Coma

Julia is a friend of mine. Enjoy.

By: Julia Ellis

I can’t move.

That was my first thought as I woke up from what seemed like the longest sleep of my life. I felt stiff, like my whole body was weighted down by lead shaped to my tall frame.

What’s that noise? Something sounded like it was ticking, but…Wet, somehow. And there was this annoying beeping

Crap. I was in a hospital room. The wet ticking was the IV and the beeping was the heart monitor. The more I thought about why I was in a hospital room, and who was hurt, the faster the heart monitor sounded off, like high-pitched gun shots. What’s happening? What happened?

“Poor Benjamin…My boy, so reckless,” someone sniffled nearby. If I’d been able to move, I’d have jumped at the sound of another person in the room. I know that voice.

“Aunt Shari, you can’t just stand here staring at him forever. It won’t wake him up. You know as well as I that standing around doing nothing accomplishes nothing.”

“Jarie, honey, do an old lady a favor and shut up. Do something useful and get some coffee or tea for your parents – you know they need it. Standing around nit-picking your aunt won’t accomplish anything either.” No wonder her voice was familiar – that was my aunt Shari, and my elder sister Jarie.

“Mrrpher.” That was Jarie mumbling an expletive as she stomped out of the room – I know she was stomping because her stilettos clacked on the hard floor louder than they would have normally.

A few minutes later, a set of more confident sounding steps came close to the room I was in. They stopped a few yards away (I guess that’s where the doorway was) and there was the sound of plastic scraping on plastic, and then pages being turned. That must be my file. Someone put the file back, and then the footsteps entered my room.

“Ms. Stackdom, I’m Dr. Carver. I’ll be handling your boy Benjamin’s case. Now, I’ll explain what I think is going on with his condition.“

“You will do no such thing,” Aunt Shari interrupted, taking control as always. She may have been softhearted when it came to people in need, but she was no pushover.

“Ma’am?” The poor man sounded so confused. He must not be used to being told what to do anymore, not since he got his PhD.

“Do you have a hearing impairment along with your chronic stupidity? I said, you will do no such thing. I will not have you guessing at what my nephew’s newly acquired health problems may be. Obviously you doctors are way overrated, since I don’t have to have some fancy PhD certificate hanging in my office to know what’s happened here.” Way to go, Aunt Shari!

“Ah…Well, excuse me, I only meant that—“

“I don’t give a damn what you meant, boy. Either help my nephew with these overrated skills of yours or I will whisk him out of this place without giving you your outrageous payment, and get help elsewhere.” Wow, she must really be worried to say all that. Normally she’s so appreciative of modern medicines…

“Yes ma’am,” the doctor replied. He really didn’t seem like he knew what he was doing, but maybe he was just intimidated by Aunt Shari – that happened a lot, people being intimidated by her. “Well, obviously he’s in a coma. The injury to his head whacked his brain hard enough that it could be swelling, though we don’t know for sure because if we took him into X-ray, he’d likely fall into a deeper coma from being moved around too much. Six broken ribs, two wrist fractures, a contusion on his pelvis and a broken thigh bone. Those are the worst of it; the rest of the injuries are minor, though it’ll still take him a long time to heal. And he might not ever be completely normal again. That broken leg could result in a cane for the rest of his life…”

He went on and on, getting more detailed and using bigger words. Aunt Shari sounded like she understood everything, commenting and asking questions, and mumbling a few curses of her own.

About 20 minutes later, the doctor was gone, and I could hear Aunt Shari’s pencil working on a puzzle, like she so often did to fill up time gaps. She knew there was nothing for her to do now but wait.

The worst part about this whole situation was that I still couldn’t remember what was going on…I didn’t know how I had gotten all these “injuries,” and I felt fine, other than the fact that I couldn’t respond to anything or move. Ugh, I was just so frustrated; I swore I could break something.

I heard a noise from where Aunt Shari was sitting. It was quiet for almost a minute, and then she got up and came to stand next to me. I could almost feel her staring at me, her gaze boring into my skin, my body, my mind.

“Benjamin?” She whispered. She sounded startled, excited and nervous. “Benny, can you hear me? I thought I saw your hand move…Oh, maybe I’m just crazy. Everyone else seems to think so.” She sighed, turning to sit back down. I wanted to scream at her to come back, to tell be if I had moved. I didn’t know how I’d done it, and I thought I’d felt my fingers twitch, but I’d also thought it was a trick of my mind.

