Dark Circles

Day three, I couldn’t sleep. I lay there on my king sized mattress staring up at the ceiling. Pitch black, I could feel my pupils dilating; desperate to find anything in the darkness, a moving shadow perhaps. There was nothing, just pitch black. I rolled my head over ever so slightly and then let gravity go to work as I felt my head dropping to its side until my eyes were level with the clock on my bedside table; three in the morning. It’s funny how everything moves much slower when you want nothing more than for it to speed up. It’s as if everything around you sensed your anticipation and fed off it. I was so tired! Day three, I couldn’t sleep; I needed coffee, what better way to put yourself to sleep than a glass of nice warm coffee, or was that cocoa? Mustering up all the energy I could I sit up on my bed. Deep sighs, that’s all I could do, I couldn’t move a finger. Day three, I couldn’t sleep. Sitting up was equal to running a marathon, my god my head was splitting open! I look at the clock again; a minute past three. Finally I get a hold of myself and stand up, my balance slightly impaired as I walked crossing one foot in front of the other, like a drunken supermodel wearing glass stilettos. Pitch black, nothing in sight, yet somehow I was sure where I was headed too. Instinct moved me. It’s surprising how much the human body can adapt to in matter of just days. I never turned on the lights for the last three days but still I just knew where to move. Maybe me having lived in this house for ten years had something to do with it, or was it twelve years. When did I move in here?

 

            Unaware, I find myself in the kitchen, the refrigerator popped wide open; the yellow light drove into my dilated pupils sending a searing pain through my already exploding head. Day three, I couldn’t sleep. There was barely anything in the bright-like-the-sun, migraine inducing refrigerator. Squinting, to clear my vision, all I could see was a carton of milk, half a loaf of bread and some canned beans. What the hell had I been eating for the last three days? Reluctantly, I picked up the carton of milk, popped the lid open and took a sip. The rotten taste! I could feel it inch its way down to my stomach. How long had that been in there? Stupid products, I thought milk was supposed to last for at least two weeks in a refrigerator. The kind of crap they sell these days. I placed the milk back in the refrigerator where it had decided to rot instead of stay frosty. I was about to close the door when curiosity slowly crept through me. Like most of my thoughts, this too came all of a sudden, no rhyme or reason, it just did. Day three, I couldn’t sleep; I had no train of thought. I picked up the milk carton and checked the expiry date; I didn’t need to squint, my pupils had managed to shrink back to regular size and were now at comfort with the bright-as-the-sun light from the refrigerator. This was supposed to expire only on the tenth of the month. Day three, I couldn’t sleep. I had bought this milk three days ago. God dammit! They weren’t going to take this crap back now. Another few good dollars spent on third rate merchandise. Just my fucking luck. Disappointed, I trot back to my bedroom, now a drunken supermodel wearing sneakers. I take a look at the clock, its red light glowing, mocking me; seven minutes past three. You have got to be kidding me! I was just about to head to the washroom when something caught my eye. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t seen it before. The date on the clock, it showed the twelfth of the month. Impossible! It had only been three days, I couldn’t sleep. I remember the date specifically; third of the month. It happened on the third of the month, my sleepless, wasteful nights began on the third of the month. Day three, I couldn’t sleep; I had lost all track of time; the expired milk and the clock both telling me the same lie…but its only day three, I can’t sleep. Or was I lying to myself all this time? Could it be that this is not day three? If not, what happened to all the days in between? How can someone lose days, literally? The clock now showed four in the morning. Sudden thought number two arrived at precisely four in the A.M.  There on my bedside table, lying next to the clock was my digital hand-watch. My earlier drunken model on sneakers now became a proper, predominantly male walk. I reached the table and picked up my watch; a minute past four on the twelfth of the month. I took two deep breaths. Day nine, I couldn’t sleep.

 

            Knowing there was nothing I could do, I surrendered to the situation and plopped my behind back on my king size mattress. I did nothing. Day nine, I couldn’t sleep. I watched as the red light from the clocked mocked me, second by second, minute by minute until a ray of sunlight somewhere around thirty-seven minutes past fives cracks through my blinds. I turn around and watch the sun rise, slowly and gradually into the sky; king of everything its light touches. I think to myself, it’s the perfect time for a nice glass of hot cocoa…or was it coffee?

