PARAGRAPH 2

WHERE AM I?

Enveloped by darkness, all I could see were swirls of violet blue, grasshopper green, fire engine red and spots of Grimace purple, like watching colorful ribbons caught in a gentle breeze. As I listened to the quick bustle of distant footsteps and the drawing southern voice of a woman predicting light showers throughout the night, I noticed a peculiar sound. Pulsing like a heart beat was a faint high-pitched beep. In fact, it wasn't just similar to a heart beat; it was a heartbeat--my heart beat. I was hooked up to a heart monitor, and what's worse, my nose felt as if icy water was surging up it and into my sinuses. As I raised my arms to block the water I became aware of something smooth and cool to the touch, like a garden snake, seemingly duct taped up my arm. Upon finally reaching my nose, which seemed to take an eternity, I realized it wasn't water but oxygen coming through a tube beneath my nose. After the shock of the white walls that were bright enough to land a plane on, my eyes began to adjust, and I realized that the snake wasn't a snake but an IV tube with medical tape to keep it in place and keep the needle from rupturing my vein. My mouth tasted like I had been sucking on a copper penny as if it were a dum-dum, probably due to the morphine, Slowly I began to remember the accident. I removed the oxygen tube, and my stirring aroused my mother who was next to me in a chair. As I asked my mother for a cup of ice chips, I noticed that all the color had drained from her face causing her to look like a mime doing an impression of terror personified. She was gazing at a bag filled liquid that resembled cherry Kool-Aid below my bed and connected to a tube which hid under my cool, pale blue sheets. In the blink of an eye my mother ran out to the hallway like a streak calling for a nurse.

of lightning and screamed piercingly for a nurse; she was covered in goose bumps. The same lilac smelling nurse came in. With just enough time to here the nurse urgently but quietly say "She's bleeding out," and my body became like liquid without the boundaries of solid matter, everything went blacker than a thousand nights and as silent as a funeral parlor at midnight. I could no longer feel my pain, smell the lilacs in the summer breeze, or see my mother's worry stricken face. It was the longest, most delirious and terrifying one hundred and twenty seconds of my life, and I will never forget my brush with death in those first few seconds after waking in the hospital.