Darkness

A strange sound. Outside the window? No, more like outside the door. I strain my ears. A rhythmic knock, growing louder with each passing moment – ​​as if closer. After a moment, quite distinct. Someone knocks on the door, and without a response, they gently open it. I feel their gaze on me. They don't say anything, they simply approach. A gust of wind just caresses my hair…

For as long as I can remember, I've been a smiling person. My childhood days passed so quickly, unnoticed. It's pleasant to revisit them in my mind. Especially since I have so much time for it now.

My name is Robert. About five weeks ago, I was returning from a party. A friend had organized a party outside the city. Around three o'clock, for some unknown reason, the atmosphere began to deteriorate. There were scuffles and fistfights. Too many people, too many new faces – that's how I explained it. We decided to go outside; I'd lost the desire to party. A few people said they didn't feel like partying anymore either. We decided to go back. My friend, despite being drunk, got behind the wheel. He said he'd drive. I don't know why no one reacted. At least one person. I regret it now, but it was too late. We set off…

My good mood returned along with the kilometers on the odometer. He was doing well. I wasn't afraid until, in an instant, a huge, powerful truck suddenly appeared in front of us. Its lights, previously invisible, suddenly blinded us mercilessly. I only remember how, in that moment of greatest fear, my entire life flashed before my eyes. The moment of conception, my childhood, my teenage years, and that brawl. The force of high speed, mass, and time became one.

Sometimes I feel like I remember being pulled from the car. People I didn't know, in white suits. Like doctors. A flickering memory, something like slides. So blurry, frivolous. Not a collective whole. And yet…

I saw my companion's eyes. Completely white.

I saw the driver's bloodied body.

And the blood-spattered street, growing brighter and brighter. From dawn, not from the red liquid.

And the car, now condemned to a totaled wreck. The truck was gone, or maybe I don't remember it.

Sometimes I also see the doctors driving the ambulance with their sirens blaring, impatiently saying to each other, "Is your saturation level normal?! How much longer do we have to go, damn it?"

Then white corridors, dizzying speed. Everything white. And eyes, full of regret, sadness, and determination. Tired. Sweaty faces. Determination, a fight to the last moment.

Then consternation. Uncertainty. And darkness that lasts to this day.

I don't even know what day it is anymore. Friday, maybe Saturday? What month? The party was in May. It's warm, so probably June or July. Or maybe I'm wrong.

I remember hearing the doctors talking. They mentioned something about a coma. About a lack of response to stimuli. But I heard everything! At times, I felt it! But these moments were fleeting, fleeting. Yet they were there…

Over time, I grew accustomed to the eerie darkness. Not a single flash, not even a tiny light, allowed me to savor its beauty. I could smell the scents. More and more distinctly, as if I were regaining this sense with each passing moment. I could still hear, even more distinctly than before. This was due to the loss of one of my senses. My ears now registered even the faint vibrations of the air, caused by the buzzing of a fly farther in the room. I could hear what was happening beyond the door. The smell also became more acute.

Yet the darkness filled my perspective. Seeing nothing, I felt an emptiness. I feel.

It's hard to tell how long I'd been lying there; I stopped counting the days using a system I had developed myself: morning associated with the intense smell of mown grass, midday with sweltering silence and difficulty breathing, provided I was certain I was breathing. In the evening, I listened to crickets and mosquitoes buzzed. However, they didn't annoy me like they used to, not now, when I couldn't feel my body. They might have bitten, sucking blood, but I knew nothing about it. I smiled to myself (physically, I couldn't help but feel the muscles in my face) that I was now a tasty morsel for mosquitoes. Providing food, emitting no evil, and not killing.

I sought joy in everything. However, the word that best describes my feelings is fear. And ignorance.

I already knew I was in the hospital. Connected to a ventilator, disconnecting me from this life-giving machine would be my end. I fell into a coma. That's the doctors' opinion, so why the hell am I even aware that they exist? How else can I describe what's happening? Is this a dream, or rather a nightmare? Was God punishing me for something? If so, I apologize. Maybe he wanted to teach me that life is worth cherishing every moment, regardless of the odds? But I understand that now. And I'm impatiently waiting for improvement...

In vain. Time, the only friend I have now.

When I think back to the events of the party, I notice that faces are disappearing, images that, until now, I could perfectly imagine. That's why I try to imagine more and more, to create my fantasies. I'm afraid that I will slowly cease to exist—or rather, to think. I appreciate fantasy.

Another hour, two. After that, a third. I've stopped distinguishing day from night; now everything is the same. Dark, mysterious. Every now and then I hear footsteps, someone approaches the bed, looks at me without saying anything, then leaves. And I want to talk, even for a moment. Or look, see the world as it is, and not as it exists in my increasingly weakening imagination.

