Short Story: Locked In
I can’t move. No, really, trust me… I’m
frozen solid. I can still see the lights though – at least my eyes work. Hazy
sparks shine through that glass layer of my eyes penetrating deep into my mind.
It’s not clear though. My vision is blurred – I want to rub my eyes to clear
them up but my arms cannot move. It really doesn’t help that my hearing is not
any better. I can hear murmurs from everyone but nothing is crystal. It’s
almost as if I’m underwater, holding my breath as I am pushed along the ocean
floor by the uncontrollable currents. You can’t see clearly underwater, only
blurred clumps of objects here and there, moving in rhythm to the waves. The
sound is muffled too with a distinct low pitch to everyone’s voices. Similarly,
it’s harder to move underwater – to be fair, it’s not exactly the same, up here
in the open above the desolate emptiness of the sea, I can’t move at all.
My hands and feet do not budge. I don’t
even think my own body knows that these limbs and muscles still exist. My eyes
and my ears, although not without impairment, still can tell that my body is
motion but I feel nothing from the shoulders down. I cannot feel pain, which
might actually be a good thing, nor do I know where I am. Am I in a hospital,
being taken to the ER for surgery? Would I suddenly be able to feel something
as they stab a needle or cut an organ or vein or artery? Would I stay awake all
night as they worked feverishly to heal me?
Honestly, I’m scared – not because I can’t
move right now but because I fear I won’t be able to move forever. Who would
feed me, clothe me, and wash me? I would become what I had feared the most –
people often call it becoming a vegetable. I can’t become something that
children won’t even look upon, that even adults will poke on the table with
disgust. An object riddled with hatred that people have to ‘learn to’ deal
with, not something that they actually want. I would become lame, a ragdoll
that was subject to my masters every desire, with my strings pulled here and
there without so much as a say in what I would do today or what I would want to
wear. People sometimes dream of workers labouring for them, carrying out all
their duties and their chores, leaving them in silence and peace – like a king
in a castle. This isn’t the same thing though; this isn’t what I dreamed of.
The lights suddenly stop moving and the
squeaks of wheels on rubber flooring stops. There’s a bright light that shines
directly into my eyes. Reflexes would have me wince and squint at the
luminescence of this orb but I fear I cannot even blink now. I’m sure that it
is a man’s voice that I can hear that’s growing louder and clearer as he
continues talking. “If you still want to live, blink once. If you want to die,
blink twice”. With all the energy I have that I still left in me, I try to
squeeze my face and close my eyes. Slowly and ever so intricately light is
shadowed in my vision. Darker and darker my brain is left, until my mind is
nothing but a deep black hole. It lasts for over a second. I try once more, pushing
and pulling at all the muscles that still are alive on my face as light streaks
through the cracks once more. I stop, that is enough.
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