Run for Your Life

Already here it is Wednesday with the world slipping by, and I haven't posted anything since Saturday. Forgive me for wanting validation, but I have a need for readers, or simply a reader, to keep me writing. With that said, I just found out that I'm going to be stuck past Christmas in this hellhole. I call it names and moan and groan, but it's really not that bad. I've had worse.

One thing I do like about this hospital is that when I call the nurse -- which in my case is accomplished by blowing on a tube that is attached via clamp to my bed -- instead of it going to whoever might be sitting at the nurse's station -- as it would in every other hospital I've been in -- it rings a telephone carried by the tech (a nursing assistant) on duty who answers and asks me through my bedside speaker what I need. This is innovation (yeah) and hopefully in the future other hospital-type institutions will adopt it. With all that said, let me return again to my hallucinations of several weeks ago.

It was morning time best I remember, and I was sleepy having been up all night. I closed my eyes hoping to drift off to slumber and it wasn't long before I felt a dream coming on, an unusually familiar dream that promised a blissful state. A couple of minutes later though for some reason I opened my eyes, and I was surprised by a bunch of little brown ghostlike creatures rushing in the air towards me.

The wall before me had an HDTV and a wall clock on it, and as soon as I opened my eyes those little things rushed quickly back behind said devices as if to hide from my sight. I closed my eyes again and got the distinct feeling that the little ghosties were at it again and it was they who imparted the feel-good dream. It was a really nice dream but a little scary because the way I remember it I had the choice of staying there forever with the caveat of never returning back. It was very real, and I can't discount the feeling that there is something like an alternate universe out there that we share in a dream state, not necessarily better or worse than this one just different, though in this case I had the use of my limbs, a very heady feeling to someone who is paralyzed. On the face of it, it would seem an easy choice, but sure as I chose to stay, something would go terribly wrong, and it would be just my luck that it would turn out to be a portal to hell.

I opened my eyes again this time genuinely scared of the dream, and again the little ghosts scrambled for a hiding place. I was mildly amused and I took advantage of the situation by closing my eyes for brief amounts of time and then opening them just to see the little critters flee. What was really wild was once when they turned to run I trapped two of them inside of my eyeball.

Eventually I did slip off into sleep, and I can't say exactly what I dreamed of, but I do remember that there was a recurring theme of being in another world just as real as this one. I've tried to describe it there, but I've come up short. But I do remember a world of fairies living in the ceiling of my room. More on that later.

In closing, I'd like to thank my sister for stopping by today. She brought me Christmas presents in the forms of food and clothing: a huge meatball sub (of which I've devoured half) and a sweatshirt of the softest fabric. I've found that there's nothing so important as family, blood or otherwise, and I send warm holiday greetings to my adopted family in the small town of Kensington. All of you are the best, and I can't wait to get back!