Getting Up

10

“Imagine yourself getting up and walking to me.” I gritted my teeth and forced myself to stand, wobbling shakily. If I sat back down, would the shaking stop?

“Imagine yourself walking to me, and then do it.”

 I had a brain; I could think. Heck yeah, I could imagine myself dancing across the wooden floor, but the shaking...would I fall through the floor before I got to the other side? Through the window, I saw Max peeking inside. 

“You’re going to be fine.” He mouthed, fogging up the window. But I wasn’t going to be fine, and he knew it. Beads of sweat streamed down my aviator goggles, or maybe they were tears, so I looked away from Max’s hopeful eyes. A wisp of my curled brown hair fell in front of my face, the shaking, the room spinning wildly before me. I collapsed against the metal wheelchair, exasperated. 

9

The woman walked over to me and helped me up, then headed for the back of the room for the second day in a row. We weren’t supposed to be here off-hours, but then again, I wasn’t the only one who took a fondness for breaking the rules. 

I tried not to focus on the shaking, or the wisp of brown hair. I tried to focus on my feet. They were fine, and the ground was rough against my skin. 

“Getting up,” Maartjie had told me, “is the first step to recovery.” Cursing, I pushed my foot out despite the pain and took my first step, watching Maartjie’s eyes light up in that special way she always did. “You’re getting better every day.” 

8

I can hold a spoon, but I can’t walk three steps without stumbling over my feet. The plane was not ready to take the touchdown on the soft sand. Not during a crash landing-but how was I supposed to know, back in the days of arrogance and innocence when everyone had to be saved. It wasn’t a matter of if I could fly the plane-I could fly the plane-but a matter of who wouldn’t be able to make it. Decisions. 

Today, we weren’t doing the walking exercise, not during the visiting times. Maartjie pushed my chair forward, but I didn’t tell her I could get around by myself now. Sometimes, I would lean against the wall and stand, maybe open a window to hear the stars sing. When they burst out on the open sky, one by one, light unfolded. As Max saw me being rolled around a corner, he leaped into my arms, and light unfolded, slowly. We were glued to one another for what felt like hours until he pulled away. 

“Tomorrow, you’ll be walking outta here like you never needed help with anything.” I smiled, despite the constant frustrations of the wheelchair. Max always said this, once a week, every week, for almost two years now. 

“Yeah,” I whispered “I’ll come out on my motorcycle tomorrow”

7

Apple juice, or lemonade. There isn’t any Sprite or Coke, because it ‘weakened the muscles’ or whatever. I grabbed an apple juice and sucked on the straw like I was a little 5-year-old. And maybe, I was a little child, the weathered remains of what I was wrestling to be, newly birthed life tormenting me into hiding my knowledge. The young were innocent, had a while to go before the plains folded back to reveal the scope of the world. But I knew of the plains, others still trying to force me back into something I couldn’t move past. 

Only fruits and fiver. Eat lots of calcium. Use the stretch bands. Use the pain as motivation. Try. I knew that they had secret conversations behind the locked doors, doors they thought I couldn’t hear through. I was never deaf nor blind, only unable to walk, and still, I was deemed “disabled”. The conversation was not with Max or Maartjie. Someone named Lucinda spoke on the other side, but that didn’t matter. I was never going to walk again.

6

“Again.”

Again, trying again at the walking beam bars. 

“I can’t do it.” I heaved, hands clutching the metal siding. The five minutes left in our session had painstakingly crawled forward, and at 3 pm, Maartjie still stood at the opposite side of the room. Try. 

“I heard the conversation a month ago. I remember what they said.” She didn’t leave her position, but a trace of surprise flickered across her face. Try anyways. Try again. Try, try, try. We stayed there for another hour before the next group burst through the double doors. 

5

Magazine girl stared up at me from the glossy cover they kept in here for entertainment. The ward staff had said the magazines brought some of the outside world in here, but from the torn cover, I could make out that this issue was very outdated. Most of the patients still carried phones around, or, at least I thought they did. 

Magazine girl looked at me again, smiling coyly with her long hair, painted fingernails, skinny stature, and muscular legs. 

“You don’t have anything on me.” I retorted, not really sure who I was talking to. The girl still smiled, and for a second, I thought I saw her blink. Snatching a pair of scissors from a cardboard box nearby, I cut the girl out from the magazine cover and ripped it to shreds, neat piles of paper scattered on the floor. Suddenly, I felt a pang of guilt- or was it shame-and struggled to collect all the pieces. 

Eventually, I found myself sprawled on the floor, the shreds of paper in my hands. I couldn’t get up, and my idea had been stupid and the tiled floor was so cold against my cheek. My wheelchair was so high, so far away, and I leaned back, sighing. The moon was out, so big and round and faintly blue, but there were no stars. No pockets of light. That night, the cold tile dampened my tears as they slid across the polished squares. 

4

They came every night, and even the guttural screams which bore down on me wouldn’t-couldn’t explain anything, which left me unfeeling. Unmoving and unfeeling. And the worst ones, they came when I was awake, like a punch in the stomach. 

“Relapses always happen. They’re part of the healing process.” This disfigured attempt at a healing process has scarred me, left me winded. Today, the dream came during lunch. Mashed potatoes, slimy green beans, and a joystick. The buttons flew at me, daunted hollow expressions of human beings, the windows pried open, skeletons which stared back from the mirrors. I couldn’t breathe, making it harder to think. 

