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This excerpt is from a memoir I'm trying to write. (Approx: 1,700 words) |
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I could feel it again something inside of me demanding to introduce itself to me, and like before I get an eerie, dreadful, and over-whelming saddening feeling that we've met before. It's precense has been haunting me for as long as I can remember. I see my empty prescription bottles lying on the rug below scattered about the room. I'm so tired . God I'm so tired. I stare over at my bed, the crumpled up sheets and pillows look so inviting it seems to sing sweetly to me, "Just lie down for awhile, it seems to say in a soothing voice. Go to sleep Sharon. You just need to rest for awhile," I say to myself. My eyelids feel as heavy as a piano, and life is the pianist that gently begins to play me to sleep. A part of me tries to wake me whispering softly, "Sharon, wake up. You took a bunch of pills remember--you need to get up now and call for help", sounding as if it were coming from deep inside a tunnel. A will I've never known before struggles to hoist the piano up from my lifeless body. Surrounded by a misery of black abyss and more darkness I feel myself still slipping farther and farther away. All the while, a well rehearsed concerto plays in the background. Suddenly, I hear the precise and persistent pounding of a bass drum pick up tempo deep inside my head. Getting louder with every perfectly timed beat I envision myself in the company of strangers wanting to do me ill harm--a sacrifice if you will. Sharon F. calls "it" self the "protector". It was created to protect "me" from getting hurt again. That's it's job. It's sole purpose for being. Even if it means killing me, or if I die in the process. It doesn't want anyone to cause me to hurt, not now, and it certainly does not want "me", "it", or "any of us," to relive the pain of the past. The melody once heard in the background silenced as the banging of the procession of the drums picked up it's thunderous energy with lightening speed tempo. I couldn't stand it anymore. Now the challenge before me was only to make it's deafening vibration stop. Absent of any real intellect, at this point, I met up with shear and undiversified will. The will to live, and in this case, without suffering if I can help it. And without further complacency on my part, I felt my own body throw itself off the bed as if possessed by an unchained spirit. Nervously, I began flaying my arms in the air in quiet surgency trying to reach for the phone with my trembling hand. "Hello", it was Helen at the front desk. "Hello", she asked again. "Helen," I said, with a long pause. "This is Sharon in room 316 a," I managed to slip out. "What can I do for you tonight Sharon," she asked me. Not knowing how to tell her, or what would happen next, I felt the words roll effortlessly off my tongue. And I heard what I was saying to her as I said it, and I was as shocked or more shocked than she was at the time she heard it. "I took an overdose", I said, feeling embarrassed and ashamed, and wishing more than anything to be able to turn the clock back to an hour or so ago. Before I knew it there was a knock at the door, and with little hesitation, I opened it thankfully. Helen embraced me with a receptive and gratuitous welcome. Although her arms enveloped me like a long lost friend as if wanting to recharge me with her own strength and will to live, I felt weak, too weak. On the inside I didn't seem to have the strength that other people seem to possess. Something always seemed to be missing inside of me. The actual feeling of being alive in the first place I guess. "What did you do sweet heart?", she gasped, while waiting for the operator to pick up on the other end of the line. She began tapping her finger tips on the night stand by the edge of my bed, "Hang in there Sharon. An ambulance is on the way," she vowed yet at the same time seemed to be asking for my permission. Helen tried to make small talk with me as we waited for the paramedics. My eyes struggled to open as the impulses from my brain commanding them to do so slowed to a near dead stop. Every once in awhile, I felt a whisper far within me crying out, "Don't let him kill us Sharon. It's not right--it's not fair to the rest of us. Just because he hates everyone and hates life doesn't mean the rest of us should have to suffer. What about our friends at the club. We care about you and besides we all have Karen to help us now." I tried to sort out the conversation that was taking place in my head. Then suddenly, Helen along with one of the other night time employees, Trudy I think her name is, began half carrying my dead wait body clumsily but swiftly into the elevator. After we hit the ground floor, the elevator door swung open mid way. I felt the pull of something or someone far more powerful and forceful much like one would image experiencing the pull of gravity after having jumped out of an airplane then free falling only to be yanked into reality or consciousness after having pulled the rip cord. My eyelids continued to fight for their own recognition in going for the gold in this unrehearsed, ill trained, and unqualified heavy weight lifting championship title. My mind too now trying to hold it's own and soak in every last detail that my eyes could pick up, but like muscles spent from being over worked they could only retain so much. Glimpses of paramedics and men wearing red hats floated through my brain. My eyes opened once more only to see discarded wrappers, needles, and other medical paraphernalia littered about the dining room floor. Then it was as if a volcano erupted, I felt my insides succumb to fits of bodily rage spewing liquids out of every orifice. "She's going to make it", one of them gestured. "Luckily she told someone", I heard someone else say. "Let's go. Call the hospital and tell them we're on our way." I could feel my warm, soaked pants clinging to my body for dear life as I felt my lifeless body being lifted onto a stretcher. "Take care Sharon. Let them help you and come back to us soon", I heard them rally almost poetically as the paramedics rolled me out into that still, muggy, sweltering August night. On the way to the hospital, the medic on watch proceeded to take my vitals--blood pressure, keep an eye on the monitor and what not--feel my pulse. Both he and the driver seemed confident that I was going to make it. And at that point, a "part" of me even wanted to. But, "I" wasn't so sure. The pounding in my head was growing louder. It was pulsating something awful. I could feel my mind slowly begin to drift away from the internal beating It was getting in my head to a time when I was five years old. I remembered swallowing a piece of hair, my parents were out for the evening and left me in the company of my slightly older brother and sister. I recall it being a school night, and my parents would not be out late. For some reason, I had gotten it in my head some how that if I swallowed a piece of hair that I would die. When your five a lot of things don't make sense and we don't always ask questions. I remember it was getting closer to bed time, all I could think of was is this it-- I am going to die. I'm going to go to sleep and never wake up. I wanted to wait for my parents to get home. I couldn't die without saying good night or good bye to my mom. Meanwhile, my brother and sister got ready for bed and told me to do the same. As I watched them, I did not want to accept that this was it that I would lie down never to wake up again-- just like that. It couldn't be that simple I told myself. A part of me wanted so much to tell them what I did and ask if it was true, but I was afraid that if I said it then it would really happen. I was going to miss them I remember thinking to myself. Most of all I would really miss my mom. Fearful yet courageously, I lay my head down on my pillow and thought of how much I loved my family and how much I was going to miss them. Next thing I knew, I was strapped to a bed surrounded by four nursing students. I gathered they were students based on all the questions they so desperately sought answers to. "Why is she laughing?", one of them asked, seemingly confused, and at least momentarily perplexed. I noticed the clock on the wall, it read 3:19 a.m. Tubes and IVs linked me to several different machines that took up most of the atmosphere in the closet sized room. With no doors on any of the rooms, I got a clear shot of the nurses station that was centrally located in the middle of the unit. I also caught a glimpse of some of the other patients on the floor that appeared to be mostly elderly. Seeing them lying there motionless hooked up to their own machines it dawned on me that I must be in I. C. U. "She was brought in after overdosing on her medication", an older and more confident nurse established. "She displays what is known as borderline personality disorder tendencies and is currently in a state of acute psychosis". |
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