The Writer and The Artist: My Recovery

Chapter 14: My Recovery

 

MY RECOVERY

 

1

 

I had returned to the physical world.

            I had two people to thank.

            But in the mean time, I was faced with a new bunch of faces that aided my recovery.

            The ringleader was Dr Watt, who glared down at me with anticipation as my eyes opened for the second time in minutes. I had fallen unconscious, moments after I had woken from the scribbled words of Laura’s story in my head. I found I was wearing a clean teal-blue hospital gown. Dr Watt informed me that it was due to the shock of being temporarily unable to move my body.

            That and maybe the shock of where I had been. But I never told him that. In the end, I never once thought to have that conversation. Who in their right what-you-see-is-what-you-get minds were going to believe me? Perhaps a dream analyst would care to listen.

No thanks. I do not like to be patronised.

The coma had rendered my body helpless for the while I was away. Only when I surfaced from the coma did my body managed to spring back to life as though it had been under some magic spell.

Although I do not consider that analogy to be far from the truth. What I had seen was magical. It was my mind in a way that I bet every other human being in the world would feel jealous of. I was unique.

And now I wanted to get out of here.

As my eyes were brought into focus, the doctor introduced himself. His words were distant though, as I felt something that I had not experienced for what had felt like years.

Pain; delectable, throbbing pain, coming from the bump on my head, what had supposedly placed me into my coma.

            However, we all know different.

 

2

 

Stuff that happened after I awoke properly was all a blur. I was in an emotional concoction of splendour, relief and desire to see my loving wife once again.

There were only certain things I remember. Of course there were the usual doctor questions that doctors asked and also the nurses procedures that the nurses produced. They asked me how I was; they examined the bulging wound above my eye that was the cause of the throbbing sensation (my jaw also felt a little stiff but I paid little attention to it); they checked the feeling I had of all my fingers and my toes; I do faintly recall being prodded by a pen a number of times in key areas of my body where I might still be a bit numb. That is the problem with comatose patients; you never know what kind of paralytic injuries they might sustain. It could be nothing, or a complete state of vegetation. Everyone was different.

Luckily my coma had lasted less than two days. Laura and Ethan had acted quickly and I was sure to thank them both in what I hoped to be my short-term recovery. If it had been longer I could have ended up a vegetable.

Or my mind could have given up on me. Who knows? They say fear can kill a man. Why not that of failure?

After the quick physical examination, I was invited to sit up and test my walking ability. Dr Watt and the blond-haired nurse (I never did pick up her name – in my blur of a stupor I had managed to forget asking) took an arm each and led me to the corridor passing the intensive care ward. They stood me at one end and told me to reach the other.

Without hesitation, as I am sure you’ve guessed by now, I passed one-hundred percent. I even managed to hop a little of the way to show I was not drunk or anything. I remember the nurse distinctly laughing and the doctor giving me a pleasant grin.

What I do really recall though is when a second nurse – slightly shorter than nurse one and had her red hair in a bun, came hurrying into the ward.

‘Dr Watt,’ she called to him, ‘might I ask the condition of one John Henderson?’

I was actually surprised to hear him laugh. ‘Why don’t you ask him yourself?’ he replied, pointing a finger at me.

I stood, all by myself, gazing at the nurse. She looked at me, a little stunned. ‘The reports say that you were in a coma?’

I wore a cheeky grin, looking down at myself and then back at her again. ‘I think you need to check your records,’ I said, before bursting into fits of laughter.

Dr Watt and nurse one joined in, making nurse two look completely clueless. She smiled nonetheless.

You have to admit it; sometimes laughter is the best medicine.

 

3

 

After our treatment of giggles was over, nurse two explained that the hospital had received a call from one Mrs Laura Henderson, enquiring the status of one Mr John Henderson, who was told to be in the intensive care ward at the back of the hospital. Apparently the woman sounded jittery and frantic on the phone and told the receptionist to get on it as soon as possible.

            My Laura was alive and well.

            We had both survived.

            ‘So what should I tell her?’ Nurse two asked in conclusion, to my complete surprise. My mouth dropped at her words. She chuckled and tilted her head to one side. ‘Apart from the obvious, of course.’

            My answer came rolling off my tongue at full speed. ‘Tell her to get her sexy arse down here!’ I too gaped at what I said.

            It did not sound like me; mild-mannered, well spoken John Henderson.

            But who actually f*****g cares? I am alive!

 

4

 

But not for much longer if I stayed here dilly-dallying. There was writing to be done.

            Before nurse two could leave the ward for reception, I called out a ‘Miss!’ to her and managed a sudden sprint to her side in the corridor. She was amazed at my agility. ‘Are you sure you were in a coma?’ she remarked, raising an eyebrow and counting the gasps from my quick breath.

            I tilted my eyeballs to the ceiling as I recounted the strangest day that had passed me in my unconscious state. ‘I’m pretty sure, yes.’

            I had almost forgotten to tell her what I wanted to say. ‘Can you pass a message to Laura for her to meet me in the hospital parking lot. I am not planning on waiting around any longer.’ My mind was made up on the matter.

            She gave a concerned look. ‘Are you sure?’

