THERE WAS NOTHING EXPECTED ABOUT ANY OF IT

           

Life is like a jigsaw puzzle. However, the difference is that you don't have the picture on the front of the box to know what it's supposed to look like. Assumptions are made about the future, but in the end, we are all just another character in a mystery-themed book.

At the moment, all I see around me is white, white, white interspersed with slithers of blue. The only sound that reaches my ears is the beep, beep, beep sound of something electronic and scary. My body is only able to produce movement with the help of an assistant, but my mind constantly replays the images of the past that I wish were unseen.

I remember it being a beautiful and joyous moment. A moment where corny humour floated through the air and was joined by the sound of contagious laughter. A moment where wonder and excitement were carved into my families faces as we went on an adventure through the mountains. We were unable to see the jaw dropping view of dark green trees dancing with the wind, the rainbow-coloured flowers scattered everywhere or the semi-transparent blue water that runs over rocks between the mountains because our only light source at the time came from the semi-full moon. It was a moment, just one moment, a moment where my brother and I didn't want to rip each other's heads off and my parents were not looking half-dead because of working from crack of dawn to sundown. It was a rare moment that was, however, ruined by a lost, scared, snow-white dog running into the middle of the road.

There was a high-pitched screeching sound of rubber gliding across gravel that rang through our ears and a sharp, yet numbing pain in my head as it came into contact with the window. This was from the force caused by my father trying to keep us from driving over the edge of the mountain while dodging the dog.

One should never do what we had done. We forgot one of the simplest, yet most important rules, about driving. We forgot a rule that held our fate in the palm of its hand. Keep your eyes on the road at all times. In that moment, my parents' main priority was to turn around in their seats and check that my brother and I were ok.  With everyone distracted, no one noticed that we were driving on the wrong side of the road, nor the blinding light that was heading toward us before I was engulfed in darkness.

It's always been a wonder to me why I didn't stay unconscious like my parents did and why I had to live with the nightmare of what happened after the accident. It first began with pain- the type of pain that I would imagine you feel when a countless number of knives stab you all over your body at the same time. The type of pain that will make a person scream in agony for hours on end. I felt that pain, but I physically couldn't do anything about it. I couldn't move to let people know that I was awake, or get words to escape my mouth to let them know of how much pain I was in. I could only let my eyes explore the scene around me.  Red and blue lights were flashing everywhere I looked and my mother and father's limp bodies were laying a few feet away from my father's car that was by crushed by someone else's car. I could even see the disturbing sight of my father's arm split open with the bone poking through a gash.

My eyes were then directed towards a middle aged man with a trickle of blood pouring down his face. Smoke left his lips as his grip on his cigarette was slowly loosening. I don't think he could smell the strong smell of petrol hanging in the air or see the clear liquid pouring from the car and running towards him. But I did. As if it were all happening in slow motion, I watched in horror as the cigarette slowly fell down until it came in contact with the floor. Then there were red and yellow flames sprinting with a cackling sound towards my father's car. The sound of fire crackling and men shouting filled the air and all I could do was let a single tear drop fall from my eye as I realised that there was still a body inside my father's car. I let another tear slip as I watched my brother get consumed by the flames.

I used to be full of life, but now I have been diagnosed with lock-in-syndrome. I have brain damage and as a result my body is fully paralysed. What was meant to be a family trip, ended up turning into something that we had not expected at all.