 

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            Day eighteen, I couldn’t sleep. Cars passed by, daylight, people bickered on their phones, traffic lights switched between red, yellow and green; I stood there at the crossroads and watched the commotion of a normal day for normal people who slept through the god damn night; a perfect eight hour shut-eye. At the crack of dawn all these well-rested, mud-for-brains commoners woke up more dead than I was. Every single one of them, clear-eyed monkeys trained to follow a routine throughout their daily lives. Wake up at the first buzz of the alarm, shower, get “dressed” for work, eat a good breakfast, it’s eight in the a.m. catch the bus, cab or walk or whatever to work, suck up to your bosses, try to prove you’re just that little inch better than the next monkey that sat next to you chewing gum in that same stupid cubicle, pencil in his ear, talking loud and making jokes about every other monkey chewing gum in their own cubicles. God damn freak show.

 

            Maybe it was the last four-hundred and thirty-two hours without sleep but somehow my perspective was much clearer, much clearer. The point I realized was that the sleeplessness allowed me to view time in a whole different light. Ideally a new day starts when you wake up from the doctor-recommended eight hour shut-eye. What if you never slept? Then you never woke up. If you never wake up, then the perspective of “a new day” doesn’t exist anymore. The sun rises and the sun sets but the only amount of difference that made in my life over the last eighteen days was as if there was a power outage every twelve hours for twelve hours. Aside from that nothing changes. You sit awake through the night and you realize how useless everything is. The cynicism justifies itself. Every show on the tele is just the same nonsense with just a little twist; every news channel gives us the same information, yet we have a hundred of them. Everything is the same with a different face. Your house never changes, your neighbors don’t change, conversations always end up either where they started or just nowhere at all, people look the same, places look and feel the same. Nothing moved; you didn’t move. Day eighteen, I couldn’t sleep.

 

            So it’s two in the morn and there I was strolling down what would be the busiest street in precisely six hours. But at that moment it was dead. The eerie silence, it’s colorful, fake-smiling mask torn off to show the underbelly of the beast it actually is. It’s one of the beauties of sleepless nights; you really begin to appreciate things in their true form, the form they take in the dark, symbolizing just how menacing and deadly anything and everything really is. Nothing shines in the dark, absolutely nothing. Everything crawls back into the shadows until there’s just a hint of light which they can reflect and say, “This is me, I’m bright and alive” but that isn’t the truth. Nothing is bright and alive; everything is bland, tasteless and hidden away. It’s when you strip every ray of light off of anything that you really begin to see what it really is; its inner beauty, no personification, no shame, nothing; just an empty shell like the rest of us.

 

My feet were hurting, the leather stung. Was I bleeding? How long had I been walking? What was the time? Puzzled and dazed, I look around and I couldn’t place where I was. Twelve years you live in a place and you can’t recognize where you stand; that shows human incompetence. In the dark I wandered a familiar place, yet totally new to me. I pull out a cigarette pack from my jeans pocket. How long have those been in there? I shrug, pull out a stick, smooth and white and place it gently between my lips. My right hand lunges for the other pocket as if it knew before me that there was a lighter in there. Everything was involuntary; I had no control over anything. My hands moved around as if it was second nature and lit up the death-stick that lay slender between my lips. My chest heaved and I saw the red tip burn a few millimeters of the perfectly smooth white paper as light-weight smoke filled my lungs; and then breathe out. Wisps of smoke left my mouth, staggering and forming random shapes, swaying to the side of the gentle breeze. Eventually we all join the band-wagon, just like the smoke moves with the breeze we move with the flow. Resistance is futile. Day eighteen, I couldn’t sleep. Which way did the wind blow for me? I had no clue, yet I chose not to resist. It was easier not knowing. I flip open the pack of smokes in my hand, it was empty. I turn around and there, like a trail of bread crumbs, tiny red lights accompanied with small wisps of smoke emerging from the ground showed me the way home. Suddenly my chest felt heavy; I coughed, profusely. At the end of it all I was pretty sure I tasted my own blood. When did I start smoking? Day eighteen, I couldn’t sleep.

