I remember those days well. The ones just after I was injured, when it was all so new and traumatic. I remember each time a doctor or a nurse or my parents delivered another piece of bad news, which seemed to be the only kind I ever got around that time. That I was going to be paralyzed from my shoulders down for the rest of my life. That I’d never be able to live independently. That I’d be incontinent. That I might never have kids (though, at fourteen, that wasn’t exactly my biggest concern).
Showing posts with label *Author Cigarettes & Chocolate Milk. Show all posts
Showing posts with label *Author Cigarettes & Chocolate Milk. Show all posts
Thursday, October 1, 2015
Wednesday, May 27, 2015
Cooper Gets The Girl: Part One
Dear Readers,
Here is an old story, in two parts, that I only recently remembered I had tucked away some time ago. I borrowed bits and bobs from it for my other multi-chapter story, Coming Home, though I don't have the time or energy to figure out what. So there may be a few moments that overlap, and for that I am sorry.
I hope you enjoy it anyway.
Cheers,
C&CM
_________________________________________________________________________________
Cooper flew awake, consciousness hurling him upward from his dreamworld with all the delicacy of a catapult. His diaphragm shuddered with the effort of the breaths it dragged weakly into his lungs, and it took a full minute for the popcorn ceiling six feet above him to come into full focus. But the moment it did, Cooper forced his eyes shut again, blocking out reality in favor of the fantasy he'd been living sixty seconds earlier.
He is back in the shell, the small form of his coxswain, Jake, cajoling from the stern, "Power 10!" They may be Cooper's favorite words in the English language. They mean, "Go; dig deeper than you think you can; you can do anything for ten strokes." And the response from Cooper, and the rest of his crew, is instantaneous. Sinew and skill meet willpower in a surge of pure energy. Pulling at the grips of their blades for all they're worth, Cooper and his teammates sail the final stretch over the imaginary regatta finish line as Jake chortles triumphantly, relaying to them that their training session has been their fastest all week.
Something catches Cooper's eye as he pants from his spot in the long, narrow boat, and he grins as he watches the small shell across the cut. It is a much-smaller boat in comparison to Cooper's: a coxed-four, ferrying a quartet of kids who look to be about eight or so, the age Cooper'd been when he'd started rowing. A "quad," they called that kind of boat...
At the memory of the term, Cooper reopened his eyes with a sigh of frustration. There was nowhere he could escape. Because, for the past three years, since the accident that had nearly cut his spinal cord in half between his C3 and C4 vertebrae and robbed him of almost all of his mobility and independence, the word "quad" had taken on a whole new meaning.
Here is an old story, in two parts, that I only recently remembered I had tucked away some time ago. I borrowed bits and bobs from it for my other multi-chapter story, Coming Home, though I don't have the time or energy to figure out what. So there may be a few moments that overlap, and for that I am sorry.
I hope you enjoy it anyway.
Cheers,
C&CM
_________________________________________________________________________________
Cooper flew awake, consciousness hurling him upward from his dreamworld with all the delicacy of a catapult. His diaphragm shuddered with the effort of the breaths it dragged weakly into his lungs, and it took a full minute for the popcorn ceiling six feet above him to come into full focus. But the moment it did, Cooper forced his eyes shut again, blocking out reality in favor of the fantasy he'd been living sixty seconds earlier.
He is back in the shell, the small form of his coxswain, Jake, cajoling from the stern, "Power 10!" They may be Cooper's favorite words in the English language. They mean, "Go; dig deeper than you think you can; you can do anything for ten strokes." And the response from Cooper, and the rest of his crew, is instantaneous. Sinew and skill meet willpower in a surge of pure energy. Pulling at the grips of their blades for all they're worth, Cooper and his teammates sail the final stretch over the imaginary regatta finish line as Jake chortles triumphantly, relaying to them that their training session has been their fastest all week.
Something catches Cooper's eye as he pants from his spot in the long, narrow boat, and he grins as he watches the small shell across the cut. It is a much-smaller boat in comparison to Cooper's: a coxed-four, ferrying a quartet of kids who look to be about eight or so, the age Cooper'd been when he'd started rowing. A "quad," they called that kind of boat...
At the memory of the term, Cooper reopened his eyes with a sigh of frustration. There was nowhere he could escape. Because, for the past three years, since the accident that had nearly cut his spinal cord in half between his C3 and C4 vertebrae and robbed him of almost all of his mobility and independence, the word "quad" had taken on a whole new meaning.
Wednesday, September 17, 2014
Visiting Hours
The fuzzy yellow stuffed chick swings in and out of my line of sight.
"Happy Easter!" coos my nurse, Brenda, in the sing-song voice adults instinctually use with the very young or mentally feeble.
Brenda believes that I am the latter. Brenda is wrong.
"Would you let up with that?" says Steve, from the doorway.
Brenda looks up. "What?" she asks innocently.
"It's creepy."
"You're creepy," Brenda returns, but she has a playful tone to her voice. She leaves the duck on the table by my head and walks behind me. I hear the click of the door lock and a moment later feel someone sit on the foot of my bed, inches from my legs. I can't see what Brenda and Steve are doing, since they're behind me, but I'm guessing they've come to do what they usually do in my room on quiet Sundays around here. Visiting hours aren't for another forty-five minutes, and my room has a spare bed since my roommate, Jerry Gilson, died two months ago at the age of ninety-six: They're working in a quickie.
