The Basics Of Being

The human body is a fascinating organism. Filled to the brim with thick blood and bone, trillions of microorganisms feeding off of natural bacteria, and controlling it all is a pinkish sludge ball that is so complex one hundred percent of its functions cannot be activated by its host.. on the natural earth the makeup of the human body is dedicated to protecting the soul that binds beneath its rib cage, struggling and pulsing with life and intelligence. The soul is always pure, it is the body that poisons it.

It did not take a detective to grasp that she was sick. Her skin, normally vibrant with color and flushed red with blush, was ivory pale and slicked with beads of sweat. She couldn’t move, not a muscle, or she’d be taking another trip to the bathroom to flush down the crumbs of her stomach lining. The pain was deep and ragged, her intestines inflamed with the teeth of a bear trap biting away at what was left. It had been weeks since she’d been outside, or had the strength to shower, her body all to take in real food. It was horrific the way she would sweat through her sheets through the night and awaken after only a moments rest just to repeat the process of relieving the demon inside of her.

She never thought it would lead to this. A lifetime of fear, of ignorance of what is to come. It was a stomach bug, that’s all. Every medication came and went through her system, every time just barely putting a crack in the dam of recovery. Her water was filling quick, nearing the edge preparing to overflow, threatening to take out all that was below her. Sweet mother nature, a venomous beast, would have nothing less.

Her mother packed an extra t-shirt and underwear, along with her favorite stuffed elephant in the car to the emergency room. There was no rush, it was more of a bargain to take her daughter to the hospital. There was nothing there they could do except tell her to wait it out. She knew because they had tried it before. 

The clock above the security desk read 4:34pm, the sunlight dimmed slightly by the parking garage just outside the sliding glass doors. She had forgotten her ID not thinking she’d need it to check in at an emergency room. It had simply flown over her head that medical staff might want to check her registry before pushing her on a trolly to the back of the emergency room. 

There was no way this was sterile. Each patient was separated in a cubical of curtains not even touching the floor. She could see the purse of the woman in the chamber next to hers; a tan Steve Madden handbag full of discarded tissues and wrappers, maybe a credit card or two. She was almost close enough to read the numbers on the back of the thin plastic card. The pain never stopped, her stomach wilding and wailing, suddenly bursting up a fountain of acid and blood through her esophagus and out of her mouth, the bile sour and hot and sticking to the back of her teeth and overflowing onto her gown she had struggled so dearly to get on. There was no rush by the staff to clean her up, and instead she just continued to burst and burst and vomit out nothing but bile and gas and blood, a thick Burgundy that brought a splash of color to the bland white towel. She sat like that for hours, five to be exact, until she had no more, her body had no more and she collapsed back into the darkness. This had happened before, she remembered, years ago when she was away. Just like this, the diarrhea and the pain and the blood, until suddenly her teeth started to hurt and she was brought back to her surroundings. She was a burst of energy now, trashing and willing, her limbs never quiet, never still, not because she begged them to move but because they wouldn’t stop, she was spamming and flailing and begging her mother to let the pain stop, to make it go away. She was no longer worried about the school she missed or the papers she would later have to make up, but now she was fighting for her life because no one around her seemed to care enough to try it for themselves. The tenderness in her gums spread through her right teeth like she had been biting hard into a glacier, like her teeth were cracking and snapping under the pressure of a stone. Now she knew, it was returning. The monster that took away her sense of taste and smell, riddled her face with scars and broke every fiber of will she had, the intensified fear and adrenaline, she felt it start.

“It’s happening again,” she told her mother. 

Her face was tight, the pressure building up behind her eyes and tongue and puffing out her cheeks. It all happened so fast, the swelling, she almost didn’t know it had happened.

And then there was nothing.

She was awake now. Or was she? She couldn’t tell. There was nothing, just darkness and pain and uncomforted. Why could she not see? Where was the light? Her family? Is this what it felt like to be dead? The emptiness, the loneliness? Was she stepping foot by foot up the golden stairs to meet the being, the man, the creator she never gave a damn about before then? Or was she falling slowly down the vast darkness, succumbed by the flames and the trenches of Hell she feared so badly? 

There was a beeping, her heart, she presumed. But after that, beyond the noise she felt nothing. The pain was gone, that was good, but where was everything else? Her body was stiff, aching with each pump of her blood, she didn’t dare move the tongue in her mouth or the tips of her toes. What if she was asleep, and she woke up to find she was still there in that room with the white floor and the blue curtains and the woman with the tan handbag? Or worse, what if she was already awake?

One year, five months and twenty-nine days. She has been blind for one year, five months, and twenty-nine days. 

They told her six days into her stay in the ICU that she would be like this forever. Left in the dark, the static. They told her that her life was gone. She would never be able to drive, read the words on the paper pages of a book, or look her family, her mother, in the eyes ever again. The monster had again taken something away from her. It had gripped her by the ears and dragged her head down, down, down into the cold hard stone. It had again stolen from her, taken something it had no right to have again with no warning. Stuck she was in this mess all over again. With its price, though, it had returned to her what it had stolen before. A trade of her smell and taste for the pictures behind her eyes. It was not an equal trade. 

After those weeks in the hospital she had more run-in’s with her monster. It festered and growled and grew in the put of her stomach everyday waiting for a time to come back and take more from her. What would it be next time? Her legs? Her hearing? Would it then return her sight? There was no way to know.

One year, five months, twenty-nine days.

It was easier now. She could cook on her own, feed herself, go shopping and do school work. Sometimes she was able to forget about her blindness in times she was the happiest. Though she longed for her sight back there was nothing about her she would change now. With the loss of something great there was a growth within her. 

She is blind now, yes, but she could still see.

She is me.

Based off of a true story