The sound of sneakers running down the hall towards my room sounded loud against the former silence. They squeaked like whoever was running had just walked in puddles and slapped the floor like they were running with a purpose. Sooner than I expected, a heavy breathing man asked Aunt Shari, “How is he? How is my son? What the hell happened? Why is he here? No one’s telling me anything!”

Aunt Shari responded too calmly, like she was striving to keep her patience. “That’s not surprising since you haven’t bothered to find out how your son has been doing for the past 12 years. Why are you even here? Aren’t you supposed to be on some big important tour in Europe?” By the time she finished, her tone went from a deadly calm to an even scarier dry sarcasm that she only used when she was about ready to break something – or in this case, someone.

“Now, Shari, that’s not fair. You know the band’s been struggling to stay noticed. Since we got a bigger gig in Europe, I thought it was a great opportunity to get some moment and—“

“Save me the expense of your unconvincing and gimp excuses. I don’t want to hear it.” Not good – she was starting to bring out some of her better vocabulary, meaning she was trying not to swear at him. “No one wants you here, Daniel. And since he can hear us, I’m sure Benjamin is agreeing with me. Aren’t you, Benny?”

She knows I can hear them? Of course she does, she always knows these things. Not for the first time today, I tried to move, to show her I could, in fact, hear everything. Just then, I heard Daniel’s sneakers squeal on the floor as he went over to another chair and plopped himself down. Hearing Aunt Shari go back to her puzzles, I decided they wouldn’t talk for a while and I could go back to sleep.


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I was choking.

Or at least, that’s what it felt like. I couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, couldn’t tell anyone that I couldn’t breathe. The ringing in my ears was so loud that I couldn’t hear anything else – just when I thought that, someone screamed, “GET HIM SOME HELP! HE’S DYING!!”

Who’s dying? Me? No, I wasn’t dying – yet. All I needed was for someone to fix whatever was blocking my airways.

“Benjamin.” That voice wasn’t loud at all but somehow I could hear it through the ringing in my head, the high-pitched wailing that made my head feel like it was exploding with white-hot pain.

“Benjamin, you have to choose. This has nothing to do with your throat, or anything choking you. You were dreaming, Benjamin. Of what happened to hurt you like this.” Whoever was talking was crazy, I decided. No one can just choose to stop choking. It’s not a matter of, “Well, let’s see…Do I or don’t I want to choke today?” But even as I thought this, I remembered a flash of my dream: a deafeningly loud crash, metal screaming and folding in on itself, and the muffled sound of my own bones breaking. A car crash, my fault.

“Benjamin. I know you understand this. It’s buried within you to hear me. Boy, you must choose now. If you wait any longer, you’ll die. Choose whether you want to live or die, and it will happen.”

Choose…What? How do I choose whether I want to live or die? Of course I want to live! It’s obvious! Life is what everyone craves, even when they want to escape the horrors that it sometimes brings – oh. That’s what this person means. Choose to live and deal with pain, or choose to die and be at peace.

“Make the choice, kiddo. Your Aunt Shari understands either way.” Aunt Shari…She knew about this? “Son, God shows me a lot of things, and this is one of them. You need to choose, now.” Somehow I could hear her through the ringing, but only her and the other voice. The voice that was neither males nor female, but had a strong quality that made me want to hear everything this person had to say.

I want to live…Of course I want to live. I don’t care what life hits me with; I want to be alive and well.

I sucked in the biggest breath I could, my eyes popping open, and I was blinded momentarily by bright hospital lights. There was a group of people hovering, frozen over me, staring wide-eyed as I stared back at them. I clenched my hands, wiggled my toes, and looked around the unfamiliar faces. All but one, a small woman with graying hair at the back of the crowd, farthest from me. This woman I knew – my aunt Shari. She smiled at me, a small, proud smile.

“God boy, Benjamin. This is the beginning of a long, powerful journey for you. Be proud that you have such a good woman to lead you.” As the person spoke, I looked around the faces above me, noting that no one’s lips moved, and none of them seemed to have heard anything.

Such an odd voice, not man or woman.

But I got what I wanted. Now I’m alive and well, and leading the life that God said I would. My name is Benjamin Stackdom, and I chose to live.