Hospital “Flashes of Light”

“I woke up feeling sick, in a way that I haven't felt in a long time. As I woke, I could hear her in the dark. Her voice was so weak. She called out to someone, but it wasn't me.

I was having a nightmare. I suppose that isn't surprising. I haven't had a good dream in years. In the nightmare, the world was going to end. Apparently, humans decided to do something terrible. They were going to drop their bombs, and let the human race belong to the long list of extinct animals. Most of us didn't have a say in the matter.

I was with my family. My mom and my sister. My brother was there too. The sky was gray, almost like it was anticipating something awful. My heart was rapidly beating, and I couldn't escape the sense of hopelessness, of sickness.

We had a radio, one of those battery-operated ones. We were outside in an open park. We had thought of hiding in a basement or something like that. and considering how many were going to go off, we figured it wouldn't make a difference. Even if it wouldn't make it to a basement, it wouldn't be worth living through. I looked off in the distance, and I saw a wall of smoke. Some cities are already on fire, burning husks in the distance. Then, there were several large flashes, just above the line of buildings. Suddenly, there is an onrush of heated gray air, tumbling as a thick wall.

It came fast, and it is on us in an instant. There was no pain at all, only oblivion. My heart sank into my stomach as I watch my clutching family explode into black ash and screams. I soon joined them.

Soon after, it switched to something else. A time after the apocalypse that I had somehow survived. But in my mind that didn't matter. The first part is what has stuck out to me, and why I feel ill.

When I am awake, I look at the world on the news, and I hear people saying such horrible things. It hasn't been like this in a long time. For some reason I am lost in it, and by doing so I have made me lost in my own problems. I haven't felt this wrong in a long time, and I can see it in my behavior. Which is why I suppose I am not surprised that she has been calling out for someone else.

If I was her, I wouldn't want to remember me.

I have tried so hard to take care of her, but there is so much there that I haven't been able to take care of; so many things I don't understand or that I can't do anything about. I lose my temper sometimes, and I am beginning to feel ashamed of myself, even if I know that my pain is only natural. I know she tries so hard to not make trouble, but a person in her condition...how could anyone expect them to be reasonable, with all that is wrong with her...with all that is hurting her.

I am tired all the time, even after days of rest. I know that is normal too. You don't forget about them. You don't ever really detach.

My eyes have been burning for days, and I constantly feel like I have no one to talk to, even if I know that isn't the case. This whole experience is just so isolating.

I can't feel connected to people until I am with them for a couple hours. Sometimes, even that isn't enough, and I have spent entire nights with someone, only to feel this distance between us.

It is that “us against the world” sort of attitude I have tried not to nurture, but life has seemed really unfair lately, and it is hard not to feel resentful.”

I have been going over my old writings; the ones about my wife when she was alive. I suppose the previous entry inspired me to go back to it. I don't like reading my old writing. There is too much of me in all of it. Too much emotion. However, I know that people would say that I have to confront these feelings sometime, even if I don't want to right now.

Watching someone die is probably the hardest thing you can do. For most of us, when we hear about a death it is simply second hand. We find out after the fact, but to actually watch someone dying, to watch someone struggling to find a reason to desire their life anymore, is more than you are really ever expected to handle.

I saw a bit of her in the exposed bone. You wouldn't think you could. We get so used to a person’s face, that you would think what was underneath wouldn't matter. But I could see things I recognized, familiar dips in the structure; a certain extended look around the chin. There was more of her in that bone than I ever would have thought, and I am sure in a way that is really telling. When I looked at her, all those years ago, I didn't really notice that as much, even if I do now.

I only saw him, that artists representation from the newspaper.

All I could see is what he had done to her.