Blog
The White Light
The call came late on a Saturday night in March.
“Ray’s been in an accident. It’s serious,” said his brother. “They don’t know if he’s going to make it so you might want to come to the hospital right now.”
I’d had a few drinks and let the panic inside get the better of me. But, in times like these you have no sense for the irony of driving through stop signs and pink traffic lights to reach a friend who has been in a car accident, you only think of trying to delay all that’s derailed and outsped the usual train of events.
I met the brother and parents outside the double doors of the emergency room intake. Not even they were allowed inside yet. Hours passed under yellow fluorescent lighting and there was little any of us could think of saying to break through the smothering silence, until finally we received word that, while Ray would likely never walk again, it looked like he was going to survive.
“What hasn’t already died of my body will now begin dying,” Ray told me in his room at the rehabilitation hospital for spinal cord injuries just after they transferred him out of intensive care. “But at least it doesn’t smell like it yet.”
“Good,” I said, “that would be too much to bear. For me, I mean.”
“Yeah. Wouldn’t want to make you uncomfortable.”
In a flash, Ray’s body had transformed from that of a 6’3″, 225-pound avid outdoorsman, writer/adventurer, former gold and silver miner, and all-purpose raconteur into a form completely immobilized by the fracture of a C-5 veterbra. His weakness and the steel brace around his neck made the words tumble from him like the candies of a Pez dispenser. Walking one day, a quadriplegic the next. Sitting in his room amid a garden of giant-vased flowers, I wondered how long it would take before his sense of humor left also.
“One of the out-patients here who’s had this kind of injury for a while told me people turn very bitter or unrealistically optimistic. I told him I’d always been bitter but was excited about the chance to become unrealistically bitter. I could break new ground for my people.”
“You could gripe about how paralysis prevents you from both space travel and masturbation.”
He lifted both of his arms up for a moment and they fell back on the bed. He could not press down with any strength to move himself up on the bed because he no longer had the use of his tricep muscles.
“Move the pillow further down.”
I tried adjusting the pillow around his neck gradually, fearfully.
“Just move it!”
“All right, all right.”
We both glanced toward the glaring white light in the window, full of a spring midday sun. The window was on the far side of the room above the empty bed of his roommate Matt. The pull curtain usually extended for privacy was drawn back. Matt had been here a month and recently transitioned to a wheelchair.
“I don’t know what to do. I can’t live like this.”
“You don’t have to figure it out right now,” I said, but had no idea whether he had to figure it out now or not.
“I asked R. J. yesterday, ‘If I’m still like this in a year, would you do me a huge and just kill me?’ ”
R.J. was another friend whom we had both known for over a decade. He spent a good deal of his waking life drinking in the city’s dive bars.
“‘Yeah. I’ll smother you with a pillow,’ Ray said he’d told him without a beat. “He’d already worked out how he would do it. You kind of hope for a little more deliberation from someone with that kind of question.”
This was the first time I’d heard Ray laugh since everything happened, though I didn’t hear him so much as see him laugh. He didn’t have the diaphragm strength to produce more than a wheezing sound, which eventually lapsed into another depressing silence. Nothing that wasn’t imbued with dead humor felt worth uttering. Even on bright days like this, the room cast a grayish blue tint over everything, a kind of sterilized hospital hue.
“Where’s Matt?”
“Interviewing.”
“Does that make you feel a little bit shiftless, your roommate out hustling the pavement for a job?”
“I’m hoping to become a ward of the state. No, it’s just the same asshole doctor that tried interviewing me when I was still in I.C.U. He’s doing a study of near-death experiences. He wants to use age- and sex-matched controls, so, we’re perfect candidates, I guess.”
“He tried to interview you right after came to?”
“I guess I was more fresh. It’s just this need to know, right. Get all the info we can right now so we know what comes next.”
“Did you tell him to leave?”
“I told him no but he was persistent. And I guess I needed to be distracted. I still couldn’t believe any of it was real, that I was alive and that I was paralyzed.”
