The Hatbox

Chapter 2

Another quiet day. Just the way he liked it. He could feel the temperature beginning to warm over the last few days. The dreary rains were becoming less and less frequent. The thought of enjoying the beach began to flicker in like many other thoughts these days. This thought was a waste of time. But being outside, on his porch, was definitely not a waste of time. He kept lecturing himself that staying inside wasn't going to help him recover in quicker. He was just still so weak, and his body won the battle over the mind on most days. If his bones were aching less, that was all that seemed to be healing.

After the accident, he remained in a deep fog. It's like the body has this defense mechanism that numbs the brain and body. It releases a chemical of some natural sort that disillusions the person...for their survival. Numbing is probably the best word. This point is proven by the mere fact that a body is put into a coma when an injury is so severe that the body can't cope. It doesn't allow the body to feel anything until the time has come for the body to awaken and realize that a lot of the healing has already taken place while it rested. The body is only then ready to fight the remainder of the way.

But the other numbing...the one that the body doesn't allow you to sleep through...that's the one he felt. It allowed an incoherent healing process. But not all at once. No, the body would never survive it. The mind wouldn't either. It must be numbed. Little by little the brain and body had to come to terms with the changes. Numbing prohibited it from crushing the person with all the torture at once. He began to wonder if he was healing mentally now. He was realizing that the fog, the numbness, was lifting. Just enough to be vaguely noticed. That had to mean something. He hoped.

He sat there, staring at the ocean, lost in his thoughts. They weren't all too elusive today. Yes, he had been lost, somewhere, for hours, as deduced by the position of the sun ahead. But he was hungry...for the first time in weeks.

He had avoided eating before because the idea of it turned his stomach. Finally, when he wanted to eat, like now, the idea of leaving this chair made him hesitate to get any food. Forcing himself up from this position made it less appealing.

The sun was warming his face. The sounds of the seagulls calling out to one another captivated a small child in the distance. The little girl looked up at the birds in amazement...they held the little one’s attention. Elderly couples were out on their morning strolls. They held hands and watched the beauty around them, much like he was doing from his chair. He made excuses too that the cumulation of these peaceful moments in time held him in his chair. But deep down, was he avoiding avoid the effort it took to manage the footsteps into another room? The steps that so many people take for granted. The same steps that he used to take for granted.

As Alex slowly positioned each hand on the armrests, almost perfectly in the middle to avoid causing the chair to tip, he pushed painfully against the piercing that ran up and down each arm and pushed it aside, because it was dull in comparison to the obvious lack of strength that afflicted both of his legs. But the muscles held and allowed him to stand upright. On his own. It was more than he could've hoped for just weeks ago. He took several deep breaths to avoid screaming at the pain, his eyes drifting over to the wheelchair just inside the door. He tossed the idea aside. He'd come so far. He would not go back to sitting in the wheelchair any more than he already had. His legs were his obstacle now. His brain had been for all of these weeks. Now he had to teach his muscles to hold him up again. They refused to do it for too long now.

He barely managed to open the door, taking a hand off the walker, he took slow and small steps through the threshold that separated his outside and inside worlds. That's the way it had to be for now. His impatience wouldn't help him heal. He learned that last week when he fell and thought he'd set back the break in his arm. Which after a lot of screaming and praying, he had not. So, slow and steady it had to be.

As he closed the door behind him and desperately reached again for the walker with the same hand that had to close the door, he determined that this would be the last trip outside for the day. Unless, his eyes drifted towards the wheelchair again, he used the chair. He thought about it...again, this gave him hope in his healing. He actually put his stubbornness aside and thought that if the outdoors helped his mood, he could succumb to the need for the chair in those instances. It wasn't an actual setback...just taking it one moment at a time.

Once again, he found his thoughts were debating a lot lately. It was annoying.