morning on the laptop, that’s why I remember it. Or a week ago, at home. It’s all the same. I’m delusional either way.
My dad asks, “Do you know what day it is?”
I take a long time to reply, because my head is throbbing, and I know it just isn’t the physical pain. I’m embarrassed and frightened, and I don’t want to admit that I don’t remember, so I try to fake it.  
I tell him, “Saturday… Maybe.”
He says it isn’t. Christmas Break?
I realise it isn’t October anymore; it definitely isn’t October because that’s months ago.
Maybe it’s January. I think, maybe it’s March.
My skis are gone, and so are my poles, but I don’t care. They’re probably twenty, thirty feet down the hill by now anyways.
I’m still shivering.     
He asks if I know where we are. Sunshine, maybe. It feels like Sunshine. No…. No, we’d be more likely to go to Lake Louise. This year, that’s the only place we’ve gone, so it’s a safe bet.
“Lake Louise…” I say, in the exact same tone that three quarters of my Math class with a 68 percent average will answer questions from the board. And as he looks at me, scared, maybe, disappointed, puzzled, it comes back. Slowly.
I say, taking forever to cough it out, “Wait… I think I remember now. It’s… It’s Monday, right? We’re in… Whitefish.” I never remember the name of ski resorts. I think I got it right this time though. “It’s… the week off. We’re going home today…”
Relief. Relief, damnit. I can breathe again.
I still don’t remember hitting the ground.
“How long was I out?”
Had to be less than a couple minutes, he says. He says, maybe only twenty, thirty seconds, he and Debbie, discussing this amongst themselves. Maybe a minute or so. Of course, why would someone time something like this?
It doesn’t matter.
I feel like laughing. “I thought it was… all a dream. Felt like it was all a dream. I thought it was a dream.” I think I realise I’m repeating total nonsense to them, and that’s why I shut up.
I remember the music. I remember the soundtrack that isn’t there, and the reason why my ears are the only part of me that isn’t cold.
Sit up in a real hurry this time, under my coat, fish around the inside pocket and take out my CD player. Flick of the Hold button and press play, see that it still works. Words across the screen, then numbers, and I hear Soundgarden. Just Like Suicide. More relief, turn it off, put the Hold back on, back in the pocket it goes. Collapse. Momentary adrenaline rush, over.
Weak again, shivering, and I’m trying to remember hitting the ground.
Someone asks, “How did you hit the ground?”
“Don’t remember… Thought it was all a dream.” Grinning, I’m grinning.
I’m thinking to myself, remembering, this is where I bruised my ribs, I’m thinking, these are the people I was with, I’m thinking, I think I jinxed it just before I crashed, I’m thinking, Fuck, this is ironic. And quietly, I’m laughing. I want to say it out loud, because I know how funny it is. The reason I don’t is because I know I’ll screw the wording up.
My dad or someone says, “Your nose is bleeding, and so is your lip.”
I hope my nose isn’t broken. God, that would be awful. My cheek is searing.
He, or someone else, says, “Your goggles must have hit it. They’re cracked.”
And there’s blood on them, I remember. There’s blood on the inside. Fuck. Those goggles were brand new from this year. I’ll need to get new ones.
Someone from the hill, I think, asks if I’m all right. Someone else always asks if I’m all right – never to me of course, but they ask. Last time my dad said I was, and they just left, probably feeling good about themselves having tried to play the kind citizen, probably forgot about it by the time they took off their boots. I skied the rest of the day and week with bruised (potentially fractured) ribs. This time though I’m down for the count.
I think that that someone who asked this time around is a ski patroller.

Pause.

(Flashback to a time a week before when my English teacher is asking what is a usage of irony, and I tell her it’s a device to imply humour, and she’ll say not always, not all irony is funny. And I’ll think to myself, no, it’s all funny – you just have to have a sick sense of humour for the miserable, pathetic instances. Moments later a boy I’ve never spoken to before will ask if irony is like a pedophile. The class will freeze up then laugh, and months later, will continue laughing about the incident. He’s confusing Michael Jackson with a hypocrite. Then again, maybe he’s that too, -- and the class will go on.)  

Play.

