Comatose

Chapter 4

Chapter 4

                “She’s right you know?”  The voice started Angelica waking her up from her slumber.  She hadn’t even known she had fallen asleep let alone that she could.  She raised her head up looking around her while blinking her eyes.  She was back in the white world with the fog again and while she was glad to be away from the lake, she felt lonely without her family again.  Glancing around her she looked for the owner of the voice that had wakened her.  Coming through the fog was the figure of a woman and Angelica sat watching intrigued by this new addition.

                “I said she was right.”  The voice stated again annoyed that Angelica was ignoring her.

                “I heard you the first time.  Who are you?”  Angelica asked marveling at the fact that she was able to talk to someone.  At least she hoped she was talking to her.

                “Don’t you know?”  The woman asked laughing lightly at her.  Annoyed Angelica huffed out a breath pushing the fog away with the force of her breath.

                “If I knew I wouldn’t have asked.” 

                “You would think you’d be able to recognize yourself.  Are you that lost that I’m now a stranger to you?”  As the woman asked this, she came into view shocking Angelica to the core.  In front of her stood herself but there was something very different about this version.

                “How is this possible?”  Angelica asked feeling uneasy.  The mirror image rolled her eyes coming to sit in front of her.

                “You’re stuck in your own head dear.  Who else would you be talking to right now?”  Angelica had to admit she had a point as asinine as it may seem.  “Back to my earlier point, Tiffany was right in what she said to Kevin.”

                “How so?”

                “Are you really that daft these days?”  Her doppelganger asked in frustration making Angelica shrink back a bit with her growl.

                “What he said was true.  He’s worked hard to provide for his family over the years.”

                “That may be, but you’ve worked just as hard as a wife and mother to make that happen.  Do you really think he would have gotten so far in life if you hadn’t been supporting him?”

                “We’re a team that’s how it works.”

                “I think you need to look up the definition of what team means.”  Angelica huffed in annoyance as she crossed her arms in anger.

                “I don’t see anything wrong with the way our life is.”

                “Of course, you don’t.  You seem to have forgotten a lot of things over the years.  It’s sad that your own daughter can see what you can’t.”

                “What are you talking about?”

                “The sacrifices you’ve made for him.  And did he ever acknowledge any of them or show you any kind of appreciation for all you’ve done for him?  Of course not because he takes you for granted.  Honestly they all do.”

                “That’s absurd.  Everything I’ve done for my family I’ve done because I wanted to.”

                “Have you really now?”

                “Yes!”  Angelica bit out becoming thoroughly fed up with herself.

                “I think you need a bit of a reminder.”  With that said her look alike got up and walked back off into the fog.  Angelica got up calling after her following blindly behind her.  Just what did she know anyway.  She has lived her life as she saw fit and she didn’t regret anything.  Even though Angelica was stomping in her wake she soon lost sight of the figure in front of her as it bled together with the fog around her.  Angelica glanced all around her frustrated to find she couldn’t see her anywhere.  Feeling ridiculous she wandered around aimlessly not sure where she was going just that it seemed to be nowhere at all.

                She walked on hoping she would either run across herself again or she would be reunited with her family again.  She wasn’t foolish enough to believe if she kept walking that she would find herself suddenly awake.  If that were the case it would have happened the first time she had transversed the fog when she initially found herself there.  She had almost decided to plop herself down to wait until she was drug somewhere else when the fog began to lift.

                Angelica found herself in the middle of a dance studio surrounded by tiny ballerinas.  Looking around she realized that she knew the place.  She had taken dance classes there as a little girl.  She had been so enamored by dance that she had begged for weeks for her mom to let her take a class.  Looking around at all the little girls she was surprised to find that it was the very same class she had been in.  She recognized most of the faces of the little dancers, but she couldn’t seem to recall the names of most of them anymore.  A sense of nostalgia fell over her as she watched the girls running amok waiting for the instructor to appear.   

                She was enjoying watching the chaos that ensued as she stood back out of the way.  Angelica wasn’t sure what would happen if one of the girls ran into her.  Would she be solid, or would they run through her as if she was a ghostly figure?  She just wasn’t sure and didn’t really want to find out.  She didn’t know what she would do if they just ran right through her.  She knew the scene was just a memory from the past but the feeling of being ran through would still hit a little too close to home for her.  Angelica knew she didn’t have any true physical form here and didn’t want to contemplate what would happen if she never did again.  The thought of leaving her family especially as shattered as they have become brought new tears to her eyes.

