Anesthesia

The first thing I see is this aggressive brightness. It’s as if I am staring at a row of suns. I try to squint. The suns seem to sway and pulsate, even oscillate above me. My eyes struggle to adjust, strange figures, creatures, organic shapes circling on the ceiling. I shift my focus forward. Masked faces hover around my torso, bright red and a shiny silver in the center of them. Suddenly, they surround me, speaking in water. No, not water. Mud. Speaking in mud. The garbled words on their mouths I cannot not see only make the lights feel brighter and hotter. I suddenly feel unbearably hot. Somewhere in the atmosphere, I hear an intense beeping catching the rhythm of the thumping I feel in my chest. I feel frightened. I try to breathe but there is something wrong with my throat. The suns seem to flicker in quick succession above me, in a steady rhythm that matches the beeping and the thumping. I squeeze my eyes shut before desperately opening them again. The masked figures draw closer, inches from my face. Their bluish masks shift slightly, vibrating and I cannot understand a thing. Colorful trails surround them, creating magnificent and terrifying halos. Suddenly, I think I understand. A word pops into my head. Okay. They said okay.

I try opening my mouth to ask the masked people to repeat themselves only to find it is already gaping open, something plastic sticking out. An involuntary electricity within me moves to rip it out, only my body does not follow. My body does not move. My body is...dead? I try again to jump up. I try to shift. I try to wiggle. I try to scream. Nothing. The beeping reaches new heights, the heat within me rising and rising as I pray to God that the great suns above do not melt me. Several shapes approach, all of the masked variety. They rush around me and shove another plastic something over my face. They stay with me for what could be an hour, their eyes visible and vibrant blues and greens and warm browns. A cloud fills the plastic over and over. A strange softening sensation enters my brain through the cloud.

Okay.

...

Okay.

...

Okay.

…

Alright. The word ‘okay’ floats around me, flutters around like a butterfly, landing on my nose. It tickles. My eyelids feel heavy and soft. It must be more ‘okay’-erflies. They are resting. Rest. Resting. The word seems strange to me. Is that really the word? Resting. It floats above me like a feather, slowly drifting down. I want to grab it but my body is a blob, akin to a beached whale, too heavy, too warm to move. I feel hot again. It’s hot.

It’s hot.

It’s hot.

It’s very hot.

“It’s hot,” I try to say. All I can hear is a strange gurgling. I try again. Same gurgling. A masked figure moves over to me again with sparkling greenish-brownish eyes. I want to ask them if they can see where the okay-erfly or the Rest feather are headed but all I hear is gurgling. They put a long, boney finger to their mask, a signal I recognize somehow. I try to replicate it only to remember that I am a beached whale and that I am burning in the heat. I dart my eyes round, trying to find something to show them, something to use to communicate with them. Help! I am a beached whale and I can’t grab! I am extremely hot and am going to get a sunburn. Before I can get any ideas, the masked figure moves their hand to my face. Their hand becomes a cold pillow. I close my eyes, grateful. My lungs fill with air, the okay-erflies and Rest feather joining in on the oxygen, as I sigh them back out a moment later. They floated back out, spinning like leaves in the wind. Before I even realize the masked figure had moved away, they return with a soft white…

Soft white…

What is it?

A soft white…

A soft white…

Thing. It’s a thing. The Thing settles on my head. It surprises me at first but it is gentle. It is cool. Not cold. Cool and clean and fresh. And soft. So soft... I remember when my cat was a kitten. She was so small she could sleep on my head. She would come back inside after playing in the backyard, slightly wet from when the rain would unexpectedly come. She could lay anywhere. Anywhere. But she chose me…

The world turns blurry. I shut my eyes and open them. Blurry. Something sort of itchy moves down my face, almost like a hair dragging. I feel the cool kitten on my head, something rising deep in my chest and in my throat. A sparkling, almost tingling moves through my body. It is a beautiful feeling but is also terribly sad. I am sad.

Sad.

Sad. 

Ssss...ad. 

The word never enters the air but emits an unseeable blue light from the center of my chest. I sink deep into the...what am I on again? Wait, where am I?

The masked figures suddenly move. There is no longer any bright red or silver, only skin and a line with x’s. I try to pronounce it only to hear more gurgles. One masked figure whips their head over to me, the light of the suns overhead creating a shadow on their brow.

Xxxxxx...

Xxxxxx?

Xxxxxx...

What did you write on me? What do you mean? Please tell me. 

Confusion and frustration rise in me like a volcano before I remember there is a kitten on my head. I think about the kitten and things get blurry again. I remember her black and white fur, her quiet, hardly voiced meows. So polite. So sweet. So soft...

And then we were moving. The world zipped by, leaving trails of running paint, blurring lines, impossible to follow. At times it melts, at times it makes my eyes hurt, too many things to focus on. I think of Matisse. I think of Van Gough. I think of Monet. I want to see the big picture, not these fragments. Not these melted pieces, these streaks in the air. I want to point. I want to speak. I want to discuss impressionism and ask what the picture is of. I want to share this with the kitten. 

And then, nothing. I am suddenly a cracked egg, laying on some kitchen counter. Hallow, fragile, and empty. I can hear and feel the heat of something but it is only a reminder of what had been. I am in a room that is black except for a small, far away star, lighting one very small corner. And there is nothing. And it is suddenly very cold. And I am suddenly wishing that the masked figures were there. And I am alone. 

A masked figure materializes before me and leans in close to me. My eyes burst wide open when I notice them. I want to scream, to beg, to cry for them to stay with me. I want them to fill up the emptiness, to make me feel whole again. The mask on the face of the figure moves rhythmically and I hear the muddy mumbles. I focus on the mumbles as much as I can. I squeeze my eyes shut, listening as carefully as an old broken egg can. A bubble forms in the muddy words and I hear the word ‘sleep’. 

Sleep.

Sleep! Of course!

 It’s bedtime. I’m supposed to go to bed. It must be way past my bedtime. My mom will be angry if I don’t get to bed on time. I gurgle and then let myself drift off, a floating eggshell in the kitchen sink, floating in the uncertain darkness.