“No, no, no. This isn’t real. It isn’t really happening” But the dream didn’t stop and we hurtled towards the beach, so I grabbed the joystick, and it felt so real. I yanked it up, but the plane still careened toward the white sands. I could fly a plane. I was a pilot, and flying planes was my job. 

The dream ended abruptly, and I saw myself reflected off of my now empty silver plate, food scattered in heaps on the floor. At least; at least nobody had been disturbed this time, since I always had lunch alone, and dinner in the dining hall. Daydreams. They haunted me. 

3

“Visiting the therapy specialist today.” 

I pretended to be asleep, but Maartjie prodded me with her finger repeatedly. 

“C’mon. I know you’re not asleep right now. Get up.” Slowly, I rolled out of bed, playfully slapping her shoulder. 

“Idiot.” I tried to frown, but Maartjie’s wild smile eventually got a hold over me. We walked down-or rather, she pushed me down the long hallway leading to an office with a crooked sign reading ‘Dr. Shima Argent’ on top. Inside, there were the same healthy body and mind posters, but this time, a few new throw pillows lay on beanbag chairs and bunny posters decorated the walls. Dr. Shima pushed me to a corner as Maartjie left the room, and Dr. Shima paused before sitting down before me. 

“The dreams?” She asked, not bothering to specify because she already knew which dreams. 

“Not any better,” I replied, fiddling with a bump on my wheelchair. 

“Tell you what,” Dr. Shima Argent told me, a determined look in her eyes. “Tell me the whole story. Beginning to end. I think it’s about time I learned the truth.” I didn’t know where to begin, and if I did begin, it would never end. The weight, it dragged me down, and my mouth unknowingly opened to that evening sky. 

“It was raining, and I was a pilot, so I had to fly the plane. I wanted a normal life, so I became a pilot and quit the airforce. Being afraid of risks is a risk itself, but I needed security, safety, a planned out life. The night held turbulence, and a storm, so fate had me taking those same risks. Below the plane, was a beach, and to avoid the storm, we were going to have to make an unplanned landing down there. I brought it down safely, but the front snapped, and I…” 

Dr. Shima started pushing me back to the door. “Two weeks from now, you tell me how those dreams are coming.” And then, it was over. I had a lot of time to think the long hallway back to my room. Most of it though-was a sickening sense of relief. 

2

Seldom did I ever meet other patients. Sure, I always saw them practicing in gyms through the window or strutting down to the office; which usually meant they were being released back to their homes, a home with paint and color and family-but that was beside the point. Most of the time, it was just me and Maartjie, or Dr. Shima, or it was magazine girl and I, staring at each other when Max wasn’t visiting. 

His name was Peter-Paul, and that was all he said. Either his first name was Peter and his last name Paul, or Paul was his middle name, or it was one first name. I found it very peculiar, but mauve that was because I hadn’t seen too many people until Peter-Paul sat in the chair beside me to see the doctor for our regular checkups. Maartjie was in the restroom. 

“So, do you ever meet people here?” I casually asked him, after a period of awkward silence. 

“You wouldn’t understand,” Peter-Paul spoke in a soft, almost childish voice.

“Try me.” I countered, almost annoyed, but sympathetic. Or maybe, was it empathy? 

“Have you ever wondered how many things can go wrong? Like, car accidents, sickness, violence, being late, falling, dying, you know? But all these things can go wrong and our life won’t be worth a penny to the world.” He sounded almost pitiful as he spoke. 

“They can be worth a whole lot to us, and some other people. And don’t you think life is oo worth it to waste?” I mused thoughtfully, thinking about Max, and Peter-Paul. I sounded like Maartjie or Dr. Shima. 

Soon, our time was up, and I watched Peter-Paul amble into the room. I passed him, now noticing a slip of paper in my hand with a phone number scrawled on the front. 

1

Midnight. 

“Get up.” 

Maartjie standing over me,

Lights twirling,

The window opening,

Darkness. 

The moon and small specks of stars. 

Groggily, I pulled the bedspread over my head, but Maartjie practically dragged me to the wheelchair and I was moving, still dazed. My head, once it stopped pounding, finally focused in on the room we were in. The beam bars? 

“Maartjie-it’s off-hours…” My friend cut me off and hoisted me to my feet, then walked to the opposite side of the room.

“Get up. Get up. Get up and walk to me.” The shaking started and I trembled, but I didn’t let go of the beam bars. 

“But-why now?” I choked out, barely able to meet Maartjie’s eyes. 

“Tomorrow’s visiting day. You’re going to take Max on a stroll tomorrow, you got me?” 

Spirals,

A neverending tube of spirals opened beneath me.

I thought of Max’s gorgeous hazel eyes,

His small hands,

Peter-Paul’s name, his cocky laugh, and dreams,

Magazine girl, friends,

Maartjie and Dr. Shima Argent. 

And I took a careful stride. Then one more. Another and another until I met Maartjie’s arms, and collapsed. 

“Get up. It’s all about getting up.” She told me. So I did. I got up and hugged her, joy and salty tears swimming down our cheeks.

“Now, where’s that motorcycle?”