Is my existence merely a mere vegetation? The constant lack of hearing anything is glaring—even if they put on a radio. But they probably think I can't hear. That my subconscious sleeps with my body. But I can't tell them they're wrong. Even though I'd like to.

I hear a knock on the door. I don't answer, sarcastically comforting myself. Someone comes in again, sitting down beside me without saying a word. I feel their gaze on me, terribly embarrassing. I feel strange, so exposed. God—what if I were, say, naked? And someone was sitting in front of me, staring at me? This uncertainty, this fear, has somewhat aroused my feelings, the negative ones. I'm overcome with fear and disgust at what creates realism. Because, even though it exists, I don't know what's happening there beyond me. In the room.

Another person enters. I pray silently that, even if they exchange views, I want to hear the words! But again, emptiness. It irritates me, and a wave of uncertainty reaches its peak.

"Is he sweating?

" "Please don't move, I'll call the doctor! Doctor!"

Another person.

"Yes, nurse?

" "He's sweating!

" "It's natural. He's still human, after all. Please don't forget that."

He left, and I was shocked.

I heard my mother's voice. My sensations made my body begin to sweat. The great, unbridled, and frivolous power of suggestion affected the physicality of my body. For a moment, I gave a sign of life. No, not as a living person. But as someone with some control over himself.

I was missing something like that. I tried again, unsuccessfully. I lost again, to myself.

Funny, but I don't remember when my mother left. I feel like a long time has passed. Ambivalent feelings. No rational sense of time. And darkness all the time.

Time passed. I didn't even sleep. Sleep is rest for the body, for the brain. So, is the subconscious the soul, as it doesn't need to rest? A series of questions, all unanswered, just when I have time to answer them. And look for solutions. Paradox.

Darkness again.

Flies buzzing by the window, conversations in the hallway, the hum of the respirator. I forget what music is, what it sounds like. What did I like a while ago? I can't place the rhythm. I try to improvise, nonverbally, which sounds a bit paradoxically disharmonious.

Like a cacophony of silence, ironically speaking.

I forget what conversation is. I miss it. I'm overcome with the need to talk about anything, like: What's up? How are you feeling? Does saying these questions seem strange?

I lie and lie. Maybe I should get up and go for a run?

The more I focus my attention on my body, the more disappointed I become. So I try not to think about trying to move a finger, an arm, a leg.

What is laughter? If I make myself laugh, will I start laughing like I used to? Flashes from the past that once cheered me up seem colorless this time. But I did it, I started laughing. Hahaha, I can't hold it in! I feel super-jolly, but does my appearance from the outside look like that? Maybe not. A grotesque person, that's what I am now.

I'm a plant.

I can't even let anyone know I'm alive! For them to sit by me, at least that much. For them to talk, to converse. Everyone thinks I can't hear! I've had enough. Even my anger is something new to me. I can't clench my fists, or throw anything. I fall into nothingness.

I lie there because what's left?

More voices I don't recognize. The sound of flying insects. Brrr – what if a spider is crawling on me? I'm an arachnophobe. Big, ugly, hairy. I immediately stop thinking about him, I run as far away as I can in my thoughts.

Memories that lose their meaning. They erode, crashing into the darkness. They lose their color, literally and figuratively. The longer they exist, the more the figures in my memory's snapshots seem alien to me. And why didn't anyone come to me? After all, the accident didn't affect all my friends. The rest have forgotten. As usual.

Autism. Or maybe I've contracted an illness, withdrawn into my own world. People are trying to connect with me, and I, captivated by this world, have no intention of leaving it? Did I take some kind of drug at that party? Ecstasy tablets, which quickly kicked in like truck headlights, and the ride continues. Perhaps in the real world, I'm paralyzed by the elevated body temperature. Have I collapsed? Someone please wake me up!

I wait.

Nothing, no reaction.

So this coma is probably true. It's hard for me to come to terms with this, increasingly impossible. Why me? Where did I go wrong? Did God want to punish me? If so, for what? I wish He would send me an Angel.

Or maybe this is what death looks like?

The body dies, there's no path of light. There's no hell, no heaven. Or maybe purgatory? Reincarnation? Where are the other spirits?

I'd like to believe in illuminism now.

I can't understand the logic myself; it requires a third party's intervention. But how can you get an answer when you can't even ask?

The world seems so trivial, so simple now. People don't appreciate the simplest things. They don't appreciate the influence they have on their lives. They don't appreciate words, conversations. I miss that so much now.

Every moment is an eternity. I don't even know how long I've been lying there! A year, a decade, or maybe a century. Light years.

