Endings (Daymares Concluded)

Fragments and figments blend together, a swirl of pigments with few hues.  I can faintly make out rhythmic drip that sustains me.  I no longer care. 

What I want more than anything else is another dream.  A glimmer of freedom.  Anything that takes me away from being where I am.  This semi-vegetative state has become unbearable.  I believe if I had the strength, I would pull the tubes free, and perhaps in that way find the freedom that eludes me.

My non-existent toes have become an obsession of late.  I am sick of only having ten digits I can count on. (And even these ten digits are not ones I freely control.) Who ever created this place did not view me as a being with any rights onto itself.  I mean as much to them as the blades that cut; only a means to an end.  I can only speculate as to what those ends might be, yet I am finally tired of being a part of it.  I no longer believe there is a way out for me.

I have given up on the concept of a way out.  I have deserted myself.  The truth does not always set you free it seems, sometimes it just makes it clear how truly imprisoned you are.

I would moan with the agony of my loss.  For it does seem a loss, this parting with my belief in a "rescue" from my constraints, it seems I know longer know how to believe in even that.  So I lay here, my head in its softened trap and simply stare at the blades above me.  I don't even bother to question them anymore. It is pointless. As pointless as breathing.  But the machines keep me at that, so you see, I am given little choice in anything.

I let me my mind drift to grey and steady it there.  A pure clean slate of solid grey.  No subtle variations in tone, no shafts of light or dark. A blank sheet of grey, solid and almost comforting in its un-relieved state of total absentinence from the taint of any other thought. 

It is some time before I hear the sounds in the hall.  The clicking of the heels followed by the heavy heel-toe step of what I assume is the man in dress shoes I heard when the grinding noise occurred.  I hold onto my slate of grey, pushing their sounds out, and concentrating on the comfort of its cold shield.

Abruptly I note that the click-click of the heels and the dress-shoe slap seem to have stopped very near. Try as I might the grey shifts to the rectangular silver with the darkness and the light cut into it.  I can hear the sound of something moving, a door-handle, or a door perhaps?  I do not shift my head.  It is unlikely I would be able to see that far into the space I am in, and besides, I think perhaps I would rather not know if the shoes are coming to see me. 

I am certain a visit from them would bode nothing good.

I try to bring back my lovely grey wall, but find the strangely striated-blue shifting in and out of its smooth texture instead. 

I can hear them breathing now. They are definitely here with me. 

The sliver of white with blue forms on my slate.  It curves itself around the striated blue forming an arc of white like a half moon. 

I can feel the heat from them radiating against me.  Their presence makes this sterile room seem infected.  Whatever it is they are saying I cannot make out the words.  It sounds like gibberish.  A hand flashes in front of my face.  A light piericing my eye.

My mind runs from the light.  I pull myself viscerally back to the grey wall.  The white rimmed blue curve remains there, cupping the striated blue.  I stare at it as if it is a puzzle waiting to be pieced together.  I can hear them moving, mumbling to each other, their voices appear to be conflicted.  The dark sliver flashes to me then. I can almost grasp where it belongs. 

One of them has a hand on my arm above where the primary tube goes in, the other hovers near my chest by a secondary tube.  They appear to have reached a decision.  I can feel the tape being prized loose from my skin, parts of the skin tearing with the tape.  I guess the tape has been there a long time. 

The dark piece floats into place on the puzzle and I find myself looking at a part of a memory so clear that it almost lifts my head out of the cradle. That eye, that flecked blue eye, is a part of who I am.  My mind races off after that thought even as it notes that they have taken the tubes out.

It does not matter, I do not have time to reflect on what will happen in that room any longer.  I have to follow this spark of memory.  Perhaps I have finally found my escape. 

In more ways than one it would seem.