would open my eyes. Soon I would make a sound.
15
It was better not to wake. Waking was a room just to my left, beyond, and I knew as soon as I was aware of waking, saw it as a threshold I could cross, that it was too late. I could not go back.
I wanted to stay as I wasâas I had been. There was, however, no slipping back into full unconsciousness. There was a sensation that time had passed. There was no particular event, or series of changes, that made me believe this, and I was aware that this sensation impressed me as unlikely. But even doubt is an event, an experience.
There was an interlude, a long period of almost sinking back again. I was aware, but did not attach myself to this awareness, out of focus, dazed into a near-slumber that I knew I had just ascended from.
Something was wrong. Something in me would not be still. This urging was a cricket, ceaseless. I could not silence this nagging, bright inner-voice.
Not yet, I longed to convince myself. I could wait a little while longer. But I was forced to begin to wonder how badly I was hurt. It was not that I remembered an injury, no accident, no fall, no stunning impact. But I knew that I had been unconscious, and some instinct made me try out the word hurt .
I slept again, but it did not last.
My awareness returned. I was hurt. I was hurt badly. There was no pain, but there was a sensation of water in my lungs, of cold and a heavy weight on me, in me. I tried to breathe, and I could not. I could not take a breath.
And then I was afraid. I could not block the fear: I was in pieces, dismembered, scattered. There was no reason for this fear except that I knew, deep beyond hope, that I was mortally injured.
I tried to call out, and I made no sound. I could not so much as whisper. I had felt cold before this moment, but now I felt the chill throughout my body, and I tried to move.
I tried to move.
There was no life in my arms and in my legs, no power in me to twitch a finger, stretch the tendons of my legs. I knew I must be paralyzed, willing to address the horror intellectually, in a fragmented way, to fend off the full realization of my condition. I opened my eyes.
It was not a darkness like any I had ever seen. I thought my eyes were gone, the nerves surgically severed. I thought some sickening dislocation had ruptured my body, an explosion or the impact of a car.
I wondered, with an odd lucidity, whether I would die soon, if this shard of consciousness was what my nervous system seized on, a benign separation from the trauma, the sort of addled bliss one hears that people enduring great cold experience.
I had to do something to break my silence. I needed help. I tried to calm myself, but it was futile. I tried again to breathe and the full horror of what was happening pressed down on me. I had not been dying. The dying was before me, yet to take place, and it was going to be agony. It was beginning now.
At that moment, I could move.
One hand, my right, shifted upward though the dark. I felt a tingling numbness, as though the circulation in the limb was poor. I drew my hand up my chest, a cuff whispering over a shirt front. The fingers continued over a cold surface, buttons, a jacketâs lapel. I touched my face, and there was no feeling.
And then there began to be feeling, in my fingertips, in my lips. It was the inactivity, I thought, the disuse of my nervous system that made me so numb. The engine of my body was just beginning to turn.
My eyes hurt. My fingers found my eyelids. There was a hard plastic lens on each eye. I pried each seal free and blinked. The plastic disks shifted, falling away on either side of my face.
Now I could see. But there was nothing. Only dark.
Okay, I told myself. Iâm blind. That was bad. That was very bad, but not the worst thing that could happen. I stretched my hand out and up. It did not travel far. At first it was a welcome sensation. I was feeling something with my outstretched hand.
I pressed my
15
It was better not to wake. Waking was a room just to my left, beyond, and I knew as soon as I was aware of waking, saw it as a threshold I could cross, that it was too late. I could not go back.
I wanted to stay as I wasâas I had been. There was, however, no slipping back into full unconsciousness. There was a sensation that time had passed. There was no particular event, or series of changes, that made me believe this, and I was aware that this sensation impressed me as unlikely. But even doubt is an event, an experience.
There was an interlude, a long period of almost sinking back again. I was aware, but did not attach myself to this awareness, out of focus, dazed into a near-slumber that I knew I had just ascended from.
Something was wrong. Something in me would not be still. This urging was a cricket, ceaseless. I could not silence this nagging, bright inner-voice.
Not yet, I longed to convince myself. I could wait a little while longer. But I was forced to begin to wonder how badly I was hurt. It was not that I remembered an injury, no accident, no fall, no stunning impact. But I knew that I had been unconscious, and some instinct made me try out the word hurt .
I slept again, but it did not last.
My awareness returned. I was hurt. I was hurt badly. There was no pain, but there was a sensation of water in my lungs, of cold and a heavy weight on me, in me. I tried to breathe, and I could not. I could not take a breath.
And then I was afraid. I could not block the fear: I was in pieces, dismembered, scattered. There was no reason for this fear except that I knew, deep beyond hope, that I was mortally injured.
I tried to call out, and I made no sound. I could not so much as whisper. I had felt cold before this moment, but now I felt the chill throughout my body, and I tried to move.
I tried to move.
There was no life in my arms and in my legs, no power in me to twitch a finger, stretch the tendons of my legs. I knew I must be paralyzed, willing to address the horror intellectually, in a fragmented way, to fend off the full realization of my condition. I opened my eyes.
It was not a darkness like any I had ever seen. I thought my eyes were gone, the nerves surgically severed. I thought some sickening dislocation had ruptured my body, an explosion or the impact of a car.
I wondered, with an odd lucidity, whether I would die soon, if this shard of consciousness was what my nervous system seized on, a benign separation from the trauma, the sort of addled bliss one hears that people enduring great cold experience.
I had to do something to break my silence. I needed help. I tried to calm myself, but it was futile. I tried again to breathe and the full horror of what was happening pressed down on me. I had not been dying. The dying was before me, yet to take place, and it was going to be agony. It was beginning now.
At that moment, I could move.
One hand, my right, shifted upward though the dark. I felt a tingling numbness, as though the circulation in the limb was poor. I drew my hand up my chest, a cuff whispering over a shirt front. The fingers continued over a cold surface, buttons, a jacketâs lapel. I touched my face, and there was no feeling.
And then there began to be feeling, in my fingertips, in my lips. It was the inactivity, I thought, the disuse of my nervous system that made me so numb. The engine of my body was just beginning to turn.
My eyes hurt. My fingers found my eyelids. There was a hard plastic lens on each eye. I pried each seal free and blinked. The plastic disks shifted, falling away on either side of my face.
Now I could see. But there was nothing. Only dark.
Okay, I told myself. Iâm blind. That was bad. That was very bad, but not the worst thing that could happen. I stretched my hand out and up. It did not travel far. At first it was a welcome sensation. I was feeling something with my outstretched hand.
I pressed my
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