Daze of Love

You are dazed. As if you had received a right hook straight on your ear. The air smells of disinfectants. The security guard is not letting you in. If it is an emergency, you know not. It feels like one since your father is shouting at the guard to let you both inside. His white halo of hair is rising quickly and settling down like a breeze, which is just what happens when he is tensed and internally conflicted. Should he be himself, scowl, and pour out a neat lecture to the guard that would make no sense, or should he be the hero that you need now?

You don't know and you can't care because you are dazed. 

The guard lets you in.

"Hello!" a loud bellow rises from your father's belly. The whole hospital looks at you both, even the old lady on the stretcher turns to one side and greets you with a distasteful glance. But you feel like being a hero, so you pacify your father, tell him that you are alright, that you can walk without aid. You want him to stop holding your arm so tight. You raise two fingers in a V in the air and swing it around for everyone to see. A red line, crusted blood, swirls around the forefinger of your V but you don't notice it. 

Because you are dazed. 

They assign you a nurse. She has on her a hazmat suit and disposable shoe covers. Her touch is soft and gentle. Fall over her, or fall down, and she'd gently pick you up. There is a little playful feeling inside you, but you don't obey it despite the chaotic order your body is in. Forcing some strength into your legs, you march ahead neatly, the most you can do. But she guides you to the bed where you will shortly make history. 

Make history despite being dazed. 

You sit on the bed, slide over it in fact, and fall down on the tightly drawn sheets that are such a pleasure to spread yourself on. You want a sheet over yourself, you are imagining comforts, but your father asks you to shift aside so he can sit too. You don't want to give your space, you want to have all of it. But you help yourself up, and he sits by your side, looking around the hospital for new informational tidbits or people to talk to. You ask him, groggily,

"Dad, why am I dazed?"

"You had a seizure," a doctor enters your space with a friendly smile doctored on her face. It is like an ad, and you want to groan. You feel a little loathing inside your heart. She immediately shifts her concern to your father, and in a business-like tone asks him about the situation. He tells her it is diabetes. You feel betrayed, as if your secret has been let out without your permission. She senses a hint of this feeling in you, and asks you, "You are so young, how did you get yourself here? A seizure at this age?" You smile. You don't care. The pair of them ignore you and go away to talk between themselves. You are happy.

That you are dazed. 

You see a person, a woman, rush inside. She is wearing half blue and half green, and she has her head covered with a matching scarf. Over it she is wearing her specs, and if the display of her face were lacking more, you'd have mistaken her for The Invisible Man. 

But she is not. She is your mother. She is a couple of steps away and an idea jolts instantly into your head. You ask her, "Mom, did you, did you bring my phone?" She ignores you and pulls you in for a hug. She wails and cries and fat tears roll down her eyes and seep into your hair. 

"Mom, what happened to me?"

"What would happen to you? Nothing happened to you," she pretends ignorance, while a fresh stock of tears issues out of her eyes, moisturizing your hair with salt. 

You are still dazed enough to care about it. 

Soon she stops sobbing and starts, "Your sugar got low. You were thrashing your limbs around, your teeth clenched. You lay there, on the floor, unconscious, unresponsive, almost dead. I pulled open your mouth and doused you with Coke," here you realize why your hair feels so sticky as you touch them.

"Look at my thumbs," she says and pushes them to you. You examine them; they have red marks on them, tight lines pushed deep into the fingertip, dried blood, blood of her own.

You look at it for a moment when she says, "you vomited blood." You are incredulous. Blood? Yours? You feel around inside your mouth: your tongue is fine, the sides are intact, nothing seems the matter.

You realize you vomited blood from your body. You raise your head and place her in your sight. 

"Where is my phone?" you ask. She hands it to you. You try to unlock it, end up punching it too hard with your thumb. Five times you try, five times your screen says that your "finger moved too fast"

Oh god, you are that dazed. 

You finally get in but you fumble to open Whatsapp, and instead open Contacts. You correct it in a moment, and there is her chat with you. Five unread messages. All sweet, and inquiring about your day, expressions of endearment. There is even a picture of her in a t-shirt dress. It looks fantastic on her. You are too biased and always see in her a beauty that comes off all the time to you. You reply to all her texts. A fresh text, telling your predicament is next. You are not thinking much, just blabbering. 

Now is the time. As if on cue, you are coming out of this daze. 

"Just say it," you tell yourself. A pause of a couple of seconds and you put all your fingers on to the work. You type it out, curving a goofy smile on your face, looking like an idiot she'd start calling you soon.

"I love you, sugarcrumb. I don't know why, and I don't know anything else, but I love you." That is what you send her. Immediately the blue ticks say that she has seen it.

You are very carefree about the reaction. You know life is too short, you were almost dead a while ago. You want to take chances, be crazy, not waste any moment in idiotic human foibles or wait for the right time. She is typing, and stopping, and typing again. She is taking her time. 

You are not in a daze anymore. You are enlightened, your existence feels like a breezy cotton boll. You are in love and you are going to stick to it, which for some reason you are more confident of than you are of exiting the hospital without some terrible information from the reports they are asking your father to spend his money on. 

You forget it. You are in the daze of love and you feel elated. Daze of Love, my friend. The daze is strong upon you. There is love. And her. And daze. It is not going to leave you for the rest of your life.