I wake up covered in sweat.
I am still in the hospital. Tubes and straps hold me in and down. I have become more machine.
A nurse with kind eyes comes into the room.
"Oh, your awake. I was afraid you were thrashing around again."
"I'm thirsty..."
"Let me get you some water."
I've been in this place for two weeks since that strange stabbing incident.
I've been doped on so many painkillers I'm not even sure I really know what happened.
Something about different faces.
And then that dream about a field. It seemed so real. My shoulders throb.
An orderly named Mikes comes in and starts prepping my dinner. He undoes my safety straps and I happily start chowing down.
"Hey did you finish that book I gave you?"
He's talking about Blindness by Jose Saramago. An entire world blinded by a disease and the trials of the one woman left with sight. It was very hard to read and a little long.
"Yeah, I finished it, pretty good, the movie was better."
"I got another one I found down in the juvenile cancer ward."
He hands me a well worn copy of a book called The Losers by David Eddings.
The cover is purple and in the middle is a man stepping out of the darkness with one leg forward and one angelic wing stretched toward the sky.
I can feel my heartbeat in my back. My shoulders shift uncomfortably.
I read the book that night, devouring in it's entirety. It is glorious in it's ugliness.
I sleep the sleep of death. No angels await me tonight.