I’m surprised with how quickly the ski patrollers arrive with the skidoo and toboggan. I’ve always wondered what it would be like to ride down a steep slope in one of those things – now I’ll get the chance to find out.
My dad helps them drag me onto a stretcher on the ground and they leave my helmet on but they strap on a neck brace and then go ahead and strap down everything as well. I can’t move. I feel like a mental patient.
Finally, while they’re doing this I go ahead and say to Debbie as she leans over and asks how I’m doing, “It’s really ironic. I think you guys jinxed it, and I was just thinking about it before I crashed, how it would be bad luck skiing with you guys here…” She doesn’t know what the hell I’m talking about. I just wish she’d laugh. I think she asks about what I meant about writing. I don’t think I respond. Too tired.
The patroller asks me if I’m all right and comfortable, and I say I am, even as I shiver. The patroller asks me name and I tell him my first, because I think he’s being courteous and friendly – then I tell him my last because I think it’s for the medical papers – then I add in my middle because I think he’s testing my memory. He asks me if I know what the date is. Seventeenth, eighteenth… twentieth? I tell him I don’t remember the date on a normal day; he shouldn’t make much of it. He doesn’t laugh.
They ask my dad what happened. They make note of my temporary out-of-it-ness and amnesia. They say they’ll meet him down at the bottom and zip up the body bag. Maybe I’ll be able to sleep now.
I’m not.
All the way the uncomfortable trip to the bottom, the patroller skiing beside asks me how I’m doing every thirty seconds, asks me if the bumps are treating me all right, asking me if I’m still alive. Prince Charming, really.
We get to the bottom finally and I start wondering we are – because I’ve never seen this place before and all I can do is look straight up. I get to view a lot of ceilings. Most of them are crummy and falling apart. Some of them are patterned like in our basement with the randomly specked Styrofoam panels, some of them are just grey.   
My head – killing me.  
I get wheeled up to an empty room and make acquaintance with the resort doc. Or someone. He asks me all the same questions and basically makes sure I’m not going to die. He mostly talks to anyone but me. The usual. He asks them for their interpretation of what happened. He suggests a hospital because my skull might be cracked. The way my head is feeling – I tend to agree.
While we’re waiting for the ambulance to arrive, my father abandons ship on me and leaves me to stare at the pretty roofs. I explain to Debbie – the breathing person I know in the room – further on my irony point. I tell her about the rib incident. She doesn’t know about the rib incident. She doesn’t laugh; she feels bad.
I just want to pass out.

Pause.
Fast-forward.
Play.


Ambulance arrives like a gift from above. Or, below. Above ground, I guess. I couldn’t be more relieved.
I’ve never ridden in an ambulance before – and while my head is still pulsating, sort of a permanent burn now, I’m thinking it’ll be something of an experience to be remembered. Unlike the whole hitting the ground thing, which even in months to come, will never come back.
The whole loading-the-stretcher-up thing is sort of awkward, because I have to trust a pair of guys to lift me snugly unto another table and strap me down anew, without doing something stupid like dropping me in the process. I grip my fingers down against the edges of the board and don’t let go until the end of the ride. Luckily for me, the ride itself is made very, very easy.
I’m not really concerned about whom it is that’s going to be riding in the back with me at first, because the prospect of falling asleep is still on my mind, but it is ever a relief that I’m lucky when it comes to men. EMS guy, I realise – despite my head, which might as well be falling off – is mighty attractive. Newfie-rocker type with red hair, pierced ears and a nice sideburns-goatee combo under a ball cap. I imagine it wouldn’t be the same with a three hundred pound forty-year-old at my bedside, holding my hand. Making sure I’m not going to drop dead at any given time. The whole meal deal.
EMS guy starts asking his routine questions then, and life seems a whole lot better. He asks what happened and I try to explain to him how I skied off a cliff. Yes, a cliff. Yes, I am skilled like that. And he laughs. The best sound I’ve heard all day, and he doesn’t even know it. I know then that I’ve had a real life experience, finally, and that everything is really going to be okay.  
  
Hey, you guys asked for more writingz, so I give you more writingz. I actually wrote this about two years ago, after my wonderful ski accident, and I never got around to finishing it. So while I was cleaning out my files tonight, I found it, and figured... what the hey. It sucks, but it doesn't SUCK. I had to write the last paragraph to finish it off. I think I had the intention of making it longer at first, but I didn't really see any sense in continuing it now, that I hardly even remember the details.

:shrug: Anyway, if it isn't entertaining at all, perhaps it can be informative, ever you need to write a character waking up from unconsciousness or having a concussion. Great fun.

Too lazy to format right now. Just use the indent option to make your life easier. ^^;
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kitieara's avatar
amazing..... :heart: