Payne & Joie

Chapter 17

I'm floating somewhere. No longer am I too hot. It's cool and light in the space, but too bright to open my eyes. It's okay, because when I'm floating there is no pain. I float there for a bit, rebelling in the absence of stimulation. I have too much of that lately, though in this space I can't really remember what I'm talking about. There's a ringing sound in this space, it's repetitious and harsh. It's waves disturb me. The sudden inclusion of this sound makes me squint. No matter how I twist and turn it's always there. Closer and closer still. When the pain of the sound becomes too much, I open my eyes to the light.

The sight I see is white. White in every crevice and crack of my vision. My brain is also white, the absence of color. This absence of stimulation is not comforting, unlike before. I'm laying on my back with no thoughts, only a muddle of dulled out feelings in this washed out room. The feelings come slowly, like molasses. My knee no longer burns and my forehead is now only a second thought throb. But interestingly, my thighs rub together uncomfortably. Something has been stuck to the skin of one. I curl my fingers. The sheet under me is soft, but the unfamiliar clothes around me are stiff. There a harsh smell that greets my nostrils, but at the very least it's a clean scent.

I lift my right arm up to my head. A strange tube taped to my arm follows. A clear liquid runs through it into a purple vein in my arms. My hair is soft as well, it doesn't stick to the side of my face anymore. While it is cold in this white room, the skin where the wound is warm when I place two fingers against it. At least that's what I can feel through the bandage. Warmth and cold. Who had saved me from the hell I had lived?

There's a dark blob to my right. I blink at the shape ceaselessly trying to make sense of it until it comes into focus. It's a woman. She slouches in a tiny plastic chair, head down. She wears crinkled business clothes even in her sleep with a tablet resting in wait on the even smaller stand which holds a plethora of empty coffee containers, big and small. An ornate glass vase filled with pink dahlias sits behind them. I enjoy the pink, a welcome surprise in the white room. Her hair is a frizz of yellow.

"Mom?" I say. My voice is small and broken.

It takes a few more futile calls before she responds to them. When she looks up her skin is a frozen white with highlights of gray beneath her eyes. Her eyes widen as I try to sit up. She knocks over the cups in her rush to my side.

"Hey now," she soothes as she gently pushes my shoulders back. "The doctor said you need to rest."

"Where am I? Is Madeline and Mina okay? Is... Joy?"

My heart thumps with effort, both from fear and the energy expended trying to sit up.
"One question at a time. You've been unconscious for the past few days." Mom says, straightening the pillow behind my head. "I have to tell you about what happened with you first."

"Is it my knee? I'm okay I swear, it happened in judo before. I'll be fine, just tell me what happened with the others." I beg.

"You tore one of the ligaments in your knee partially. I know the same thing happened in judo but since it was the same thing in the same leg it needs to be monitored closely, but the doctor is optimistic about it. You're on a lot of morphine right now, so things seem better than they are."

"Then what's the big problem? I know Mina said the cut on my forehead was infected but that should have been fixed already with antibiotics. And with this bandage." I try to put my hand to the bandage again but Mom grabs my wrist before I can.

"It was infected," she says, placing my arm back down with a sigh. "But a lot worse than you think. It was a flesh-eating infection. You're lucky you didn't lose an eye. If you had flown on the plane you would have died. You were gone six hours, any more and you're almost guaranteed dead,"