 

***************

 

“We’ll start you off with a small dosage” she said, seated straight in her leather armchair, her notepad resting on one of the arms of the chair, twirling her curly hair with her left hand her right hand holding the pen firmly over the notepad. Day twenty-seven, I couldn’t sleep. I had lost my job, my home was a mess, a clutter of random objects strewn about, eating only one meal a day and drinking close to four cups of coffee overly sweetened by the excess sugar. In short, my life was a mess. All this information gave my shrink the brilliant idea of medication. I meant that in absolute seriousness, the idea was brilliant. All the sugar and sleepless nights would have become a lot less had I thought of consulting a shrink. But, I guess when it comes down to it, your brains’ processing ability just goes haywire once you stay without sleep for as long as I have.

 

“How powerful is this medication?” I asked, slowly, as if picking every word after a very slow and inefficient search algorithm. I hadn’t noticed that it took me over two minutes to say this. The shrink, still twirling her hair, meeting my eyes dead straight, noted this down in her notebook. “Not very, it’s very mild. The idea is to slowly get you back to sleep. You’ve been off it so long your body may not react well to sleep. So we start mild and move from there” she said, finally stopping the twirling of her hair. I simply shrugged; she was after all the expert. I was stupid enough not to do the research so I might as well be stupid enough to go blindly with what the good doctor tells me. She smiled and pointed at the clock; my session was over. She handed me the prescription as I stood up to leave. Day twenty-seven, I couldn’t sleep.

 

Ten minutes later I was seated in my car, I had no clue how I had arrived and parked. Every piece of me moved separately as if it had a mind of its own. There was no coordination. I was finding it incredibly hard to do any two things at once, even simple tasks like changing the channel while sipping my overly sweetened coffee. I had effectively lost complete control of my body. My back hurt constantly and there was always a ringing in my ear. My vision often became hazy and what timing, just as I was about to get on my way home. I blinked fast around ten times and then felt my left foot hit the clutch my right hand shifted the stick to first gear, my left hand gripped the steering wheel and before I knew it I was inching forward. Each of these simple, normally simultaneously doable tasks, were now done with a clear time difference. My brain was arranging everything stepwise, unable to multi-task at all. I had become a very useless machine unable to process even simple tasks simultaneously. As I continued to feel sorry for myself, I realized I was now at my driveway, parked neatly. I guess I didn’t give myself enough credit. Day twenty-seven, I couldn’t sleep.

 

I unlocked my house door and walked in, very consciously taking each step; first left foot and then right. Once inside the mess made it even more difficult for me to feel relaxed. Everything was haywire, clothes strewn about, the sink overflowing with unwashed utensils, chips and pieces of junk food laying randomly across the floor, empty booze bottles neatly piled up in the corner of the living room. At that moment my roommate arrived from his bedroom; Tom was his name. “Hey roomie” he said beaming. Tom had moved in three days ago, as I had lost my job and had absolutely no interest in finding a new one. I figured the rent he pays would keep me afloat. What I didn’t do was interview him. Tom was broke. He was wanted in two states for trafficking drugs and was also a party-animal, so to speak. That explained the white powder I found neatly lined into sets of three on my dining table. I won’t lie, I had the occasional snort as well. Helped with the sleeplessness. I smiled and nodded at Tom and moved to my bedroom. We hadn’t spoken much since he moved in. I don’t even remember why I agreed to let him stay knowing he was broke. Well at least he was some form of company.

 

I was standing in my washroom, also a hellish mess, staring into the mirror. My eyes were completely bloodshot and shrunken. There were very prominent dark circles around both eyes and two eye-bags hung low on my cheek. My lips were cracked because of the excessive smoking over the last week. My face was hollow, eating only the one lousy meal a day. My skin was pale. There was a glass full of water right in front of me, clear and still. In one hand I held the pill the good doctor had offered me in exchange for my ever depleting money. I continued to stare into the mirror. I slowly placed the pill into my mouth below the tongue, I picked up the glass of water and was just about to sip it when suddenly, “I wouldn’t do that cappy, if I were you”; it was Tom. He stood behind me leaning against the wall, shirtless and what looked like white powder lined his nostrils. He took a strong sniff, “The good doctor give you those?” he asked. I nodded, I didn’t know if I should’ve freaked out at this not-so-subtle invasion of privacy or blown my top off. Finally I did neither and stood there staring at him, “Yeah, the doctor gave me these, so?” I said moving the glass towards my lips, “I wouldn’t do that cappy. That shit is not good for you” he said sniffing some more and smiling, baring his sick yellow teeth. “Not good for me? That’s rich coming from a snort fanatic like yourself” I sniggered. He simply smiled, “When I snort the result is, I let my mind free, I let it open to imaginative possibilities the normal, average human could not understand. I force my mind to expand beyond a reality that is in our reach. I set myself free. This pill that the good doctor gave you” the pill now in his hand and not under my tongue anymore, How the fuck did he do that? “This shit controls your mind my friend. This shit shuts you down, it blocks the imagination and forces you to believe in a reality that is socially accepted and considered the norm. Is that what you want cappy, your mind controlled?” he was waving the pill in front of my face, the blow obviously giving him his rush. The glass of water in my hand was empty now. For some reason, I agreed to Tom. His argument could not have been more questionable. He was laughing, waving the pill at my face, then with one quick stroke he launched the pill straight into the toilet. I closed my eyes for a second and heard the flush do its work, sending that little, very expensive, medically acclaimed pill into the abyss of the city sewer system. He was right, I shouldn’t close my mind. I should expand it. Was indulging in drugs the way though? Day twenty-seven, I couldn’t sleep.

