The dream was lingering far too long, but she sensed an dark and ominous alternative lurking so she indulged it for as long as she could. The slumber slurred images slid by in an uneven slide show, and she gave up trying to direct it, simply acquiescing to program. She found herself as a child, even as she felt a muted fretting for her own children, seeing an old world with new eyes - well one anyway. She was nine or ten again, home working most of the day with her mother and sisters. She was back in that feminine world, with distant and stern men drifting through it occasionally, as she occupied herself in dutiful anonymity.
She knew she was moving through memories, although they carried new and more complex connotations than they had before. Looking now, she supposed she might have considered herself happy then, perhaps lacking the relative notions that pain begets. The scope of her world then seemed immense, but now looked very small and limited through her middle-aged, ex-sanguinated mind. Yes there had been less pain then, she could see that now, but there was also so little promise, a void that almost had to have begged her current pain.
She was waking now, hesitantly forcing herself to face the vestiges of the fleeting nightmare - she knew she was nearly destroyed, and know it was time to see what was left. As she stirred, she found no words as her horror had outstripped her lexicon, and the agony began to ease. It seemed that pain and later pity were constructed and consumed in the limits of her language. As a simple woman, her pain was mercifully brief as would be the self-pity that would attempt to tarry longer. Surely a more subtle soul would not have survived the dolor emancipated in the fluency of its own prose. Words would be of no use to her now, having long since exhausted the sparse vocabulary she owned on smaller, inane trials and ordeals, they had no utility for this new experience.
She knew by the sweet and sour redolence that she was in a hospital or clinic. The antiseptic at work was mingling treacherously with decay, infection, and urine. It was sickening to her, and for a few minutes distracted her from her mission to wake and sort out what was left of her beautiful and stoic face. She used to love to have her picture taken, then to look at it imaging the woman in another life, with a loving husband, in a safer place. Her pictures were the only source of hope she had possessed, other than her unwavering reverence and respect for God. She knew there would be no more pictures, no new images to evoke a brighter future - and what ever lay beneath the bandages she sensed about her head now would make liars out of the dozen or so favorites still resting in a neat pile near her Koran, the only two things that felt like her property, in a house that yielded no true space of her own - she would destroy the pictures if she ever got home, and she would have her two children read the Koran to her to find a measure of strength to cope with the loss that lay oozing underneath her dressings.
Realizing that she was laying on her stomach, she tried to roll over on her back and to sit up. This proved to be more difficult than planned as she quickly became entwined in a series of tubes, loose clothing, and sheets. She managed to get to her side, bring up her right hand to the left side of her face, and to loosen the abbreviated grasp of a stubborn IV stuck in her arm. Ever so tentatively, she began to softly stroke the outlines of her bandages, caressing them as if to soften the damage beneath. As she started to apply pressure to what was once her cheek, a dark stabbing pain shot through her head. She pulled her hand back and the pain quickly dissipated leaving a short, pulsing ache in its place. The damage survey would have to wait as she had no desire to awaken the torment just yet, knowing she wasn't going anywhere soon. She collapsed back down into the dank smelling bedding and let her arm go limp against her side in complete surrender to the beast that was not done devouring her face.
Drifting back into consciousness after an indeterminable nap, she heard voices whispering in a language she did not understand - the flow and rhythm was Punjabi, but the words and terms were unfamiliar to her. Intrigued, it was the first time it had occurred to her to try to open her eyes to view the owners of these muted murmurs. She couldn't open her eyes, she only felt an intense tightness on the right side of her face as she struggled to look up. The left eye was open she thought, and she began to wonder if she was blind. The notion startled her and she began to thrash about, trying to reach up and pull the bandages off her face, pleading silently with God that she hadn't lost her eyesight with everything else that had been taken. In retrospect,she might have preferred to have lost both instead of one, as what was left of her would be witnessed by the lone left eye in perpetual grief and revulsion. Mercy might have spared her the scrutiny, but it did not.