He stopped to gather his breath.
“So, I started telling him about how I felt like I was riding along this noodle, sailing along this long noodle over waves. But, there was a light at the end of the noodle, so it must have been a tunnel, not a noodle. Anyway, when I got to the end of it everything opened up peripherally and I was bathing in this white light, literally floating in it, as if it were some endless cream of celery soup. I don’t know why, but I looked behind me and saw this hand extended down to me. It looked like a woman’s hand. I followed up the arm. The woman was wearing a loose-fitting white dress. Her hair was huge, like a big helmet. And then I realized. It was Phyllis Diller— the zany 196os comedienne. She began cackling in that loud laugh of hers. That’s the last thing I remember before coming to after surgery.”
“You actually told him that?”
“Yeah. And if Matt remembers correctly, he’s telling him the same story right now in his interview.”
As if on cue, Matt rolled his electric wheelchair back into the room wearing a smirk and followed closely by the doctor. The doctor walked up to Ray’s bed and leaned in to him.
“You might think this is all a joke, but I’ve seen people like you before,” he said, “and you’re likely going to die alone.”
“Actually,” Ray said, “I’ve already got that worked out with a friend.”
2 Comments
wonderful points altogether, you just gained a new reader. What would you recommend in regards to your post that you made some days ago? Any positive?
Hello, i read your blog from time to time and i own a similar one and i was just curious if you get a lot of spam comments? If so how do you prevent it, any plugin or anything you can suggest? I get so much lately it’s driving me mad so any help is very much appreciated.
Hey very nice website!! Man .. Beautiful .. Amazing .. I’ll bookmark your site and take the feeds also…I am happy to find numerous useful information here in the post, we need work out more strategies in this regard, thanks for sharing. . . . . .
Hello Web Admin, I noticed that your On-Page SEO is is missing a few factors, for one you do not use all three H tags in your post, also I notice that you are not using bold or italics properly in your SEO optimization. On-Page SEO means more now than ever since the new Google update: Panda. No longer are backlinks and simply pinging or sending out a RSS feed the key to getting Google PageRank or Alexa Rankings, You now NEED On-Page SEO. So what is good On-Page SEO?First your keyword must appear in the title.Then it must appear in the URL.You have to optimize your keyword and make sure that it has a nice keyword density of 3-5% in your article with relevant LSI (Latent Semantic Indexing). Then you should spread all H1,H2,H3 tags in your article.Your Keyword should appear in your first paragraph and in the last sentence of the page. You should have relevant usage of Bold and italics of your keyword.There should be one internal link to a page on your blog and you should have one image with an alt tag that has your keyword….wait there’s even more Now what if i told you there was a simple WordPress plugin that does all the On-Page SEO, and automatically for you? That’s right AUTOMATICALLY, just watch this 4minute video for more information at. Seo Plugin
Hi, just required you to know I he added your site to my Google bookmarks due to your layout. But seriously, I believe your internet site has 1 in the freshest theme I??ve came across. It extremely helps make reading your blog significantly easier.
Do you mind if I quote a few of your articles as long as I provide credit and sources back to your website? My blog is in the very same niche as yours and my users would definitely benefit from some of the information you provide here. Please let me know if this okay with you. Appreciate it!
What’s Happening i am new to this, I stumbled upon this I have found It positively helpful and it has aided me out loads. I hope to contribute & assist other users like its helped me. Good job.
I wanted to thank you for this great read!! I definitely enjoying every little bit of it I have you bookmarked to check out new stuff you post…
Your place is valueble for me. Thanks!…
I view something truly special in this website.
Very informative and wonderful anatomical structure of content, now that’s user friendly (:.
I like this web site because so much useful stuff on here : D.
Fantastic web site. Lots of helpful information here. I’m sending it to some friends ans additionally sharing in delicious. And certainly, thanks to your effort!
