Time

I know my eyes are closed. Why don't I remember opening them? It was late, the movie was boring, I was tired, the couch was comfortable, the pillows soft...

How can I know my eyes are closed and not be able to open them?

Then there are the dreams...

I am sitting at the top of a snow-covered ridge, in a gondola ski lift. The lift starts down, picks up speed, is dropping faster and faster, now skidding down the cable, skimming the trees and rocks just below...

I know it is a dream., that it is not real, but how?

I am sitting in a playroom, full of toys. There is a dog, about the same size as I am. The dog is talking about how we are going to fix the car. I get angry because the dog doesn't know anything about fixing cars. My face swells. Suddenly spikes pop out of my head, my neck, my cheeks, like a blow fish. Except I am made of flexible rubber, like an old-fashioned eyes-pop-out doll...

On and on, dream after dream, some covering days, others mere moments. But they all share the surreal, the incredible, the unbelievable. And I know they are dreams exactly because I do not find them unusual.

WHY CAN'T I OPEN MY EYES!

I want to yell, try to yell, tried to yell, uncertain if I succeeded.

I slip away into another dream, this time in a car, traveling with my brother, and we are both in a hurry to get to San Francisco. It is a convertible. The top is down. It is warm and sunny. The steering wheel is on the wrong side of the car...

I have a headache. This is not a dream. This is real. My brain is being split in half, torn apart, the same way my mother used to shove her thumbs into a head of iceberg lettuce and rip it in half. There is pounding. It hurts, from the inside out. There are blurry shadows, but it is too bright. I shut my eyes to block out the stabbing light. My eyes were open! I lift my eyelids again and a spike pierces my head.

“Johhhnnn... Jooohhhhhhnnnnnn...”

I hear it, a muffled voice, unclear and indistinct in the distance. I focus, shift my attention from somewhere to somewhere else, somewhere... closer to the surface.

“John? Kanoorme?”

The flurry of sounds passes by, too quickly, before I can make sense of them, sounds, not words, as if spoken in a foreign language. Something pokes at my eyes, stretches open my eyelids. I flinch.

“He's awake! He's come back! He's back!”

I hear the voice, high and tinny, screeching like tires spinning on asphalt. Then a low and quiet voice speaks very slowly, slowly enough for me to connect the sounds to words to understanding. I struggle to find my senses, searching for familiar feelings, but can't seem to.

“Yes...,” he says in a reassuring rumble, “but it's been six months. We won't know the extent of damage for some time.”

I drift off to sleep, which means I must have been awake! I feel happy. I wonder if I am smiling.

- James Seamarsh, wondering if he is just in a coma