She could see nothing. It was just black, only black, black everywhere. There was… noise. Strange, foreign noise. Yes, there was noise, faint and muffled, indistinct, hidden, but it was there. Voices. She knew all those voices. She’d heard them before. Someone was talking to her, whispering to her. They sounded panicked. They sounded frightened. Where was she?
Her hands drifted to her sides. She was on a mattress, on a bed, of some sort. It was hard, and stiff, and it felt… blue? Felt blue? Could you feel a color? Could she ever feel colors? She certainly couldn’t before… before…before what? What happened? Why was she here? A flash of memory. Bright lights. Coffee flying through the air. Metal crunching under an impact. An airbag smacking her. She had been in a car accident. That was right. She was in… she was in her Dad’s car… they were on their way home from softball practice… So she was… she was in a hospital. Yes, she could smell the weird, airy, airplane smell you always smelled in a hospital. Was she hurt? How badly? Had she broken an arm? A leg? Two arms? What happened? The voices were still out there, louder now, clearer. Her mother was there. It was her mother whom she heard talking to her, her sweet, gentle mother, who was now shrieking at the top of her lungs at anyone who dared wander into her vicinity. She could hear her fighting with the doctor, and the nurse, and the poor intern who accidentally stumbled in the room. She could hear her father trying to calm her mother down. She wanted to cry out, to say that she was fine, she was here, she was alive, but she couldn’t even move her lips.
She tried to sit up. It was difficult; her arms were weak, and she was tired, so tired. She felt as if she had run to the moon and back, and gone home to do an entire exercise routine. In fact, she didn’t even move. And she still couldn’t speak. There was nothing to do but to listen, and wait.
No. Waiting wouldn’t do any good. She had to get up. Get up, she pleaded. Get up. She asked. Get up! She commanded. Get Up! Get UP! GET UP!
It took effort, it took time, she nearly fainted doing so, but she finally sat up. She heard her parents coming closer, she felt them touching her face, and squeezing her tight, her brother squealing with excitement. But even as her parents hugged her, and her brother squeezed her, she still saw black, just black, only black, black everywhere. She tried to speak. She tried to scream. And finally words came.
“Mom? Dad? I can’t see you!” The feeling was terrible. It ate her up and swallowed her whole. She could feel her parent’s touch, feel their warmth, their love, but she couldn’t see their faces, their smiles, their tears. She couldn’t see them. “I can’t see anything!”
The City High Review 