Three Months Ago
Breathless fear; as cold and foreboding as heavy fog on a starless night, seeped through her bloodless veins. Life had been leached out of her. Sam unsuccessfully drew in a breath, her lungs rigid and stiff. Endless white corridors; her feet floating, paralyzed with the anticipation of the truth. “When had this nightmare become a reality?” she asked herself as she swung open the door to the private stark white room. Matt had been well only moments before. Minutes later he was being rushed on a stretcher to an awaiting ambulance and now lie paralyzed in this hospital room. Samantha was in such shock, that none of her family members or the doctors made any sense. This could not be happening to them.
Three weeks later, the dizziness and brain fog, debilitated Matt entirely; and he became a shadow of his former self. Sam visited daily, frequently reading to him; trying to revive him. If she visited him in the afternoon he often appeared more lucid but, by six p.m. his paralysis and coma reappeared like a tidal wave of dread. Uncertainty and angst permeated every thought she had, but she could not contain a deeper sense of disorder; an enormous sensation of hesitation and doubt.
During the fifth week, Samantha noticed a distinct change in Matt’s ability to communicate as she observed and scrutinized his behaviour. His eyes told a story that was different than the one she was seeing in his every day demeanour. The day he opened his eyes wide and then held them shut; before groaning and then sleeping; she knew something was wrong. It was at that moment that her plan began to resurrect itself.
Kathryn Kastner 