 

***************

 

Day thirty-six, I couldn’t sleep. God only knew the time. I had successfully managed to shut myself in my own messed up home. Everything seemed to move. The clutter was never the same for two consecutive days. Nothing was ever where I left it. Everything moved. What I realized was that Tom never slept too. There we both were on the maggot infested couch of mine, unshaven, sleepless and lost in imaginative realities which constantly changed like a bad picture. Nothing made sense anymore, thirty-six days without sleep and counting I was sure at least ten percent of my organs had failed to function. Food was consumed only out of absolute necessity and we never factored in the quality of the food consumed; rotten or fresh nothing mattered anymore. I decided to skip out on my shrink appointment. I watched as Tom flopped his head up and down to a beat that wasn’t playing. I could feel a drop of blood trickling down from my nostril and moving along to the edge of my lips. I found a crumpled piece of paper lying on the ground, picked it up and wiped the blood off.

 

“It’s time” Tom said. I looked at him, a quizzical expression on my face, “It’s time to face the world cappy. It’s been long enough that you’ve kept running away, stop running. Expand your mind” he said, bearing his yellow teeth. I continued to stare at my roommate of twelve days. What the fuck was he talking about? As if he read my mind, “You know what I’m talking about? You KNOW! Stop running away man! Stop the running!” he started screaming, pulling his hair, throwing a hysterical fit. I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t place where all this anguish was coming from, “Stop running” he finally panted and dropped to the ground. I stood up, what seemed to take ages for me; I felt old and unwise – not a good combination. I stared at his skinny frame lying on the ground among the garbage that summed up the total value of my pathetic existence. There was a glass of water on the table, clear and still. I poured that over him; no reaction. Is he dead? I could feel my heart rate increase, in a very beautiful and gradual way. My eyes widened, could he have died? At that moment he moved, shaking his head on the ground he stood up, grabbed my collar and said, “Let’s go for a drive” beaming his yellow, moldy teeth at my face.

 

I was unable to speak, I had choked. Words filled my head but none left the tip of my tongue. He dragged me flopping, attempting to stand on my own two feet to the car in the driveway. He pulled open the passenger seat and threw me in. he moved around to the driver’s side, pulled open the door and took his seat. Before I knew it the car screeched as it sped in reverse through the driveway almost banging the nearby dumpster and we began speeding off into the night, “How long are you going to run?” he looked at me, his yellow teeth shining, sweat dripping from his forehead, his arms shivering from the snort, “Huh, how long are you going to run?” he asked again. I could only stare at him; the intensity level was borderline insane. He laughed hysterically, a wide-eyed, yellow-teeth-baring, drool-leaking laugh. It howled through the night. When I managed to face the road we were on, I realized that the road was very familiar. Why is this so familiar? I couldn’t place it, shit I’m too high for this, why was this road so familiar? Then it all came back to me. Could it be? How could Tom know? “Yes, how could I know?” he said smiling at me, an eerie, dark smile. I watched him closely and saw his face change into mine; I was now staring at myself and moments after that I was staring outside the passenger window, I was holding the wheel, I was driving. What the fuck just happened to Tom?

