Page 149 - Musings 2020

Turning Tables

Avanti Sontakke 2017B4AB0613P and Tanya Syag 2017D2TS1242P

The thinnest skin on the outside of the body is on the eyelids. My eyelids were being pulled
upwards but something seemed to hold their ends down. There was a huge effort and it felt
like they would tear at the next instance but instead, my vision was suddenly overpowered by
bright white light. It took me a while but once I was able to see clearly all I saw was a tiled
ceiling.

My body did not feel like my own. It was weak and numb, every movement got my muscles
tingling and aching. The place I was in was unfamiliar, I tried to think about what brought me
here, what had weakened me, and what was holding me captive? I couldn’t move, couldn’t
speak. My throat ached for a drink of water and though I could not touch my skin I still felt
the dryness. I tried to bring my arms close to my face, and I saw my left arm, thin and patchy.
My right arm was held back by something, I tried harder and lifted my head. What looked
like an IV was attached to it; clear liquid seemed to be flowing into my veins. This was when
I started to panic.

My hair seemed to have grown a bit, I could see its ends near my shoulders. I managed to
raise my head higher and support myself using my left elbow. There was no other support, no
pillows. I was lying on a thin mattress on a thin bed, dressed in a plain white tunic. The bed
seemed to be in the centre of the room, with the IV stand and a monitor on a metal table on
my right. The room was not small for a single bed and was filled with white light. There was
only one door and it was straight in front of me. A tiny gap at the bottom showed that it was
darker outside the room. Then I saw something that made me rub my eyes and look again.
There was no lock on the inside of the door.

The rest of my body wasn’t bound by any restraints, and I managed to sit up and keep my feet
on the floor. I looked at the IV. Was it something necessary for my health, or was it not
supposed to be there? I didn’t have any medical conditions and felt alright otherwise, I
decided I couldn’t just sit there and wait for someone to come. What if no one came? Worse
yet, what if someone came and turned out to be the bad guy, someone who was keeping me
against my will?

This certainly felt like the most probable option, because my head felt heavy in a different
way. It was as if I had been drugged, and had woken up from a long sleep. I don’t know
where my body found the strength, but it managed to stand up. I held on to the IV stand and
found that the line seemed long enough to reach the door. I tried to drag the stand itself, and
the metal against the tiles made a sharp noise. That was when I heard a switch being used.
The lights outside turned on.

Someone was coming to harm me. I heard footsteps, though I could not tell at what distance.
Something made my heart race, and I rushed to the door and tried to push it. It was locked
from the outside. The stand had fallen and the liquid was spilling out of the IV bag. I
managed to get closer to the bed while still tethered to the tubes. The footsteps stopped all of
a sudden, I couldn’t even tell whether they were outside my door. Turns out they were. The
door was slowly opened, and a figure in a white coat stepped inside. The light outside seemed

149