crossroads

who am I?

when I woke up again I felt a lot better. my throat was less swollen and I seemed to have regained control over my limbs. I had a good look at my surroundings. the hospital room I was in was small, but nicely decorated. judging by the dim light coming from the small gap inbetween the curtains I would say it was either late evening or early morning. there was no one in sight, the doctor had left. I noticed I was dressed in a hospital gown. I threw back the blanket a bit to assess the damage to my body. my leg felt stiff an there was a throbbing pain, aparently I had broken it, because there was a cast going from my foot all the way to my hip. my head was pounding and I noticed a bandage just above my eyebrow. breathing was painful and I was still thirsty. I noticed the cup of water on my bedside table, the doctor must have left it there. I tried reaching it but it was too far. stretching like that made a sharp pain shoot through my chest, I winced and quickly pulled my arm back. at that moment the door flew open and a cheerful young nurse walked in. "good morning miss! I thought you would be up by now." she walked over to my bedside and moved the table so it was more accessable to me. she must have seen me before because she took the cup and handed it to me. I gratefully took it from her and brought it up to my mouth. my hands were still a bit shaky, but I managed to drink. the nurse waited untill I put the cup back down before speaking again. "my name is nurse Jenkins, but you can just call me Jenny if you want. Ill be taking care of you during the days, and at night my colleague nurse armstrong will take over." I chuckled a bit internally, jenny jenkins, poor girl. I took a breath and wanted to introduce myself. "I am.. eh..my name is.." that is odd.. what was my name? I looked puzzled at the nurse, but she just smiled. "that is alright" she said "you suffered a head trauma which caused you to be in a coma for over a week, some memory loss is normal and to be expected." she moved a lock of ash blonde curls from her eyes, picked up the cart by the end of my bed and started reading while asking me some questions. "how are you feeling today?" "uhm.. a bit sore" I responded "but did you just say I was in a coma for a week?? what the hell happened to me?" nurse Jenny put the clipboard down for a minute and sat on my bed. "we actually don't know exactly" she said "all we know is some couple found you in the water near the beach, and you were beaten up pretty good. we assume you must have fallen off a boat or something. you were very hypothermic and suffered multiple traumas from smashing up against the cliffs. your concussion caused swelling in your brain which is why we had to keep you in a coma for a while. we also had to preform surgery on your legg, which was shattered in multiple places. some of your ribs are bruised and you had seawater in your lungs which will cause you to be sore for a little while, and we gave you antibiotics to prevent pneumonia" I was trying to listen to the flow of information, but my head started throbbing and I couldn't concentrate. "do you know who I am?" I finally asked after she was done summing up my injuries. "no.. unfortunately you had no personal items on you when you were brought in. but don't worry, it will probably come back in the next few weeks" she seemed to have a very positive outlook on life. I bet she could even make death sound like a thing not to worry about. me? I felt my mind go cloudier and my focus drifted off into a blank stare. nurse jenny picked up the clipboard again and started reading some more. after checking my blood pressure and temperature she seemed satisfied and asked if I was feeling any nausea at all. I shook my head, but my belly started rumbling at that moment and I looked up at her a little embaressed. "a bit hungry I guess.." she smiled and said she would bring along some food in a little while. something light and easy to digest. after that she filled my cup again and then left me alone with my thoughts. I started digging through my mind for any information about who I was and how I ended up here, but nothing came up. Its like I didn't even exist before waking up here. I couldn't even remember what I look like. suddenly I felt a very strong need to look in a mirror so I asked Jenny for one when she came back with a tray of food. she opened a drawer in the bedside table and pulled out a handmirror for me. before handing it to me she hesitated a bit. "now dont panic, you look a bit beaten up, the swelling will go down soon enough" I couldn't care less, I just wanted to know if anything I saw would be familiar to me. so I looked, for a long time I stared at myself. Jenny waited around for a bit, as if she was expecting me to break down, but was soon called off to another patiënt. I couldn't see anything that seemed familiar.. I had long, auburn hair that was dirty and messed up because of the old bits of blood and sea water. most of it was covered by a thick bandage that nearly covered my entire head. underneath the bandage I could see my eyes were green.. or eye, I should say. because the other one was swollen shut and had been very black aparently, judging by the yellow brown stains that ran from my eye to almost all the way down my cheek. my lips were burst and dry and I honestly couldn't tell if I was good looking or not. defeated I put down the mirror again, and started on the broth and white bread Jenny had brought me. I guess I would have to get better first, maybe then things would start coming back. so I decided to focus on that.