At first, all that I could hear was just some beeping. Irregular beeping which to all intends and purposes never stopped. It seemed like it had been beeping for weeks, perhaps even months. I didn’t know where it was coming from or what was making this annoying, loud noise. Actually, I didn’t really know anything. I didn’t know where I was, what was happening, what had happened. I also didn’t know why I couldn’t open my eyes or move any of my limbs. It felt like I had been frozen, stuck in a weird state between being alive and being dead.
After a couple hours, maybe weeks or even months, I started making out vague hushed talking. Great, I though, the beeping wasn’t enough, now there’s something new driving me mad. I remember all the questions running around in my head at the time. Who’s talking? What are they talking about? Why can’t I understand anything? And most importantly, where the hell am I and what’s going on? I wanted to open my eyes and talk but I just couldn’t.
Zuzanna Szmyt-Nowakowska
Then, I guess, as time went on, I started to understand the muffled voices and everything started to make sense. The annoying beeping came from hospital machines monitoring my heart rate, amongst many other things. And the voices that I now could hear clearly belonged to my mother and the many doctors and nurses that would come in and make sure that I was still alive, somehow.
They would never talk about what had happened. From the countless times, they’d talk over my bed about how I would most likely not make it or at the very least remain completely unresponsive, a vegetable in a hospital bed, until they pulled the plug. I knew that they didn’t know that I could actually hear everything, so I can’t really blame them for not explaining it all to me.
The last thing that I remember is the fight that I had with my mother. We got into an argument over the color that I dyed my hair. She told me that the hair and the long red nails made me look like I was on the game, like a hooker. And that the lack of respect that I had for myself and the way that I looked was the reason why my whole life had been a failure. I stormed out of the house and got into my car. The plan was to just drive around but I guess the tears blurred my vision enough to make me drive off the beaten path. Next thing I knew was the beeping.
I felt terrible at first. I hated the fact that I couldn’t get up, talk or look at myself in a mirror. However, I really liked listening to my mother wailing on in the chair next to my bed. I liked hearing her go on about how much she loved me, how beautiful I was and how sad it was that I wouldn’t continue living my beautiful life. I liked knowing that she was miserable, that she could only be nice to me because I was in a coma, fighting for my life. I liked knowing that she didn’t know that I could hear everything.
I liked the thought that my mother had to look at me in this state. I knew that she hated the fact that the red hair that had started it all was still on my head. That she probably had to find someone to trim it from time to time to make sure that it didn’t get all tangled and ugly-looking. That she had to look at me at my worst and be alright with it because there was nothing that she could change about it.
As odd as it sounds, I enjoyed being in a coma. There was something relaxing about knowing that I didn’t have to be anyone or do anything. About people not knowing that I’m still there, that I can hear everything. About the lack of pain and expectations. I didn’t care about anything because I couldn’t even do anything. It felt like I was in a constant dream, suspended somewhere between earth and heaven. I could still hear everything – the conversations that my mother was having on the phone, the TV programs playing softly in the background. And yet, I didn’t have to worry about anything. I was just there—barely, but still there. Without comment, without worries. Never certain when the end would come. Never bothering if it might.