Trapped

I have no idea how long I’ve been here.

Long enough that I’m freezing cold, starving and exhausted. I never expected to wait for this long, but I haven’t got long left to wait. That’s good, right?

Waiting can be good too. Especially when you don’t have a crosswords book or a needle and some yarn to keep you distracted. It sounds bad but it actually makes your mind wander. I have remembered things I haven’t thought about in so long, it’s hard to believe I actually lived them. And I have planned all the trips I’m going to take for at least the next year.

See, when I was a child, I didn’t have much to wait for. I waited for the new school year to start after I got bored of the “big summer break”. I waited for the Ice Cream truck just so I could hear the music. There’s no way my mother would’ve actually bought me anything. As a child, I was frustrated. But now? I understand life wasn’t easy. My dad had left us. Never heard of him again. Or maybe he died? Now that I think about it, it would make sense. I was very sheltered. My mum kept the remains of three of our cats buried in the garden and told me they had gone on an adventure. Until I was fourteen and got into gardening. Well… You can guess what happened from there. 

Fourteen was such a sweet age. I had a new hobby every week. And every week it got ruined somehow. Maybe that’s why my interests as an adult were limited at best.

So when I was 18, I thought I could conquer the world, but all I did was smoke and drink since I had tried every kind of activity as a teenager and realised I would never be anyone.

What a dark age. All I did was wait for my life to be over. Sweet young me, so naive, so poetically sad.

Things got better eventually, they always do don’t they? Young adults are unusually miserable, I think that the fact that simple life ended and now they are responsible for everything in their life hits them like a train. 

So at 25, I moved out of my mother’s house. A little late I admit, especially for those times. Everyone I went to school with was happily married and had three kids. But me? Sweet me was clueless. I had spent so much time drinking and smoking that I forgot that one day I’d have to get a life.

Turns out it wasn’t too late for me. And my story is grandchildren-telling-worthy for sure. The lettings agent that showed me my first house, Rick, ended up being my husband. And I moved out of my first house as soon as I got married because apparently, Rick made it sound so good because he needed his commission. I wasn’t upset at all, it was funny, even. 

We only had two kids. He wanted more, but I valued my sanity. And I didn’t want kids to begin with but it was socially correct to do so. 

That doesn’t mean I don’t love my kids. They’re the best thing that has ever happened to me. But if I could go back in time, I’d still be single. 

Rick was so lovely, funny and all stereotypical good traits you can imagine. But the pain of seeing him die was too much for my little heart. He killed himself when our oldest daughter, Ellen, was just five years old. Depression, according to the prescription pills I found in his car’s glove compartment.

“Rick, I love you, but I will never forgive you” were the last words he heard come out of my mouth. Or maybe he didn’t? He could’ve been too far out at that point.

I needed him so much. And I was there to help him. But he never even mentioned his sorrow. 

I’m being petty. Of course, I am. I should worry about his wellbeing rather than myself, but I wish I could’ve thought that way. I was always such a selfish person.

The kids were too young to understand. Ellen missed her father but happily believed it when I told her he was spending some time with grandma. Funny, that’s what my mother told me after my father left.

And Bella. Little sweet Bella. She was only a few months old. What did she know? She didn’t even miss him, and she doesn’t recognise him in pictures. Silly of me to expect her to.

This is so sad, it’s making me way too upset, I wonder if I’ll have to wait much longer. I’m so tired.

Speaking of tired, I was exhausted after Rick was gone. Two kids was hard work. Especially back then when I was supposed to be a stay-at-home mother whilst my husband provided. But that didn’t happen, did it?

I moved back in with my mother.

A 32-year-old woman living with her mother. Let that sink in, because it sure was difficult for me.

A few years after we moved, my mother died in her sleep. She was so young too, I think she died of loneliness. I wholeheartedly believe that is a thing.

As much as me and the kids were around, mother didn’t talk to anyone else, she didn’t have friends or even friendly neighbours. I miss her dearly. 

I kept my mother’s house. It was as small as houses get, but I took her bedroom and the girls took my childhood attic-turned-bedroom. They loved it. They were always going on about how they would be the only survivors if a flood were to happen.

I wonder where they got their sense of humour.

Life was uneventful since then. I saw the kids grow up and move out one after the other. Surprisingly, Bella moved out first. I always expected the older one to be the first to leave, but can we even expect anything of life anymore? 

Ellen stayed until she was 23 years old and we learned to dislike each other.

It’s ironic how I went through with my kids, what my mother went through with me.

What a lovely thing to relive all these memories and realise things we hadn’t before.

But I don’t want to talk about the past really. My wait is almost over and I still haven’t told you about my travel plans!

I want to go to Canada next year. I always have. It’s so cold and snowy there, and I love the cold. Even if the way I’m freezing now makes me want to change my mind about that.

I would like to spend some time in Canada and possibly visit some of the United States afterwards. Haven’t planned that far ahead but, it doesn’t matter does it? It’s not like I will actually do it. I’ve always enjoyed daydreaming and imagining all these scenarios that are unrealistic at best.

That’s what has kept me sane this entire time.

If you can call it sane. I’m not even conscious. However, my mind is intact.

I lived alone for way too many years after the kids left, and just like mother, I was lonely. I wasn’t lucky enough to die in my sleep like she was, and I grew tired of waiting. I tried to go as Rick did. But Rick was successful. He always was, he had a career, two beautiful little kids and a caring wife. What did I have? A dead husband, two adult offsprings, one of which forgot I existed, and the other who hated me for trying to raise her properly.

I, on the other hand, was a failure. I took as many pills as he did, but instead of being free from this life, I got trapped in it. I was put in a medically induced coma. The damage was too great to do anything. I heard talks about irreversible brain damage. 

What do they know? My brain had never worked better. Shame I can’t wake up and tell them all to get lost because I can’t stand their voices anymore! Day in, day out. Office gossip, weepy relatives I haven’t seen, well, ever. Is this what happens when you die? Suddenly people care? Shouldn’t they care when you’re around instead? I swear people just like suffering. They wouldn’t be in my life when we could’ve had some good times. But now suddenly they want to come here and cry over someone they don’t even know.

I think it’s time. Finally.

Good thing I didn’t waste time planning any more trips. I’ve had enough of dreaming about things that will never happen. 

Yes, it is time. I’m sure of it. I hear voices. They’re finally coming.

I have no idea how long I’ve been in a coma, I mean, it is to expect, right? I didn’t exactly have the chance to bring my watch or a calendar. 

And just my luck that Ellen is in charge of the plug. I knew she’d pull it the first chance she got.

I can hear everything. She had a choice. To keep me here or to let me go.

Do I even blame her at this point? I know we weren’t on good terms, but she can’t possibly hate her mother enough to kill her.

But, to her, have I even been alive this entire time? She sees a lifeless body, day in and day out. Doctors tell her that my brain isn’t functioning, and I can’t prove otherwise.

She probably thinks she’s putting me out of my misery. But I’m not miserable at all, I like being here with my thoughts, and snooping on interesting conversations.

But they’re not always interesting, and people try to talk to me with the hopes I can hear less and less every day. I am getting lonely again.

I was lonely in life, and I’m lonely in “fake death”. I’m just happy I don’t have to be the one to end it this time.

I’ve come to accept it. I don’t know if I could adapt to life after this.

I couldn’t even adapt to life before this.

So I’m happy. And I can’t remember the last time I was happy. 

The wait is finally over.

I will see Rick and mother again.

I can’t hear the voices anymore. Only the impossibly loud sound of the flatline.

What a beautiful sound, the last sound I’ll ever hear.