The Sunset

“I’m touching you, love.”  A voice echoed in my mind.

I knew that I was dreaming. In a vast white background, we were together, just she and I. Just she and I, without our possessions and all naked. Our hands, big ones, are wandering all over and touching each other’s bodies lovingly, and our bodies are without our faces.

And I remember, I dreamed again; I hugged her whiteness with my big hands and kissed her. As I kissed her, each part became dark. I continued kissing her whole body until her whole body darkened. And then it was endless darkness.

A vague but welcoming smell woke me up. Half awake, I opened my eyes to the cleavage of two big white breasts, which were literally on my face, and I smiled in my mind.

A few minutes later, the good-looking, chubby maid finished cleaning and drying my body and was leaving our house.

My electronic wheelchair started driving me to the garden balcony. I felt whole again; although I’m a disabled middle-aged former psychologist. That time of the day was always the greatest time for me; the minutes leading to sunset.

It’s been two years since that ill-fated terrible accident and the start of my mysterious illness. I remember clearly that day and those moments. However, I can’t express my feelings to anybody about it. Why?! If you can see me, my computer screen is churning out words, but I’m not typing on a keyboard; I’m writing this via a chipset that was implanted into my brain last year. It helps me in my daily communication and to express my feelings and thoughts through my writing.

What’s my illness, if you wonder? Nobody knows yet, but I was one of the first victims of this still-unknown virus that destroys the human body's nervous system.

I vividly remember that everything started when I lost control of my fingers.

In the last few days of December two years ago, I was driving back home, and a peculiar feeling took over my body. Then, I felt blood dripping from my nose, and I quickly raised my right hand up to clean it. But my fingers started to clench into a fist.

Immediately after, my left hand moved towards my right hand, and both my hands were locked to the wheel, and I could not move my fingers or hands! So, I instantly pushed the brake with all my strength and tried to hold the wheel firm with my forehead, but the ground was slippery, and it was too late!

My car was spinning on itself and quickly overturned. I couldn’t do anything else, so I closed my eyes and gave in to my fate. The last thing I remembered at that moment was an advertisement on the back of a red double-deck bus with the words “Do not forget to touch her hand”. Are they still using these old craps in the streets of London?! I was asking myself.

I was in a coma for over a year after that horrible accident.

And I remember that whiteness and darkness with a vague voice that led me out of it.

“Is he awake?” A voice echoed.

“Yes, talk to him.” Another voice replied.

“My love! Do you hear me?” The now familiar voice again. And I opened my eyes to her lovely, bright face.

Then I realized another person, a nurse. She was rubbing something.

I looked around and realized I was in her hospital when I heard her lovely but blurry voice again.

“Love, do you hear my voice?” Blink if you do.

And I did.

I tried to smile, but my lips didn’t help. Finally, “Hey, sexy Doc!” I said with a bit of sarcasm.

“Don’t be daft, please,” she replied seriously while reading my medical reports. She then ignored me and continued reading for a while. She flipped through the reports and took another look at my MRI report.

“There was an accident… how long have I been here? What’s happened, honey?!” I asked.

“Love, it’s been too long; you were in a coma for one year from the accident but thankfully with only external injuries. However, we found a virus in your brain that is very serious,” she replied. Then she turned her head and stared at me for a long time. “The virus is quite similar to one that caused one of the rarest illnesses recorded in medical history.”

“And?” I said.

“I can’t say for sure what it is, but…” She stopped for a long time and then looked into my eyes.

“Love?” I continued.

She made herself busy with the reports again. “Your brain condition isn’t good, love, but you are awake now. It’s been too long but I knew you would awake.” she replied and kissed and hugged me.

I knew my health was not good and my wife was unhappy, but something was forcing her, one of the top brain surgeons in the UK, to be like this.

My progress in the hospital was excellent, according to her, and I managed to walk after intensive rehabilitation. So, after a few weeks, she signed my dismissal paper, and I was ready to return home.

“You’re all ready for home, love. I have set up the study room with the physiotherapy machine for you to continue with the massages and exercises. I’m sure with this latest machine, you will be able to move your fingers again and hopefully the feelings in them too,” she continued.