The worst thing is the self-reflection; I have nothing else to do. I constantly think, ponder, and analyze. What did the color red look like? What does it feel like to be touched? What was a kiss?

What does a human face look like?

What do I look like?

Darkness. Or maybe that's how a person is constructed. They live for a certain number of years, die, and then, in such agony of the soul, forget all that was, only to become nothing. Matter, without memory, feelings, or any thoughts. Perhaps in time I'll tire of these thoughts.

Meanwhile, another thought.

A wandering of thoughts.

And another, another. Bigger and more frivolous. I have no control over them; they rush like mad, completely losing me in reality. If I'm still there to some extent.

Emptiness.

Someone enters the room. In a slightly vibrating voice, they say, "Good morning. Good morning, I said!"

They don't know any nerve, I think to myself.

A nurse comes to help.

They're gone, and eternity has returned.

I've completely forgotten what it's like to be human. What does it mean to move? What joy was it when I could play football? To radiate my emotions for others to see.

I wonder what's going on out there? Why didn't they even bring me a radio? Television?

Like politics, sports? Wars, scandals? New advances in medicine? New theories in physics that change our perspective on the world? New chemical elements? I wonder what literary works have appeared recently? What style do current painters prefer? Have they abandoned vain expression, replacing it with something new? Do they still create kitsch, claiming it's artistry?

Eternity, darkness, reflection.

If Freud was right, then there should be a subconscious or consciousness somewhere nearby, assuming I am the Id. Or, relatively speaking, I could be the subconscious, so where is the rest?

Is the world symmetrical? Is quantum mechanics provable? What kind of political system is best? Was a system of two powers better than a three-power system? Why anthropology... what is anthropology?

I reach a state of regression.

I revisit memories. Paradoxically, to those I don't remember.

Introspection.

Subjectivism assimilating with the perception of the world. I no longer know the word "objective." There is only me. My opinion counts. I no longer consider others.

I'm afraid of myself.

I lie there constantly. I'm waiting for a gift from heaven, anything. I've completely lost my sense of smell. All I have left is hearing.

What if I only imagine I hear?

Maybe my brain produces maximum amounts of dopamine and serotonin during a coma. But so what? If that's the case, then I should be asleep, or have entropy of colors in this darkness. And it's the body that sleeps, not me!

It's amazing how many reflections are constantly repeated. Some are completely new, typically abstract for me. I was an erudite scholar, but I'd never spent time pondering the history of ballet.

What is time?

Or maybe he's gone? I know now. Everything's at a standstill. Time has stopped. I wonder how physicists and other layers of society will comment on this?

Nonsense. If time stands still, why do others function normally? For example, this fly, nurses, doctors. So time flies by as usual. It

's a difficult situation, that's for sure. It's hard to get out of here. I've watched a lot of movies in my life. Heroes have always been able to find a way out of even the most difficult situations—so why shouldn't I? After all, I've always wanted to be a hero.

I have to come up with a plan. I'll count to three and just jump out. Of myself. One… Two… Three…

I'm still lying there. But wait? Wait!

If I see darkness all the time, how on earth am I also seeing images from memory? Admittedly, they're getting blurrier, with the colors black, white, and gray predominating.

It's puzzling. Because it is, total darkness. And yet I see something that's a figment of my imagination. So it's not total darkness after all? Imagination only seemingly superimposed on what surrounds me?

A paradox. It's hard for me to explain, but there's some sense in it.

Because if you imagined light, a lot of light. Damn it!! What did the color yellow look like?

I know. So if you imagined a spark. Relax, concentrate only on it. Don't let it disappear. Make thinking about it add vigor and grandeur. It grows, gradually, but it grows. It's getting bigger and bigger. It already resembles the sun, blinding. Such a bright light, yet it offers nothing. But despite that, I keep creating it.

I'd keep reading.

I can't stand it anymore! Will I lie like this for the rest of my life, hundreds of millions of years?! Disconnect this respirator already! I'll be nothing anyway! Please! I'm exhausted! I'm losing myself!

I've had enough!

Boring. Why isn't anyone coming into the room? Don't I need care? I demand help! Hello, can anyone hear me?!

Clinical death? Haven't I found the way to heaven?

It's becoming increasingly difficult for me to control the racing thoughts; they're too fast. Tired of this existence, I no longer have the strength to control them.

Absurdity upon absurdity.

Increasing darkness.

Lack of color, even the gray grows darker.

Time flies. I lie still...

More and more often I forget that I exist. With each passing moment, I lose more and more control over my thoughts. Over my consciousness...

Until I forget.

And time continues to fly by...