I liked as much as you’ll receive performed proper here. The comic strip is attractive, your authored subject matter stylish. nonetheless, you command get got an impatience over that you wish be handing over the following. unwell certainly come more beforehand again as precisely the similar just about a lot steadily inside of case you protect this hike.
I’ll be there for you .
|あなたは使用して作業しているするブログプラットフォームあなたが心共有述べでしょうか？ BlogEngineの間選択私は今行く私自身のブログを開始するには、近い将来に私はタフハード難しいことだ時間を/ WordPressの/ b2evolutionのとDrupalの。私が尋ねる理由はあなたのためであり、デザインとスタイル私はユニーク何かを探していますし、ほとんどのブログ、異なるようです。 PS 申し訳 であるのためのオフ·トピックが、私はお願いしていました！
ポストの記事 人と思います。また、コメントに私を許可 に感謝！
素晴らしい後しかし、 |あなたはこのトピックの詳細リッテを書くことができれば、私は知りたい思ってい ？あなたは少し手の込んだことができれば、| 感謝感謝 もっと私は非常になるだろう。 あなたを祝福！
http://luckysoftware.dk/sleep-24562-201.html
http://vizcaino.eu/sleep-24953-164.html
http://ppc-entroterraidruntino.3plab.it/sleep-24114-218.html
http://www.semarbatik.com/shop-19940-177.html
http://zdresponse.com/sleep-24704-214.html
http://www.semarbatik.com/shop-24623-217.html
http://gymoxion.com/shop-24598-213.html
http://business-for-sale.business/shop-25113-190.html
http://disabilities.skc.edu/shop-24350-218.html
http://securitec.tn/pot-24699-205.html
http://vbulletinservers.com/shop-24938-206.html
http://thp.skc.edu/shop-24784-176.html
http://www.thebanditz.com/sleep-24727-211.html
http://www.foxriverbaptistchurch.org/shop-24000-189.html
http://hostforserver.com/shop-24732-214.html
http://www.themindscreen.com/tide-23780-189.html
http://interested.skc.edu/shop-24816-214.html
http://bootleggers.dk/shop-24936-212.html
http://www.jesus-alvarez.us/shop-25477-179.html
http://www.supertemizlik.com/sleep-25339-174.html
After getting more than 10000 visitors/day to my website I thought your http://www.samdeleo.com website also need unstoppable flow of traffic…
Use this BRAND NEW software and get all the traffic for your website you will ever need …
= = > > http://get-huge-autopilot-traffic.com
In testing phase it generated 867,981 visitors and $540,340.
Then another $86,299.13 in 90 days to be exact. That’s $958.88 a
day!!
And all it took was 10 minutes to set up and run.
But how does it work??
You just configure the system, click the mouse button a few
times, activate the software, copy and paste a few links and
you’re done!!
Click the link BELOW as you’re about to witness a software that
could be a MAJOR turning point to your success.
= = > > http://get-huge-autopilot-traffic.com
Best regards
Your friend
Ella
I am extremely inspired together with your writing talents as smartly as} with the format to your blog. Is this a paid theme or did you modify it yourself? Anyway stay up the excellent high quality writing, it is rare to peer a great blog like this one these days..
[url=http://viewdesigncompany.com/1227/725.html]http://viewdesigncompany.com/1227/725.html[/url]
http://viewdesigncompany.com/1227/725.html
Hello, i think that i saw you visited my blog thus i came to 搑eturn the favor?I am attempting to find things to enhance my web site!I suppose its ok to use a few of your ideas!!
[url=http://www.001830.com/%E3%83%9D%E3%83%BC%E3%83%81-c-15.html]セリーヌ ポーチ タオル[/url]
セリーヌ ポーチ タオル
Damn Sammy, another tasty morsel!
Glad you enjoyed it, Dr. Cashin…
Archives
Follow Me
Twitter Feed
Please wait while tweets load..
Twitter Feed
Please wait while tweets load..
Follow Me
Contact Info