Beeping

© Erin Wright 2013

She awoke in a room overlooking a lake, laying in a hospital bed in the middle of the room, with medical equipment hanging on the wall at the foot. There were straps hanging from the bed, but she wasn't strapped to it.

Her body ached and her throat was sore. She didn't remember how she got here. All she remembered was going to sleep the previous night, lonely and upset. She tried to stand up, but instead collapsed at the side of the bed. Everything was different. Her body was a different shape, a different size. The body she had now was the body she wished she had, different face, different genitals, different chest. She was scared when she went to sleep that she'd completely broken her life and that it would never get any better. She was in a strange place that she didn't know with a different body with no strength. She sat on the floor, burying her face in her hands, with her knees up in front of her.

A doctor came in. A woman. She stood at the foot of the bed and began talking. Asking questions. The patient couldn't talk. She couldn't move. She sat there and tried to speak but all that came out was sobbing and broken words. The doctor spoke of how the patient was still too wrapped up in the other life. How the patient wasn't adjusting to coming back. The doctor spoke of the patient needing to hold on and stay with her. How she was in a better place and safe now, how she could stay here and be happy and well.

There was beeping. The doctor shouted that the patient was slipping back in. There was a flash of the familiar for the patient, the room she went to sleep in. She began crying uncontrollably.

The doctor tried to explain what was going on, that the patient was rejecting the transition back. The doctor tried to reassure the patient that it was okay to let go of what she remembered. That the patient had been living a different life but there had been a mistake and it wasn't the right one for her. The patient wanted to stay with the doctor in the room by the lake, but there was beeping, so much beeping. It was pulling her back to what she remembered. The patient tried to call for help but the word wouldn't come out of her mouth. She just cried quietly, and waited for the inevitable.

There was beeping. The doctor did her best, but the patient slipped away after an hour of beeping. She commented as the patient slipped back in that she'd never seen an L.L. find it so hard to come back out before.