44 Days Until The End – Constricted – Short Story

The doctors said I was lucky, it could’ve been worse, the accident I’m talking about. I still don’t remember much off what happened, just pain, just a whole god damn lot of pain. 

In fact, my memory as a whole is pretty much a mess, I remember little bits of things from my childhood, a bit here, a bit there, but nothing solid, nothing more than who I am, where I grew up, the basics really, just the god damn basics, nothing about me as an adult, nothing about MY life.

Mum and Dad said the doctors who are looking after me, are in the top of their fields, and, once I’ve had enough time to rest and recover, everything else would eventually come back to me, eventually, and then, I’d be able to move onto the next step in my recovery.

It’s funny, I mean, not funny, but curiously unsettling. Haha, I know, big difference between the two, but, it’s hard to explain this feeling I have about everything that’s happened, so, it’s funny just sounds right, even though, I’d never be laughing about this.

But, I’m not in any pain, they said when the cars hit, I was pinned to the dashboard, my airbag, for some unknown reason failed to inflate and I suffered a fracture to the right side of my temple, the damage was, as the doctors themselves said, irreversible, and there was nothing that they could do, but they kept on saying, mentally I’m okay, intact, it’s just the physical damage that’s the problem.

It got me thinking, I mean, I’ve got a lot of time, nothing else pressing my button right now, but, if the damage was so bad, why am I not in pain? Why do I feel fine? In fact, why do I feel better than I ever have?

Questions, heaps of them, Mum and Dad help where they can, but, filling in the blanks, apparently needs to take time, I can’t be rushed they keep saying, and, soon it will all come back to me, then, we can start the healing process.

The healing process, the words they use are, are, well they’re unusual, odd even, I mean, I remember some of what the doctors were telling us, when Mum slipped into a coma just before she passed away and a lot of it sounds fam….

Oh shit, I remember Mum passing away, but, but she couldn’t’ve, I mean, what the fuck, if she’s dead, then, what am I, am I dead? Or is this all some bad dream?