Blueprint.

Blueprint.
         His face was inches away from mine when I opened my eyes, so close I’d have been able to feel his breath and more than likely been able to tell you what he’d had for lunch that day if he hadn’t been wearing a surgical mask. I jolted back, or at least as far as one could jolt while being tethered to the bed by an IV hanging out of my arm. Like a car hooked up to the pump, but without the head clearing aroma to go along with it.
         “Finally you’re awake. You know how rough it is on my back, leaning over you for that long, just waiting.” The man who’d just had a clear line of sight down my sinuses stepped back a couple feet as he said this, and I could see he was much younger than one would expect from any man in a surgical mask. It’s like I was looking at a slightly more grown up Doogie Howser.
         “You didn’t have to be leaning over me the whole time, don’t hospitals have machines that tell you when I’m awake. And I don’t know how good your bedside manner is, but your bedside manners kinda suck,” I say. Reaching for my neck, I feel for a rough patch, or maybe a bandage, anything from where the rope had been. “I guess it didn’t work.” My doctor’s expression doesn’t change. “Did my parents come home early and save me? You’re the hero doctor who got to save the suicidal teenager I guess.”
         He smiles again at this. “Something like that I guess,” he replies. “But there was some damage. Your spinal cord was warped and right now you’re paralyzed from the waist down.”
         My heart stops. I knew something would go wrong. I can’t live up to my parents’ or teachers’ expectations, and now I can’t even kill myself.
         “It will be okay Jake, it’s just temporary. You’ll be in this room for a little while, but we will get you walking again,” the doctor says.
         I start to look around the room that I’ll be confined to for who knows how long. It’s funny, it hadn’t really stood out to me at first, probably just the effect of some medicine. But now the room was starting to look a lot like the one where my grandfather had been after his heart attack. The same pale blue walls and cracked linoleum floor. I can only catch a glimpse out the window from where I’m lying, but the view almost seems the same too.
         “I’m gonna be with you this whole process Jake. My name is Doctor Tim. I’m gonna give you this button to page me whenever you need me, okay?” Finally my doctor has a name. I’m sure he got mine from a chart or my parents. “Get some rest now, I’ll check in later,” he says.
         I try to peer out the door before he shuts it, but it’s just a piercing light, and then the view and my doctor are gone. I’m positive I’ll be awake for hours, but I’m out again before I even realize it.

         It’s been a month and I can walk across my room with the help of Doctor Tim and a sturdy metal walker. This gets me to the bathroom, but that’s the furthest I’ve been able to make it. The whole time I’ve been here, I’ve never seen outside my room. My parents have visited a couple of times, but it went about how I imagined it would. My mom cried each time, and we were all awkward.
         “Why’d you do it Jake?” Doctor Tim’s voice cuts through the fog of thought I was in. “Why did you try and kill yourself?”
         “I guess I wasn’t happy. I don’t know. The whole family thing isn’t great, and I just didn’t feel like I was going anywhere. I just…I didn’t know what else would make it better,” I reply. I like Doctor Tim. I hadn’t even told my parents why I had done it when they came to visit and my dad broached the subject.
         “Well what would make you happy now? Maybe we can manage it,” Doctor Tim replies. He has a glow in his eyes as he says this.
         I know the answer immediately. “I want to walk. I can’t do this anymore.”
         He walks over to me and puts his hands on my back. I hear a crack and then his voice, deeper than usual. “So walk Jake. Stand up and walk.”
         I don’t know what to think. What the hell, I know I’m going to collapse back onto the bed as soon as I try to stand up. Pushing myself up using the bedframe, it feels easier than usual. What’s going on? I slowly straighten up to my full height and take a step, minus the walker. I take another, and another, and there’s no problem.
         “What did you do? How did you do that?” I’m in disbelief.
         Doctor Tim says, “Just follow me.” With that, he’s out the door and I’m left no choice but to slowly, however growing more confident, head after him.
         I catch up to him at the end of the hallway. “Where are we Jake,” he asks.
I hadn’t really noticed the hallway as I followed after him, but as I looked around now it looks just like any hallway in any hospital. “The hospital,” I reply.
“Where do you wish you were?”
Again, I know the answer as soon as he asks me. “I want to be on a beach. I want the sand in between my toes to the point that it’s chafing and annoying,” I say. I close my eyes as I tell him this, wishing I was there. Feel the sun beating down on my shoulders, cooking them after the month I’ve been trapped under fluorescent light.
“It looks like that’s where we are Jake,” Doctor Tim says. My eyes spring open just in time to see a seagull land at his feet. The waves crash just feet away from us, and the smell of salt and seaweed decomposing is thick in my nostrils.
“Okay, what drugs did you put me on? I know this is just a dream, or hallucination,” I say. I’m not really afraid, just confused, wondering when I’ll wake up.
“Don’t you see Jake? This is where you are.” Tim’s voice hints at an idea I can’t quite believe yet.
Closing my eyes again, I think back to the cottage I saw on the beach the last time my family went. It was smaller than our garage at home. The roof was hardly there, and half the walls had some kind of mold on them. But the guy living there had seemed happier than we were, even though we were staying in the Holiday Inn right off the beach. I open my eyes, and the cottage I saw in my head is sitting right in front of me.
“You’ve got it now,” Doctor Tim says. And he’s right, I’ve figured it out.
“So I’ve been dead this whole time? Is this Heaven? Are you an angel?” I’m spinning around, trying to take it all in. I stop abruptly and face him, still standing there in his lab coat. “Why the hell did you tell me I couldn’t walk for a month?”
“It’s just easier that way Jake,” he says. “It helps with the transition. And no I’m not an angel, only my grandma called me that.”
“Well what about Heaven? Is that where we are right now? I don’t get it,” I reply.
“I guess you could call it Heaven, that’s what humans have been doing for centuries now. But think of it more as your Canvas. It’s yours to make,” he says. “I’ll leave you to explore now Jake. Enjoy this place. Make yourself happy here.”
With that, he takes off strolling down the beach. His lab coat billowing out in the wind and seagulls flying around him. I watch him walk until he’s out of sight.

