You need to get to her. But the message your brain sends to your legs is undeliverable. You’re immobile and helpless. Panic and desperation reroute to your arms, and you push the nurses away from you, just to do something. Just to make something happen with the parts of your body that still work. One of the nurses stumbles backwards, grabbing the privacy curtain. Metal rings rattle against the rod. You’re injected with something. Oh. A delicious current runs through your hot veins.
Several times a day, your thoughts clatter together in a way that makes sense for a moment and you understand where you are. Then a piecing together of information more distantly available happens. The agitation moves fast once you’ve got it, prickling your skin and tightening your chest. Later, you’ll have the thought that you shouldn’t scream; there will be a memory telling you to keep quiet. But that hasn’t happened yet, so you do scream. You surprise yourself by screaming Caroline and wonder who that is. Then you know who it is and you try to get up even though you’ve realized by now that you can’t. And all there is to do is flail and scream until someone comes in and sticks you with a needle. The relief comes quickly every time. The thoughts trot away with you following after, too slow to catch them. I want to see my… playing again and again, until it’s a kind of song. And then you’re back in the place where no memories are made.
Eventually, you’re able to heed your mind’s fuzzy commands and stack one thought on top of another. The periods between consciousness and meltdown get longer each time. At some point you’re transferred to a different room; perhaps a different wing.
You’ve learned by now that when you ask for Caroline, things get chaotic. So, when you feel the desire, you push it down. You count the tiles on the floor. You eat meals of gelatinous meat and canned vegetables. You watch TV: skincare infomercials, sitcom reruns. It helps. But when the local news comes on, you get confused and upset. You see the freckled face of a little girl you seem to know. You see your own face.
You’ve perceived for a while now that some of the nurses like you and some do not, but you haven’t been able to tell one group from the other. When you get a bit clearer, you realize there are not two groups. There’s only one nurse who doesn’t hate you.