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#FF — Awake

msjadeli
PHOTO PROMPT © Rochelle Wisoff-Fields

Strapped onto the bed, natural and introduced orifices maintained fluid input and output by proxy. Through the haze, I discerned their routine movements. Bright LEDs popped on, after which the metal clanking of the door lock brought their soft padding into the room.

One smelled of lilacs; another of onions.

They never spoke as they executed functions with robotic precision. Occasionally the warmth of a hand or an arm would brush against me. I grew to crave those tidbits of touch.

When I woke from my coma, the first thing I saw were the legs of a window washer.

[99 words]

 

Rochelle Wisoff-Fields is the encouraging host of Friday Fictioneers.

Published by msjadeli

mother, gardener, retired government worker, observer, reader, learner, bicyclist, woman who runs with the wolves, lover of music!

58 thoughts on “#FF — Awake”

  3. Good one! I liked your take on it! And … knowing someone who’d had ‘locked in syndrome’, I am always aware of how important it is to continue to treat those in a come as if they are aware of what is going on around them – even to some degree – because … well … we never know AND it matters! Nicely done!
    Na’ama

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  17. A very ingenious take on the prompt. I liked the way you used the different senses of sight, sound, smell and touch. That really makes the point that the patient was aware albeit helpless. Good writing!

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    1. Thank you for the vote of confidence. I’ve read accounts where people “died for a bit” then came back and could tell what was happening, so to me it seems likely you could do the same in a coma.

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  21. An imaginative take on the prompt and a powerful story. The great importance of touch, that she craved though she was comatose. It does raise the long unanswered question of how aware are those who are “asleep” of their surroundings. Nicely written!

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    1. Brenda, yes and yes. I would prefer the caregivers act from a belief that they are aware of what’s going on. If they aren’t nobody is harmed, but if they are, more reasons to wake up. Thank you.

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  22. Perhaps not the first thing you would want to see when coming around from a coma. In the story you captured the awkward feeling of being sensitive to the touch, sounds and smells and yet unable to respond. Well told.

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    1. Cool that you are a nurse. We don’t really know what senses are still working when they are unconscious but it seems reasonable at least some are, maybe all, at some level…

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