Awaken

Behind red-tinged lids my eyes flicker.
A new day comes upon me in sharp slivers of light.
Familiar aches return to my body. I am drained and tired.
I feel my hands pulling away the covers, my legs sweeping out from under them.
I sit.
My head falls to my hands. I try to push the weariness of life away from me.
The day begins
And now here I am. Suddenly walking. Walking in shadows, hardly a part of this world. How did I get here? To this place.
The sky is dark and foreboding. I am tense, my limbs feel disconnected.
I am distant, both from body and life.
Dark shapes are gathering behind me. They follow me. I glimpse them from time to time, but they do not bother me. They shimmer from the corners of my eye. Indistinct shapes that are familiar somehow.
My footsteps are silent. They take me nowhere. I am becoming aware, of something.
I have now a desperate need but I cannot form the words.
I sense a calling from some distant place.
I scan the horizon but its image reflects as empty as my soul.
Will I become nothing? I seem to be floating now. My body no longer my own.
The darkness slowly giving way to a light. I catch myself. I was falling.
The light starts to flood in from all corners. All the while my dark companions
becoming more solid. Tangible. I see faces and hands now.
They seem to be closer to me now. They are a comfort but I don't know why.
And then, far away I hear a bell. A soft distant chime. Familiar. A face flashes into my mind.
'Come back' it says. It's countenance a pleasing reminder of something past.
The bell chimes, soft at first and then ever more insistent. The chimes merging together to become shrill in sound.
My body suddenly feels heavy. The shadows? Where are they?
My dark companions have fallen away from me. Disappearing into that comforting light.
The darkness is returning. The face flashes again and then again. It pains me but I long for it. A throbbing ache assails my body. My mind is reeling now.
I feel pressure upon me, hands grabbing me. Shaking me.
My eyes flicker beneath the bright light. I open my eyes, panicked and afraid.
The brightness blinds me. A voice speaks
'He'll be all right'
That's all I remember. The hospital bed, sparse and white held me for a few more days.
And a soft hand holds my own for many an hour between sleep and my dizzying waking hours.
An assertion of love from one to another. I decide so very easily to live.