Fiber of Being

“Wake up,” the voice said. It was not the voice of his father anymore and he watched as this long absent figure seem to fade into a fog. Rog tried to grasp the metaphysical image of Rogue. He was not ready to let his life-long friend go so easily. But even Rogue wiggled free of the grasp and jumped down. He looked back at his human, wagged his tail and went trotting off into the growing mass of blanketing whiteness.

“Wake up,” the voice in the fog said again. It had an echo-like quality to it. The fog was increasing in mass and weight, no longer an atmosphere-like substance, but one that felt fibrous and structural. He could even see jolts of lightening-like electricity striking the various fibers. These electrical jolts slowly came closer to his being. The closer they came the more they resembled arches rather than bolts. It was as though it was a living creature running around, orange and red within the dense whiteness, even as the whiteness turned grey. And before Rog could decide what to do, the electric creature flashed directly in front of him and in that moment there was an intense flooding sensation of pain. He was drowning in it.

“Wake up, your mother is here and it is time to take your blood pressure again,” the voice said, now in his ear rather than in his mind. And he realized that with consciousness there came great pain within his whole body. He moaned and sought the minimal relief of the white fiber state he had just been in before the electricity had flooded through him.

The bright lights and the noise of the emergency room also came into focus as he squinted his eyes from the barrage of sensation. He prolonged this process, hoping that it would fade away.

“We gave him Demerol for the pain and to calm him,” the voice said to another figure in the room.

Footsteps receded from the bedside.

In the distance, the voice said, “He’s coming around.”

Then he felt the warmth of her hand, the familiar paper-like skin, covering his own. Slowly his eyes opened to the sanctuary of his mother. It was all coming back to him. The truck driver banging on the window; the sound of his cell phone. The girl flying into the dashboard beside him. The sound of metal crunching. The lights of the truck as it pulled up and into the car. And he knew where he was. There was even some vague recollection of flashing lights, bags of IV solution, and hospital chaos.

“Mom,” he said in a hoarse whisper.

“I’m here,” Madeline said predictably, “This is not what I had in mind for our Monday date.”

He tried to smile, but the electric flood of pain jabbed him.

The voice returned, a flurry of blue scrubs and the most uni-sexed person Rog had ever seen, was standing by his mother.

“Your daughter is this way,” she said to Madeline.

Penny? How did Penny get here, Rog wondered.