Suddenly, the voices became pressure on her body, and she realized that the people in the room had converged on her and were trying to put her back down on the bed. Their language had shifted and she understood them now, as they gently tried to persuade her to relax. They patiently extolled her to rest, and told her she would be better soon, strong enough to face herself in a few days. She relented and slumped back down, exhausted from the few seconds of panic. She soon drifted back to sleep, back towards the echo of her waking nightmare, somehow more manageable in the dark and silent night.
She knew she was moving through memories, although they carried new and more complex connotations than they had before. Looking now, she supposed she might have considered herself happy then, perhaps lacking the relative notions that pain begets. The scope of her world then seemed immense, but now looked very small and limited through her middle-aged, ex-sanguinated mind. Yes there had been less pain then, she could see that now, but there was also so little promise, a void that almost had to have begged her current pain.
She was waking now, hesitantly forcing herself to face the vestiges of the fleeting nightmare - she knew she was nearly destroyed, and know it was time to see what was left. As she stirred, she found no words as her horror had outstripped her lexicon, and the agony began to ease. It seemed that pain and later pity were constructed and consumed in the limits of her language. As a simple woman, her pain was mercifully brief as would be the self-pity that would attempt to tarry longer. Surely a more subtle soul would not have survived the dolor emancipated in the fluency of its own prose. Words would be of no use to her now, having long since exhausted the sparse vocabulary she owned on smaller, inane trials and ordeals, they had no utility for this new experience.
She knew by the sweet and sour redolence that she was in a hospital or clinic. The antiseptic at work was mingling treacherously with decay, infection, and urine. It was sickening to her, and for a few minutes distracted her from her mission to wake and sort out what was left of her beautiful and stoic face. She used to love to have her picture taken, then to look at it imaging the woman in another life, with a loving husband, in a safer place. Her pictures were the only source of hope she had possessed, other than her unwavering reverence and respect for God. She knew there would be no more pictures, no new images to evoke a brighter future - and what ever lay beneath the bandages she sensed about her head now would make liars out of the dozen or so favorites still resting in a neat pile near her Koran, the only two things that felt like her property, in a house that yielded no true space of her own - she would destroy the pictures if she ever got home, and she would have her two children read the Koran to her to find a measure of strength to cope with the loss that lay oozing underneath her dressings.
Realizing that she was laying on her stomach, she tried to roll over on her back and to sit up. This proved to be more difficult than planned as she quickly became entwined in a series of tubes, loose clothing, and sheets. She managed to get to her side, bring up her right hand to the left side of her face, and to loosen the abbreviated grasp of a stubborn IV stuck in her arm. Ever so tentatively, she began to softly stroke the outlines of her bandages, caressing them as if to soften the damage beneath. As she started to apply pressure to what was once her cheek, a dark stabbing pain shot through her head. She pulled her hand back and the pain quickly dissipated leaving a short, pulsing ache in its place. The damage survey would have to wait as she had no desire to awaken the torment just yet, knowing she wasn't going anywhere soon. She collapsed back down into the dank smelling bedding and let her arm go limp against her side in complete surrender to the beast that was not done devouring her face.
Drifting back into consciousness after an indeterminable nap, she heard voices whispering in a language she did not understand - the flow and rhythm was Punjabi, but the words and terms were unfamiliar to her. Intrigued, it was the first time it had occurred to her to try to open her eyes to view the owners of these muted murmurs. She couldn't open her eyes, she only felt an intense tightness on the right side of her face as she struggled to look up. The left eye was open she thought, and she began to wonder if she was blind. The notion startled her and she began to thrash about, trying to reach up and pull the bandages off her face, pleading silently with God that she hadn't lost her eyesight with everything else that had been taken. In retrospect,she might have preferred to have lost both instead of one, as what was left of her would be witnessed by the lone left eye in perpetual grief and revulsion. Mercy might have spared her the scrutiny, but it did not.
Suddenly, the voices became pressure on her body, and she realized that the people in the room had converged on her and were trying to put her back down on the bed. Their language had shifted and she understood them now, as they gently tried to persuade her to relax. They patiently extolled her to rest, and told her she would be better soon, strong enough to face herself in a few days. She relented and slumped back down, exhausted from the few seconds of panic. She soon drifted back to sleep, back towards the echo of her waking nightmare, somehow more manageable in the dark and silent night.
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