Beat The Clock.

Jan 19 - Gauze

"Your move."

I rubbed the slick chess piece between my fingers, trying desperately not to touch the scratchy gauze surrounding my eyes and face.

It's funny how the small things become your reality. The first few moments after waking up from surgery had been nothing but pain and a deep sense of panic. There was only darkness to gaze at. Only a large abyss to ponder. Reaching up to feel my bandages had been a mistake. The panic hadn't settled. It only grew. And with it, a deep sense of desolation as the gauze became my sense of time, my sense of failure, my world.

For the duration of my recovery I was confined to a small room with no furniture except a night table, a bed, an IV, and a small broken radio. When the drugs wore off enough, I wobbled my way around the room, feeling where obstacles were, memorizing how many steps to the door. Someone came in three times-a-day to give me more drugs for the pain and deliver one of my meals. How I went about feeding myself was entirely self-discovery.

I knew I deserved the neglect.

Every time I fell asleep I would wake and reach for the gauze, wondering if it was all a dream. Each time my fingers confirmed the same thing, the same nightmare. I was told in my first and only visit with the doctor that the gauze had to stay on for three weeks. So I counted every meal and itch until I thought the time was right. I wanted... no needed to see another face and interact with something once more.

Then she came like a breeze out of hell.

The pieces of chess were shoved into my grip by force. She simply told me to play. At first, I refused. But curiosity got the better of me. I fumbled my way through the pieces, often knocking them over. She'd guide my hand through each move - hers and mine - so I could see the board. It was frustrating as hell, but it was like buoy when you're drowning. I grabbed for it with all my might.

The chess piece was still in my hand. A bishop by the feel. I was playing the board in my mind when she grabbed my hand.

"You can take them off now."

It took a minute. Then I understood. Slowly, I reached up to the thing that had kept me trapped for weeks. My personal darkness. With shaking fingers, I unwrapped the gauze, letting it fall to the floor. Still there was darkness.

"Open your eyes."

The light gets you first, blinding with its brightness. But after the grit and blurriness fades, all that's left is clarity. The first thing I saw was my chess partner. And I saw that she had my eyes.