How could’ve he possibly known? There’s just no way! Too many thoughts ran through my head and before I knew it I was at my driveway, parked. I was still shaking from what I had seen, there he was Tom, driving and laughing like a maniac and suddenly he disappears and I was driving…the whole thing made no sense. Day thirty-six, I couldn’t sleep.

 

There at the end of my driveway was my old-fashioned mailbox and written on it was the name “Tom .N .Hicks”, but this was my house…unless, but that would be too crazy. Before I could even gather myself, the door to my house opened and there I stood at the doorway and inside my car. I freaked out. I got out of the car and yelled, “Who are you?!!” he simply smiled and said, “Why it’s me cappy your roomie Tom”, but there was no yellow-teeth. There at the doorway I stood smiling back at myself on the driveway, and here I stood on the driveway, in the true sense of the word mind-fucked, staring at myself standing at the doorway smiling. “Now you can stop running my friend” he told me and casually walked back into my…no his…no our home. All along I was Tom and he was I. that’s how he knew I was running from something I had forgotten I had been running from. The shock was overwhelming, I fell to my knees and crashed face-down onto the driveway nearly breaking my nose. My eyes, they still wouldn’t shut as the images of that night flashed through my mind a single tear slipped from my eye and down my cheek and with it brought a wave of relief. It all happened on the ninth of September ninety-nine. Day thirty-six, I couldn’t sleep.

 

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September - 9 -1999 09:00:

 

            It was a cold morning, a bad morning to be hung-over. How much did I drink last night? My head was splitting. Coffee, I needed coffee…yes…that would be the right pick-me-up to start a new and awesome day at work. We had just won an unbelievable case. Sometimes, you can’t help but believe in miracles. Small man versus the big business tycoon, bringing in the right witness at the right time, proving the case beyond doubt; even a bought judge couldn’t have stopped us from winning. When reputation is on the line everything else means nothing to those fat-wallet monkeys of the independent judiciary system. What a façade. I moved out of my bed and into the kitchen where I brewed myself some old-fashioned strong coffee. As was my custom I turned on the news; it’s good to keep up to times with the latest especially in my profession.

 

            I sat on my couch sipping strong coffee out of the mug slowly when I heard the reporter going on, “Last night, at close to three-ten in the mooring a nine-year-old girl was run over and killed on the spot. When we asked the parents what their daughter was doing outside at three in the morning, they responded saying that she had a sleep walking problem and that she always stayed within the confines of the house and this is the first instance of the girl leaving the house. Experts say she may have woken up somewhere nearby and not realized it and so got lost into the streets…” something about that story made me stop sipping my coffee. Three-ten was around the time I was on my way home from last night’s booze party celebrating the success of our case, but I failed to understand why that freaked me out so much. There was a slow nervous tension building up inside me. I shook my head, shrugged off the feeling and continued sipping my coffee. I checked the clock that hung above the television and realized I would be late for work if I didn’t leave soon.

 

            In a jiffy, I got ready to leave for work and was on my driveway when I saw something that made me sick from the insides. There on the front number plate of my car was, I was certain of it, bloodstains. My heart started racing. The words the reporter was saying just kept playing over and over again in my head, “…nine-year-old girl…run over…” My God, what had I done? Was I really that drunk? I rushed back into my home, “…nine-year-old girl….run over…” I raced to the bathroom and puked into the sink. I could feel the alcohol of last night burning the inner walls of my throat as it gushed out. My head felt light, but my body felt heavy. Two parallel thoughts were running through my head constantly interrupted by, “…nine-year-old girl…run over…” should I run or should I confess? I was in a serious dilemma. If I confess I stand to lose everything that ever meant anything to me!

 

            Ten minutes later I was scrubbing the number plate and hosing the underneath of my car. I watched as the red water gushed out into the lawn and hid itself among the grass and sand. I took a look at my car from the front, it looked clean. After all I had been scrubbing the plate for over twenty minutes. I had to be sure. I took the car out to the road where that girl had been hit; an image flashed through my mind, music playing loud in my car, my eyes shutting and opening at irregular intervals and suddenly there was a thud. I couldn’t figure out what that image was about, what the thud sound was. I kept driving into the distance, how far off had I gone? But, instinct was telling me I was nearing the place where it had happened and another image; loud music, eyes irregularly blinking, the thud sound and the clock in my car showing the time around three-thirteen. The thud was much clearer this time. My head was racing, my heart was pounding against my chest trying to break out and run away from me. The images kept coming back each time they got clearer and the thud much louder. Finally I reached the spot, I knew because I could see the blood dry on the road, a lot of blood. My whole body began to pulsate, what have I done? “…nine-year-old girl…run over” my hands began to shiver and an icy chill ran up my spine. Every hair on my forearm was standing and a very loud ringing filled my ears and eventually my whole head. I was breathing heavily and the final image came to my head; I was driving, I was totally drunk, my eyes blinked irregularly, I took a look at the clock – three-thirteen and I looked down at the radio to change the channel and then it happened there was a loud thud ... my car swerved a bit…I knew I had hit something…my head was still down looking at the radio….I took two deep breaths and ran away from the scene without even looking back.

