I first met Sam on the subway back from work. He struck up a conversation when I sat next to him and we ended up finding we had a lot in common. He had just moved to the city from a small town I had never heard of and was still getting his bearings. After bumping into each other a few more times we ended up exchanging numbers, quickly becoming close friends.
It was April 9th 2007 that Sam got into the accident. A driver apparently decided to speed into oncoming traffic and Sam happened to be the first car in the way. He was rushed to the hospital and put into stable condition, but wouldn't wake up. At first the doctors assumed it was a comma, but brain activity suggested his brain was still functioning almost normally, except it was just going through the regular sleep cycle over and over.
I visited him from time to time. Conversations were kind of dull, but I figured that if he was just sleeping my voice would probably still get through to him in some capacity. Being a unique case, his hospital bills were being covered by the research groups that wanted to study him. He wasn't a rich man, so I'm sure he appreciated them fronting the bill.
I was there on the tenth anniversary of the accident. I was there when he opened his eyes once again. It took him a minute to recognize me, but as soon as he did he rapidly began explaining his reality from the past ten years.
"It wasn't ten years for me. It was probably closer to ten lifetimes." He began. "I don't even remember the early times anymore, but I have a vague recollection of a time that I didn't have to fear. Maybe that was then.
I have given birth only to watch my child tortured in front of me. Yes, I mean I gave birth to a child. No, I did not have the proper anatomy for it. Every second of that excruciating pain was as real to me as anything I remember from when I was awake. The pain of losing a loved one was also just as real. I felt the ten months that I carried her. I remember the bond we began to share, even in that twisted world, as she grew inside me. She existed, or seemed to exist, for only a minute. By the fifth time this had happened I stopped forming any sort of bond with the fetuses inside me.
Much later I found myself bedridden and alone. I could not move nor speak, and my eyes were always open staring up at a ceiling colored orange with green polka dots. At first it was just aesthetically annoying, but it gradually gnawed at me more and more over time. It feels like an eternity that I was staring at that ceiling.
As soon as I could move again I jumped out the window unable to face what was next. Then I woke up."
I stared at him in disbelief, but there was no reason to believe he would make this all up on the spot just to lie to me. It didn't surprise me when he refused to go back to sleep after that. The doctors urged him to rest but he accused them of trying to force him back into that eternal sleep so they could study him. I'm not sure he was wrong, but after a couple weeks he started complaining about lizard people running the hospital. That level of paranoia was clearly because of the sleep deprivation.
He managed to stay awake for three straight weeks before he succumbed to his tiredness. As he had feared, no one could wake him up again.
This time nearly five years passed before he opened his eyes, once again on the anniversary of the accident. I was visiting him as I always made a point to do on the anniversary and was there to see the dead look in his eyes when they opened. He wasted no time in explaining what he had gone through.
"Have you ever gotten your mouth numbed at the dentist?" He asked. "that feeling existed all across my body, and only that feeling. I couldn't feel anything else. I couldn't see anything else. I couldn't hear anything. That numb, burning sensation was everything. I remember from the first time that I would occasionally hear your voice. If you spoke to me, it wasn't getting through."
I hadn't, and now felt somewhat responsible. I stopped seeing the point of talking to him years ago.
"After what felt like years the tingling went away, but it left me with nothing but an understanding of the passage of time. I counted to myself, as it was all I could seem to do. I tried to space them out as I would seconds. Three trillion one hundred thirty five million and seven seconds. Do you have a calculator? I swear that has to be a couple of years of just counting to myself before I woke up. Counting to maintain a shred of sanity in that void."
I convinced the doctors to let Sam leave the hospital for a few days so he could live his life just a little. I helped him around as we watched movies and did whatever we could to have a good time while he was awake. The third morning he disappeared. About three days later he died. He lived his final days as much as he could and then escaped the living nightmare that he was facing. I hope he escaped.