         Have you ever eaten pizza for a week and by the end of it, you realize you would do anything for a salad? Anyone who has been on a vacation that lasted too long knows what I mean. Two months had gone by since I last saw Doctor Tim. Well at least that’s what I had marked off on the calendar in my kitchen. I decided when the sun rose and set, so it could have been any amount of time truly. I’d loved having everything at first, but now I moped around even more than I had back when I was alive. I looked at the button Tim had given me the first day I met him, and wondered if it would still cause him to show up. I pressed the button, and soon enough there he came walking down the beach.
         “What do other people create for themselves? Is there some type of jetpack I’m not imagining? I’ve already made four and I still kinda hate it here,” I say. He hasn’t even made it inside the door before I bombard him with these questions.
         “It all depends on the person Jake. You wanna hear one of my favorite examples? Because I’m going to tell you anyway,” he replies. “You’d think King George III would create a world in which England won the Revolutionary War, right? Well he tried that for what would be about 200 years and he never ended up being happy. You know what he’s been doing since then, what finally made him relax? He’s living in a world where he was never king, he just makes stamps day after day, and he’s never felt more alive.”
         Laughing, I can’t quite believe what I’ve just heard. “So are you telling me that George Washington is bird watching somewhere in the mountains instead of crossing the Delaware River?”
         “Oh no, he’s still living in a world where he led the U.S. to victory in the war. The only difference is that he has been President for the past 234 years in his Canvas. He’s the only one he wants to burden with the job,” Tim says. He speaks in such a matter of fact way I start to believe it must be true. “And the best Washington related one I know is this one guy from Illinois who lives in a world where everything is exactly the same as it was when he was alive, except Washington D.C. is called Washingtown D.C. He had the thought once and to this day he laughs every time he sees it on a map.”
         I can’t help but to break out in a grin when I hear this, but I realize it still doesn’t tell me what I am missing. “You seem young, just a little older than me. What did you do to figure out your Canvas Tim?”
         “I’m one of the quickest to figure it out, far as I know,” he replies. There’s more than a trace of smugness in his voice. “I just thought about what I wanted. I enrolled myself in a good college and gave myself all A’s without ever going to the classes.”
         I’m stunned silent for a second before I can piece together a response. “You could do anything--and you enrolled in college?”
         He breaks out in a grin, obvious that he’s seen this look of incredulity before. “Yeah, but I don’t go to class and I get all A’s, that’s what I’ve always wanted. Plus I have a cool roommate and there’s plenty of hot girls around.”

         It’s been a full year on my calendar, although to be fair, some days I hardly bring the sun up before I crash it back down. I’ve tried everything I can think of to surround myself with, but I’m still finding myself drawn to bed, laying there as my imagined time goes past. I did the college thing that Tim suggested, and it just wasn’t for me. I’ve gone to space, Disneyland, and Space Mountain without waiting in line. Recently I even imagined my family here, all of us living the roles we had when I was alive. That ended up just how it did when I was alive, with me wanting to be dead. At least this time I could just imagine them away. I’ve put off paging Tim for help, but I can’t hold out any longer.
         “Tim you’ve gotta help me. I have no idea what I need to do. I feel like I’m trapped in fucking hell,” I say. Again not giving him a chance to talk.
         No smile this time, just a hint of sadness in his voice. He says, “That’s because you are Jake. I’d hoped it wouldn’t end up like this for you.”
         I couldn’t have heard that right. “No, you said when I showed up that I was in Heaven, that I was in what people called Heaven. I can’t be in Hell, I’m a good person. I’m just so confused. I don’t know what will make me happy.”
          “This could have been your Heaven Jake. I told you to make it yours, to be happy. It was yours, and you made it Hell,” he says. As if I’m contagious, he takes a step back.
         I don’t know what to think. “No no no. I’m not surrounded by fire or demons. It’s like I’m just back on Earth. Just back in my life on Earth, not in Hell.”
         “Don’t you get it Jake, everyone ends up back in their lives. Nobody can ever figure out what they want so they go back to what they know. We all start on Earth and live our lives, and then we all end up back there at some point. We all make our Hell.” His voice rises and I see a flash of anger in his eyes.
         Collapsing to my knees, I’m in tears. “But Earth isn’t Hell, it’s just a planet. It’s just Earth, it always has been. It’s nothing more.”
         He draws himself up, as if to yell, but then it appears as if a weight lowers him back down. “You’re right Jake, Earth isn’t technically Hell, but it just as well might be. It’s the blueprint for Hell, and it always has been.”
         “What do you mean? Hell is Hell. Where am I?”
         “You’re where you’ve been the whole time Jake. You made it Hell because that’s all you’ve known. Think about it, are people happy on Earth? Everyone wants more, but they never have enough. Everyone gets a chance when they die, but everyone just creates the misery that they knew.”
         “How do I get out? I want back! I don’t want this. Help me Tim, please please just help me figure it out.” I’m on my knees begging him for any kind of answer that will unlock the secrets for me.
         He steps in closer, even more so than the first time I met him. “Figure it out Jake. It’s still yours to make.”