 

            I sat there in my car, staring at the blood stain. Why didn’t I just look back? Why? Why? WHY? I felt a cold rise inside me, I felt numb and dead. My head was pounding now ten times faster and harder, my heart had lost all control of itself…I was parched but couldn’t even swallow my own spit. From the blood something rose up, a pretty little nine-year-old girl stood holding a sunflower in her hand smiling at me…

 

            I woke up panting on the cold marble floor of my house. Was that just a bad dream? I stepped outside and there my car stood, parked neatly. The time was exactly three-thirteen in the afternoon – coincidence. I figured there was no point going to work anyway as I was way too late. Just as I was about to call my boss and let him know I was taking a personal day the television switched on and once again the news reporter said, “…nine-year-old girl…run over…”

 

            I sat at home the whole day trying to figure out what had happened last night, how I had got home. Nothing was clear. I had lost all track of time. My house seemed like a dark place. I was dead on the inside. Day one, I couldn’t sleep.

 

***************

 

September – 9 -1999 00:00:

            John stood across the room at the corner, smoking a cigarette, holding a glass of very expensive scotch. Everybody was wearing a suit. It was a big day for the firm. They had just won a huge case, the kind of case that put their firm among those that closed the biggest deals. Now here they were partying, a special private party for all the hard work they had put in over the last four months. Of course the key player in all of this was Tom .N .Hicks. The guy was simply amazing. He probably blew the jury’s mind open with just his opening statement. It’s no wonder he was the guy having the most fun. This case was his baby. We raised it, but it was his baby. Probably means he’s going to get promoted soon. A lot of publicity went into this case.

 

            The night went on in its gleeful manner, well dressed lawyers losing their inhibitions with each drink. Music playing at just the right level in the background, people shouting “Cheers!” at every possible opportunity. Life was good. But at the end of it all we had to head home and go to work the next day. The time was two-fifteen when the last man, myself, left the late night bar. I hopped in my car well above the legal alcohol limit. The irony of it all, men who use the law to supposedly benefit society, breaking the very laws they work so hard to uplift. At the end, it’s the error of being human. We are all hypocrites. Cruising along the road I caught up to another car ahead of me. It didn’t take a junior lawyer like myself to recognize the big fish’s car. That was Tom .N .Hicks car.

 

            He must have been really drunk, his car was swerving around, somehow staying just within the lane. He was speeding too. I leveled with his speed maintaining clean distance. Never follow too closely a drunk driver. Suddenly something ran in front of Tom’s car. He hit whatever it was, he screeched his brakes and I stopped a little away just to see his next move. The bastard ran off. I had lost all respect for the man. There was nothing more disgusting than a man who runs scared. It is too pathetic even to care about. The time was now blinking at around two-thirty five. I slowly moved towards what Tom had hit and run and there on the road, bleeding profusely lay a stray dog. I turned on my parking lights and moved the dead animal from the road leaving a trail of blood all the way to the edge. Tom was a pathetic man. It feels very hurtful when you watch your hero go down the drain.

 

 

***************

 

            I lay on the driveway, famous and unbeatable lawyer Tom .N .Hicks, beaten by his own doings. The one tear drop that rolled down my cheek now a million as I drooled and cried what I had suppressed for over thirty-six days. I just wanted to close my eyes. I just wanted to close my eyes. Gently I could feel my eyelids shut and I felt myself being swallowed into an abyss. A deep and dark hole, where only pain prevailed, “…nine-year-old girl…run over…” But at least there was relief. At least there was relief that I knew what had happened to me. I wept with my eyes closed for what felt like hours and finally, my eyes opened again and everything went dark…

 

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