I have lost all track of time anymore, I don't know how long I've been here. My days are spent drifting in and out of consciousness and trying to handle the intense knife like pain haunting every waking hour and every dream. It seems to be consuming me, I can't think of anything else! People come and go, but I hardly am aware of them, I can't keep track of them, everything's a blur.
Questions start to fill my mind and emotions so strong, almost worse than the pain. What happened? I thought I'd freeze to death! My mind begins to thaw and I remember the horrible darkness enveloping me, the way I felt so hopelessly lost! Who found me and brought me into the hospital? That must be where I am, nurses and the strong odor of hospital, and eternal fluorescent lights and white walls, it's so horribly dull but I hardly have time or energy to think about it. Why did they save me? I find myself almost hating whoever rescued me from death to revive me to this horrible torture. Why didn't God let me die? It would've been so much easier! How long ago was that night? it seems just moments ago and yet, it feels like an eternity of pain has gone by! It's funny how conflicting time can feel.
"Jess! Jessica?" I pry my eyes open, who's talking to me? I feel hazy at first but force myself to focus. It's mom. Is it... is she... crying? Pain shoots through me, not physical pain, the pain you feel with your heart, that deep aching pain you experience when you see someone you love hurting, that stab of guilt for being so selfish.
How could I hurt her like this? I got so caught up in my own grief and hurts that I totally tuned out my mother's grief. I just about skipped out on her, the very same thing that I'd been so hurt by my best friend... ex-best friend, doing to me. Except, she hadn't attempted suicide, she was still living which hurt almost worse!
(to be continued :)
I was doing a little research tonight and I'm aware that this story hasn't been completely accurate... freezing to death would be a lot more painful than just 'falling asleep and never waking up again' since you would have to get to that point of numbness before even losing consciousness and to get there you'd have to freeze... obviously... and I'm not totally sure, since I've never been through this, how long, or how awful it would be to thaw after an experience like this... if you have any idea or info I'd love to hear it! Feed back on the story is welcome! :-) Thanks for taking the time to read this!
Questions start to fill my mind and emotions so strong, almost worse than the pain. What happened? I thought I'd freeze to death! My mind begins to thaw and I remember the horrible darkness enveloping me, the way I felt so hopelessly lost! Who found me and brought me into the hospital? That must be where I am, nurses and the strong odor of hospital, and eternal fluorescent lights and white walls, it's so horribly dull but I hardly have time or energy to think about it. Why did they save me? I find myself almost hating whoever rescued me from death to revive me to this horrible torture. Why didn't God let me die? It would've been so much easier! How long ago was that night? it seems just moments ago and yet, it feels like an eternity of pain has gone by! It's funny how conflicting time can feel.
"Jess! Jessica?" I pry my eyes open, who's talking to me? I feel hazy at first but force myself to focus. It's mom. Is it... is she... crying? Pain shoots through me, not physical pain, the pain you feel with your heart, that deep aching pain you experience when you see someone you love hurting, that stab of guilt for being so selfish.
How could I hurt her like this? I got so caught up in my own grief and hurts that I totally tuned out my mother's grief. I just about skipped out on her, the very same thing that I'd been so hurt by my best friend... ex-best friend, doing to me. Except, she hadn't attempted suicide, she was still living which hurt almost worse!
(to be continued :)
I was doing a little research tonight and I'm aware that this story hasn't been completely accurate... freezing to death would be a lot more painful than just 'falling asleep and never waking up again' since you would have to get to that point of numbness before even losing consciousness and to get there you'd have to freeze... obviously... and I'm not totally sure, since I've never been through this, how long, or how awful it would be to thaw after an experience like this... if you have any idea or info I'd love to hear it! Feed back on the story is welcome! :-) Thanks for taking the time to read this!
Very well written...I would keep doing my research... (Here's a really good link on Hypothermia and exposure and freezing to death or almost...
ReplyDeletehttp://www.theozarks.com/Hypothermia_2.htm
A thought is that you might develop part one a bit more and have her walking and mulling over stuff and develop your plot and give some background in that space of time till she gets chilled through and gets hypothermia, she has no idea how far she's walked and there's no where to go and she's so weary and cold she sinks down beside the road and through a fog of chilling pain she sees a light through the woods near by but decides she doesn't want to try -- doesn't have the strength, that she'd rather die...maybe she was even considering other forms of suicide or something on her walk in the midst of all her pain and now this looks like an easy way out and this overrides her natural desire to fight for life and it's natural when you are that cold so it's kind of intentional and kind of natural irrational cold setting in...but she could still feel the guilt later cause of her Mom's pain and her own thoughts...Another thought that struck me as I read is that usually in actual intensive care hospital rooms they keep the lights darkened so it would probably be dimly lit rather than florescent lights (although these would be in the halls and such.)
Anyhow hope you don't mind my feedback...You are doing a Super job on this and I hope to get to read more...you have such a good way of describing thoughts and feelings and making someone feel "almost there" themselves. =) Keep writing!
Anna: Your writing draws me in, I feel the pain and wonder what will happen! Like in life, I want to try to fix things... Being a mother, I appreciated Jessica's concern for her mother who obviously loved her. I look forward to seeing how you develop some solutions to her pain and some resolve to her conflicts - both with living with pain and the more concrete conflict with her friend.
ReplyDeleteThank you for those ideas Rachael... they give me new inspiration! :) And thanks for the link I looked for some things but couldn't really find anything and about the flourescent lighitng... I've never been in an IC room so thx for that tip... and I thought of it more like kinda that soft light not like bright but ur probably right about that! Thanks for the ideas!
ReplyDeleteAnd mom, thanks for the encouragement! :) I'm anxious to write further in the story, I get annoyed sometimes because I have parts I want to write further on or get to the 'main point' but I have to develop the story first... I'm not a very patient person! :)