For a long, painful moment, everything felt heavy and swollen - even the air that she was breathing seemed determined to clog her lungs. Coughing it back into the atmosphere, Jessica slowly brought herself out of the heavy sleep she was sure she had not induced herself. Last she remembered that nurse was trying to talk to her...about...her wings. Immediately thoughts and images came rushing back to her as her mind snapped back to consciousness. She had wings. She had tried to fly. They had stopped her. The anger she had felt burst within her and she would have screamed - had she had any voice left. It seemed that whatever had put her to sleep was not fully worn off yet and therefore took the control of her vocal chords away. Frowning and attempting at least a whisper, Jessica looked around the room she was currently in. As she recalled, she was lying in the medical clinic one floor below the common area. She was alone here and her breathing mixed with the heart monitor and hum of the half broken television to give an eerie feeling to the room.
Now she took the chance to look over herself and noticed first that her right arm was in a sling. Around her wrist was a thick brown clasp that connected to a black strap hooked securely to the bed frame. The same was on her left wrist and both of her ankles; in other words she was strapped to the bed. Deciding to test how far her movement was, she carefully moved her left arm only to freeze as hundreds of imaginary needles pressed cruelly into her side. It was then that she noticed the bandages around her torso. Someone had put her out long enough to do all this? Growing somewhat frustrated and a little depressed that she had missed such important happenings to her own body, she let her left arm fall back to the bed, grit her teeth until the pain subsided then settled on only moving her head left and right as far as was allowed. Not much was around her - just a pile of her original clothes and belongings, a list of what to do to keep herself out of harm and a therapist assignment sheet updated with 'Suicide Survival - Group Session' on Mondays and Thursday mornings. "It wasn't a suicide attempt," she muttered just barely getting her voice over a whisper. "I had wings..." At the thought, she turned her consciousness to her back...and only felt the pressure of the sling against her shoulder blade and the starched sheets crumpling on the plastic mattress. No wings, no feeling of them - just her back and the bed.
The depression started to settle deeper as she racked her mind for the memories that gave her those feelings. Was it because of her bipolar disorder that she felt those wings on her back? Something loudly declared 'no' in the back of her mind and she could almost swear that for a second someone was trying to speak to her. Growing silent, she listened, heard nothing and after moments of wanting proof that someone else was here, let out the breath she didn't realize she was holding. It was then that a nurse walked into the room, going about her normal duties as though there was not a patient in the room. However, once she spotted that Jessica was awake and watching her with stalker –like eyes, the nurse pulled a chair to the right side of Jessica’s bed and sat down. “It’s good to see that you’re awake, Jessica. We really didn’t want to have to put you under but you gave us quite a fight.”
Jessica stared at her for a moment before she realized that this was the same nurse who had been asking about her wings. “You took my wings away,” the patient said as angrily as she could muster.
“We didn’t touch your wings, Jessica.”
“You put me to sleep and they went away. You took my wings away.”
“Will you tell me now about your wings?”
“I wanted to go flying,” Jessica continued as though not hearing the question.
“Is that why you were trying to jump off of the roof? To go flying?”
“I wouldn’t have been hurt. My wings would have spread. I felt them. They wanted to fly too. It’s been so long...” The last sentence made her pause and wonder just when was the last time she flew.
“So you’ve flown before? Like in an airplane? Tell me about it.”
Jessica let her head sort of loll to the right and she stared at the nurse with dark, emotionless eyes. “I’ve flown all over this world before. With wings as stained as the human soul. I want to fly again.” Smiling, she looked back at the television and it was clear she wasn’t going to say anything else on the matter.
To her right, the nurse sighed, leaned back in her chair and massaged her temples. 13 years of trying to break through Jessica’s shell and now she starts a whole new level. Sometimes, the nurse wondered, I think it’s better to just leave them to their own devices and see what happens then. Chuckling at her own thoughts, she gathered the few things she had come into the room with and left. Pausing by the door, she glanced back at Jessica. “You can go back upstairs once the medicine wears off completely. But you’ll have a nurse with you at all times. You brought this on yourself, Jessica.”
As much as she wanted a response, Jessica seemed unwilling to oblige and just watched the classic sitcom in silence.
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