            ‘Believe me,’ I replied, ‘the sooner I get out of this hospital and back home, the better I will be.’ I could feel the lusting desire springing from my soul, coiling around every inch of my mind and prying into my valuable thoughts. I could feel ideas for stories bouncing around with their own kinetic energy, having been stuck on potential for so long. Ideas for characters from faces I saw, from personalities surrounding me where beginning to take shape. I was struggling to take hold.

            But one thought kept the beasts at bay. You owe it to her.

            That I did. It was her story, entwined around mine like a gentle natural vine rather than as a seething serpent. Once it was done and in writing, the cage doors could be opened.

            I would bask in the creative opportunity.

            But writing was sometimes a chore rather than plain old imaginative fun. But it was a chore for good reason. It keeps your thoughts in line with the necessary details to keep the story flowing. Such things as statistics: birthdays; age; next of kin; job; location, as well as more labouring tasks of rules: keeping check of what characters have said; how characters would react to some situations differently than others; layouts of popular thematic rooms; the colour of the vase that sits on a varnished table by the front door, all this kind of useless information that in the end becomes paramount – if not for the publishers but for the writers themselves.

            I barely heard the nurse mutter an ‘Of course’ (or something vaguely similar) and continue to run down the corridor to the front side of the hospital.

            I did not hesitate to return to the ward in search of my belongings before discharging myself.

 

5

 

There were of course a few things I would need to sort out over the next few days. My car was an obvious candidate – its crumpled exterior revealed the valid reason for it being written off. It would clearly hamper travelling arrangements, so I would need to sort out a rented vehicle.

Another was my job; I had been travelling to work the morning I had had my accident. Of course the hospital (or more likely the police) would have phoned them to tell them of my situation. I called them later that afternoon, telling them I would require a week’s rest minimum. I got Dr Watt to gladly sign a doctor’s note as evidence. It gave me enough time to get nearly half a dozen chapters down.

            The next thing I would need to sort out was my beautiful, silky skinned hero of a wife, who had made this series of events for me only a near-death experience. You can work out the sexual innuendo from that last sentence all by yourself.

            My valuables were stored in a locker room at the eastern end of the corridor outside the intensive care ward. Nurse one opened the locker up for me, containing only a small black briefcase with work papers; my car keys; my phone and wallet. All of which were completely intact; the briefcase had been under the front passenger seat where the collision had been less crucial and my keys, phone and wallet had all been in my coat pocket. My car keys would be deemed somewhat worthless if it were not for my house keys attached to them by a metal ring.

            My clothes the day of the crash were also neatly folded inside the locker. I realised only just then that I was still in the hospital gown I had been clothed in. There were no other clothes in there that belonged to me. I remember thinking then that Laura might not have visited.

No, I then thought. She would have done. I know Laura. She would have come as soon as she could.

After taking all my valuables in hand, the nurse then pointed to a series of changing rooms opposite the lockers. I stumbled in, feeling like a kid changing after a game of rugby in high school.

            Some game of rugby it had been.

            Minutes later I was changed and ready to leave the hospital. I assured the nurses and Dr Watt several times that I needed no further treatment, despite the swelling above my right eye. All it needed was perhaps some cold ice and a week or two to settle. Nothing serious.

            Besides, I enjoyed having the pain there. It reminded me of my existence. It was also a constant reminder.

            If I did not write that story, there would be no pain or anything else left to feel.

            I made my way through the waiting room and out the double automatic doors of the hospital. The fresh air nearly toppled me backwards as I outstretched my hands. A pleasant chill coursed through my fingers and ruffled my greasy hair. I needed a shower. I needed a lot of things.

            And one of them just so happened to be exiting a cab parked at the visitors bay only a dozen metres away from me.

            My heart pulsed extravagantly.

 

6

 

There she was, my one true love. It’s hard to describe an emotion such as this in some kind of prolonged sentence. It is like staring into the stars, or looking across a horizon, or at an astounding view. You can describe it all you want, but that part is completely personal; you can never capture the very essence of beauty it means to you.

            That was what it was like seeing my Laura again.

            It lasted only seconds but felt like a decade. It had been only two days since I saw her last and it had felt like a life time. That is love for you, I guess.

            She ran to me. I ran to her. We hugged, as tight as any couple could. We kissed. We hugged again. It all happened so fast and yet the feeling from it was fossilised into my being.

            Like remembering that astounding view not only once, but forever.

            But something did not feel completely right. As Hollywood romances go, this was near perfect.

            And yet her hug was suffocating. I could hear her whimper.

            She was crying tears, not of joy, but sorrow.

            I kissed her lips softly. I kissed her cheeks to evaporate the tears away. But she did not stop. Her complexion was that of happiness and dismay.

            And then I found myself thinking that this whole picture was wrong. One important detail was missing from all of this. It was me and Laura, in a quiet car park outside the hospital.

            Without the messenger.

            Ethan.

            He had not come out.

            I embraced her until nearly all my breath left me. I comforted her in silence, neither of us having said a word since this romantic episode. No words needed uttering.

            We would let our tears communicate the moment.

As the moment faded, Laura’s face brightened. Mine did too. We have a knack of doing the same things at exactly the same times.

            She looked at me.

            I looked at her.

            She spoke first. ‘Hi,’ she said with a weak grin.

            I urged a loving smile. ‘Hi,’ I said.

            Sometimes, muttered words are pointless.