A few weeks later, I was at home resting in bed, watching my favorite sitcom, and had already started writing an autobiography about my illness.

The first few weeks after my dismissal from the hospital turned out to be one of the worst times of my life, but she was always there next to me, helping with all the robotic equipment they recommended for my physiotherapy treatments. But I still couldn’t move my fingers, and worse still, after a few weeks, my hands joined them.

My fingers had clenched into tight fists, and most of the time was spent stimulating them with the machine with vibration and heat to relax and keep them active. However, we still could not straighten the fingers for further exercises. We tried many times, but the illness progressed fast, and I lost my fingers and eventually my hands, too.

She was giving me her whole attention daily; caring, loving, and giving me all, and the worst thing was I couldn’t even hug her properly.

My fingers had ceased to show any progress and now I couldn’t feel my arms either. We just continued with the stimulations to relax the muscles, so as not to stiffen them. None of the new medicines, physiotherapies, and even alternative medicine were helping, and we were fearful I was becoming a cripple.

We were practising a special yoga together on our balcony daily; she helped me with the exercises for my fingers. At other times, she helped to edit my autobiography.

The illness degenerated quickly and spread to my legs; I accepted that I would be entirely disabled one day.

In our last lovemaking, we decided to have fun in our favorite place, our garden balcony. All we had were our nurse wine glasses filled to the brim, a thin bedsheet, and our bodies. She was all passionate and loving that night while my body was at the darkest point of my illness.

One morning, the pain in my body woke me up dreadfully. I couldn’t move any of my limbs already by that time, and I tried to shout! But nothing happened in my mouth!

I felt terrible, strangled and drowning in myself, but her voice calmed me down. “Hey! Morning Sunshine!” She smiled and turned her body toward me.

I saw her hands on my face. Her smile was telling me, “there’s no need to say anything at all. I know every inch of you and am here for you.”

My efforts to talk again ended up with another horrifying sound from my mouth. She was still smiling and started to speak. “We knew this would happen, love. Remember we talked about this moment. So, do not be afraid. We have the microchip ready for you to use to communicate. Alright, love?”

“Now, let me do my duties before the maid appears. We don’t want her to see those dirty pants, do we?! She checked my pajama bottom and I saw her face smiling. What a clean and neat big boy we have here!” Now listen to me carefully. She was preparing and moving the wheelchair to me while talking. She told me that I could hear her voice, but because of the virus in my brain, I couldn’t talk and answer her.

And that’s the story of my disease as I rode my wheelchair to the balcony. However, the wheelchair stopped in the middle of the living room and forced me to see something on TV; these stupid companies made these wheelchairs so irritatingly intelligent.

The TV was on and showing a program about the horrible virus pandemic. Nobody is hopeful for a cure and for the future of the human race. Things that I already knew because I was patient Zero.

But the computer connected to my brain’s chipset was sending it all to my brain. The information is now useless not just for me but for everyone. The virus spreads the disease without any boundaries of race, age, or gender, and it destroys brains in just a few months. It has also spread all over the globe.

And WHO is apologizing for the late warning. What the hell?!

A reporter asked, “Do you think the situation will get worse?”

Some stupid virologist replied, “Unfortunately, yes. Scientists are working tirelessly to find a vaccine in laboratories, but the virus spread is unbelievably fast, and we can say the human race could be on the brink of extinction with the rapid disabilities it causes.”

I couldn’t listen to the nonsense anymore. I heard that a few more million people had been infected, and the number was reaching a billion rapidly.

Was the world going to end?! I didn’t care.

I knew that if I wanted to spend my last day on earth fruitfully, my only last wish was to look into her lovely face and nothing else. To close my eyes for the last time with her face in my vision.

I pushed my brain harder to force my wheelchair to drive towards the balcony. To her, sitting in another wheelchair, waiting for the sun to set and enjoying it, as we had been doing daily.

And I finally was there, next to her.

She turned her wheelchair a bit towards me, although I could already see her face perfectly. She smiled, and we both waited to witness the sunset.

After a while... “I’m touching you love,” her voice echoed in my mind.

“I know it,” my chipset assistant replied.