MEREDYTH WOKE UP ©2006

by Pamela Tyree Griffin

Meredyth woke up. She’d napped for a couple of hours after dropping the kids off.  The rain and wind blew so hard, that they all thought it would crack the car windows so the kids easily accepted her offer of a ride’ she didn’t mind that they wanted to get out of the car a block from school. At their ages, Beth was 17 and Josh 11 that was okay, that was normal.

She decided to get a jump on dinner. Her mouth watered at the thought of grilled pork chops and some of the summer squash she’d bought today.                                                                                                                                                                                                                               

At first, she couldn’t focus her eyes. Hazy objects fluttered in and out of her blurred vision. She realized nothing looked familiar.

Gone was her expensively appointed bedroom. The antique mahogany night table along with the latest bestseller she’d left on it was gone too.  She looked toward what should have been her pink bathroom and instead saw several murky figures walking back and forth in a dark hallway.

Someon walked past the room and then came immediately back as if pulled by an invisible bungee chord. Shrieking, she dropped her tray of instruments and they scattered all over the floor with an awful clanging. Meredyth’s ears painfully reverberated in response and her body shook like a dry leaf on a tree.

She heard someone shout, “Mrs. Lukas is awake!”

Several people crowded in the doorway. As her eyesight cleared she could make out the strangers. Fear gripped her in its fist and her heart pounded; her breath seemed to be stuck somewhere in her throat. She could hardly breathe. She heard bits and pieces of conversation but mostly the word ‘miracle’ was repeated over and over.

She figured out that she was in a hospital room.  It eventually emptied leaving Meredyth alone with a doctor.  She whispered, her voice dry and cracking, “What happened to me? Where is my husband? Does he know what happened? My kids - oh God my kids!”

He looked to be about thirty, this blue eyed, bearded Doctor Fortuna. In an accent she couldn’t identify, he said “We’ll call your husb…Mr. Lukas right away,” motioning to one of the nurses. “Your family is fine. But right now I want to help you. You need to understand what has happened.”

He took one of Meredyth’s hands but hers was a limp thing with barely any feeling at all. She thought she must have some kind of nerve injury.

“Mrs. Lukas, after you dropped your children off at school you stopped at a local vegetable stand. You were standing by your car to put your groceries in. Witnesses told the police that a pickup truck slid on the wet roads and hit you so hard that you were thrown through the air. You landed about fifty or so feet away. The police said that the only thing that saved you from being killed instantly was some hay piled in the far corner of that farmer’s field.”

Meredyth was relieved. That explained a lot – she’d been in an accident. Saved by a pile of hay. Okay - she could handle that. Still her thoughts were as jumbled as a deck of cards thrown into the air. One idea barely flittered through her consciousness before another flashed by.

“But you must understand Mrs. Lukas,” the doctor continued, “some time has passed since the accident.” The doctor took a deep breath and said, “Seven. Seven years have passed since your accident.  And you have been in a coma for that entire time.”

She thought of her children, her home, and her little herb garden carefully planted and tended just outside the kitchen window. She remembered her upcoming wedding anniversary and Josh’s twelfth birthday.

Meredyth understood then that there had been birthdays, holidays, deaths, graduations and countless other celebrations and moments which occurred while her pale and emaciated body was tethered to this bed and to life in a twilight world, a void. Trembling so strong overtook her, that the doctor could barely hold her. He called for a sedative.

A moan began somewhere inside that Meredyth barely realized emanated from her. She sobbed and sobbed then, cursing the pile of hay that had broken her fall.

Pamela Tyree Griffin has been creating stories for over three decades.Her work-poetry, fiction and non has appeared in both print and online In 2005 she self published a book of flash , "He Says He Has Cats And Other Short Tales," She is a corporate trainer and motivational speaker and considers her best work to be her children! Contact Pamela.