                She moved back further out of the way as on very precocious little dancer nearly came into contact with her.  It took her a moment to realize she knew this small girl who was running around yelling like there was no tomorrow.  It hadn’t been the way she was acting nor the features of the child that she had recognized at first.  In fact, it had been her outfit.  While she wore the same black leotard and light pink skirt like the other girls this little one’s tights were a brilliant rainbow color as were her slippers.  It made Angelica laugh to see the streak of color running around the studio like a mini hurricane.  She watched them play as the little girl garnered quite a small following of tiny little rule breakers that had joined her.  She remembered that the time before class was supposed to be spent on stretching and getting ready for dance.  Yet here was this little groups of rebels causing a mini revolt instead.

                The instructor came in not long after the pandemonium had begun staring at the group of girls with her thin lips pinched in dismay.  Clearly, she was unhappy with what was going on.  Angelica winced as she watched the woman walk up to the front of the studio clearing her voice to gain attention.  Angelica observed as each of the girls noticed the teacher and began to wander off to do what they were supposed to be doing leaving the ringleader to her folly.  It took a little longer for this little girl to notice the stern instructor at the front of the class.  In truth it was more the fact that she found herself alone that caught her attention more than anything.

                Once everyone was settled down and at their places on the bars the instructor began the warmups.  The little girl that stood out among a sea of black and pink was the only one who did something a little different while the others worked hard to move as one.  As the instructor passed the girl, she clicked her tongue at her in dismay but said nothing to correct her.  Truthfully when she had first joined the class the woman had tried her best to get the errant girl to follow along with everyone else, but it became clear early on that she danced to the beat of her own drum.  Nothing the instructor said or did seemed to be able to deter her either.  After she had been in the class for a while the teacher let it go but still made sure to make her displeasure known every time she passed the little girl.  To the little one’s credit she didn’t let it faze her as she continued doing exactly what she loved to do no matter what was said to her.  The sight brought back a feeling of nostalgia as she watched the little ballerina fondly.

                As the class droned on Angelica became bored wondering why she was even there to witness something she lived through already.  What exactly was she supposed to be seeing?  What ever it was she was sure she had seen it already and was beyond ready to leave the memory.  She found her attention being drawn out the windows of the studio watching the world move by the class windows oblivious to what was going on inside.  As she stood there gazing at the clear day outside and the people moving to and fro past the windows the lights began to dim inside the studio.  Angelica’s gaze lazily rejoined the group as the room became darker than it had been only moments ago.  Looking for the source her eyes landed on a seething dark mass forming at the back of the room.  Viewing the figures in the room not a one of them noticed anything amiss.  Angelica knew that this had never happened in real life and couldn’t figure out what was going on.  Her eyes were drawn back to the end of the room where a massive blackness took over the memory.  Angelica found herself moving slowly away from it as it exuded a rather sinister feel around it.  She began looking around in a panic looking for a way out of the memory.  Something was going very wrong and she didn’t want to stick around to see how this ended.  In fact, she wanted nothing to do with the boiling black mass that had ate up the back of the classroom.  She got an ominous feeling in the pit of her stomach as she watched it become more solid.

                Making her way to the door of the room Angelica tried to leave but found once again there was an invisible barrier keeping her from going where she wanted to.  Crying out in distress she began to beat against it fruitlessly.  There was no escape for her to be found.  She was trapped in the memory along with whatever the darkness was.  She had nearly given up all hope when a white heavy fog began pouring into the room.  Angelica watched in trepidation as the fog swallowed up each little dancer until none of them could be seen any longer.  The classroom too started to disappear being consumed by the fog as well.  Soon enough Angelica found herself in the vast white foggy world once again.  The heavy darkness that had consumed part of the memory she had been in however had found form in this world too.  She stared at it in horror as it grew in size.  The fog drifted away from it as well as if it physically repelled it. 

                Angelica, taking her cue from the fog, began to run in the opposite direction.  The further she went the smaller the dark mass became until it was no longer in view.  She slowed her pace feeling the need to slow her breathing and her heart but that wasn’t the case.  In her new reality it didn’t matter how much she exerted herself she was never at a loss for breath or energy.  Probably because she wasn’t physically moving.

                “Did you learn anything?”  Came the voice of her doppelganger even though it never manifested a form this time.

                “What was I supposed to learn from that?”  She asked in frustration.

                “What you had to give up.”

                “I gave up ballet long before I met Kevin so really, I didn’t have to give up anything.”

                “Then you missed the point.”

                “What’s that supposed to mean?”  Angelica called out but didn’t receive an answer to her question no matter how many times she asked it.  Changing tracts, she asked something else.

                “What was that black mass?”  But again, her inquiry went unanswered as she once again found herself alone within the white world.  Huffing out in frustration she plopped down to the ground set to wait until her next trip.  Where she would be taken the next time, she didn’t know.  She had no control over where she was yanked to or when.  There was nothing to do but sit and wait.