I hear wet mouth sounds and my bed jiggles.
"Not on his bed," Brenda whispers, and she appears in my periphery, dragging Steve around my bed and over to the one Jerry vacated.
My eyes have been (annoyingly) locked on an (extremely uninteresting) ceiling tile for the last twenty minutes. Now, in a fit of unexpected usefulness, they decide to swing hard to the left. I suddenly see Brenda and Steve clearly. They are lying on the bed ten feet from me, pulling urgently at one another's clothes.
Brenda sees me see her. She pushes Steve away. "Steve," she hisses. "He's looking at us!"
"You're crazy," Steve insists, continuing to nip at Brenda's neck.
She smacks him in the chest and points a red-nailed finger at me. "Look."
Sighing in exasperation, Steve stops what he's doing and looks. We lock eyes. It does not have the same impact on him as it had on Brenda.
"Bren," he says, "the guy's non compos mentis. You've read his chart, same as me. 'Profound retardation,' babe. The stroke rebooted his brain. It's just a blinking cursor. He's not in there."
As I watch Brenda scrunch her brows, my own face blank and passive, I root silently for her.
Come on, Brenda! Tell him I'm in here!
"Happy Easter!" coos my nurse, Brenda, in the sing-song voice adults instinctually use with the very young or mentally feeble.
Brenda believes that I am the latter. Brenda is wrong.
"Would you let up with that?" says Steve, from the doorway.
Brenda looks up. "What?" she asks innocently.
"It's creepy."
"You're creepy," Brenda returns, but she has a playful tone to her voice. She leaves the duck on the table by my head and walks behind me. I hear the click of the door lock and a moment later feel someone sit on the foot of my bed, inches from my legs. I can't see what Brenda and Steve are doing, since they're behind me, but I'm guessing they've come to do what they usually do in my room on quiet Sundays around here. Visiting hours aren't for another forty-five minutes, and my room has a spare bed since my roommate, Jerry Gilson, died two months ago at the age of ninety-six: They're working in a quickie.
I hear wet mouth sounds and my bed jiggles.
"Not on his bed," Brenda whispers, and she appears in my periphery, dragging Steve around my bed and over to the one Jerry vacated.
My eyes have been (annoyingly) locked on an (extremely uninteresting) ceiling tile for the last twenty minutes. Now, in a fit of unexpected usefulness, they decide to swing hard to the left. I suddenly see Brenda and Steve clearly. They are lying on the bed ten feet from me, pulling urgently at one another's clothes.
Brenda sees me see her. She pushes Steve away. "Steve," she hisses. "He's looking at us!"
"You're crazy," Steve insists, continuing to nip at Brenda's neck.
She smacks him in the chest and points a red-nailed finger at me. "Look."
Sighing in exasperation, Steve stops what he's doing and looks. We lock eyes. It does not have the same impact on him as it had on Brenda.
"Bren," he says, "the guy's non compos mentis. You've read his chart, same as me. 'Profound retardation,' babe. The stroke rebooted his brain. It's just a blinking cursor. He's not in there."
As I watch Brenda scrunch her brows, my own face blank and passive, I root silently for her.
Come on, Brenda! Tell him I'm in here!
Sunday, September 14, 2014
Coming Home
YEAR ONE
GAVIN: I'm home. Everything is just how I left it. And everything's different.
My Nikes, muddied from our late spring runs, sit gathering dust in their spot on the floor next to the front door. My mountain bike hangs from the garage rafters next to Melissa's smaller model. Our wetsuits hang in the hall closet, second skins that smell mildly of lake water and mildew.
I'm on my side of the bed. Melissa lies next to me in her spot. It's my first night home and I can't sleep. I'm not sure why she's here. Why she stayed. We had known we wanted to marry, but we didn't have rings, we didn't have dates. Nobody would blame her for leaving me. Least of all me. Honestly, I find the fact that she's refused to go away pretty fucked-up.
What the hell kind of future can we have now? Not the one we had planned, that's for sure. That future is dead as a doornail.
Thursday, September 11, 2014
Wish Upon A Star
"So how'd your parents tell ya?" Star asked, trailing her fingertips up and down Jeff's narrow chest as she lay beside him in bed.
"They didn't make a big production out of it. They just sat at my bedside and told me how it was going to be."
"Still, that's gotta be rough. For alla yous," Star murmured.
"Eh," Jeff made a dismissive sound, then waited for the ventilator to fill his lungs with sufficient breath for his next sentence. After an hour, Star was starting to get used to the way it interrupted the flow of their conversation. "You have a lot of leeway with an eight year old. It's not the same sense of loss as it is for an adult. They talked to a child psychologist about it once the doctors finally confirmed my injury was irreversible. The shrink said to just be straightforward."
"They didn't make a big production out of it. They just sat at my bedside and told me how it was going to be."
"Still, that's gotta be rough. For alla yous," Star murmured.
"Eh," Jeff made a dismissive sound, then waited for the ventilator to fill his lungs with sufficient breath for his next sentence. After an hour, Star was starting to get used to the way it interrupted the flow of their conversation. "You have a lot of leeway with an eight year old. It's not the same sense of loss as it is for an adult. They talked to a child psychologist about it once the doctors finally confirmed my injury was irreversible. The shrink said to just be straightforward."
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