Suffocated

On verge of insanity is a brief moment of suffocation.

The sky is covered in darkness as the sun has fallen. There is a sole car on the road. In the car, a woman’s hands can be seen on the steering the wheel and an eye from the rear view mirror. Her hand nervously taps on the steering wheel. There is music playing in the background. It is dark disdainful music. She moves her hand from the steering wheel to change the radio station. The music is now a bit more cheerful. The song is about love and devotion. A tear rolls down from the woman’s eye. Her hand tightens around the steering wheel. The needle for the speedometer is slowly rising. The engine is roaring louder as her speed increases. The music gets louder with roar of the engine. As she closes her eyes for one final time, tears pour from her eyes. She mouths something as her car runs into the side of a building. The impact is tremendous. The car totaled and the woman unconscious.

“This is my life.”

The car lies partially inside a building as smoke billows from it. The woman inside does not move. There is an eerie stir in the night as the car tail lights light up the smoke from behind. Outside from the smoking car and lights blinking, there is nothing else stirring about. The woman does not even move.

“No one wakes up in the morning and decides to throw their car into a wall” says a man behind the curtain in the emergency room. The woman is barely conscious as she over hears his conversation with someone else.  “At least no sane person” he continues.

“It’s really amazing that she survived. They checked her blood alcohol level and there was nothing in there. We still have to do toxicology screen on her to know if she had taken any drugs”. A tear rolls down the woman’s face as she learns that she is unable to move her body.

“If it weren’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all”, she says to herself.

“Meredith”, she hears from out of no where. She slowly turns her head and tries to focus on the shadowy figure of a woman saying her name. She thinks it sounds like her mother but her mother died when she was little girl. “Mom…” she utters under her breath. She struggles to keeps her eyes open.

As soon as she closes her eyes, “Meredith Constance” her mother says. When she opens her eyes, she is standing in the same the hospital emergency room. However, it is a different time. 20 years ago. She looks around the emergency room again. The emergency room is packed and busy with sick people. She peers into one room and notices a bunch of nurses and doctors working on a man who is bleeding. One of the nurses notices that she looking into the room and quickly closes the curtain. “Mary” says her mother again from the room in front of her.
”Mom?” Meredith as she walks through the curtain. Her mother, who looks extremely pale, is hooked up to a breathing apparatus.
”Mary, did you bring my bag?”

Meredith looks down and in her hands is the bag that her mother requested. The bag contains what her mother calls her ‘hospital items’. She looks back up at her mother and smiles as she nods her head.

“Splendid” her mother says as she reaches out for the bag. “What’s the matter?”
Meredith shakes her head and slowly sits down in the chair. “Well, I just don’t understand this. Yesterday, you were fine and now you’re in here hooked up to all these machines again. What happened?”
”I’m not sure.” Her mother becomes winded and stops talking mid-sentence. Machines begin beeping as the nurses scurry around. A doctor rushes into the room. He peers over to Meredith then looks at the nurse. The nurse smiles at him and escorts Meredith to the waiting room.

“My mother has been sick for a long, long time. They say after the transplant it will get better”, says Meredith to her baby doll as she is escorted to the waiting room.

“I’ll be right back for you”, the nurse says as she sits Meredith down in a chair. “Just wait here okay.”

Meredith spends the next several hours playing with her doll in the waiting room. She has become oblivious to the change of the room around. People have come; people have gone. Light has turned to dark outside. Meredith lets out a monstrous yawn. When she opens her eyes, she sees her aunt walks into the emergency room. She rushes over Meredith and gives her a hug. “Are you okay?” she asks. Meredith nods her head. She brushes the hair out of her face and says, “I’ll be right back, honey.” Her aunt tries to cover her worried face with a fraudulent smile as she rushes down the hallway and disappears.

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