Awake at a Different time

Being back

CHAPTERS TWO

Leaning onto the window, I am well aware of the nagging voice of fear between my ears, telling me that I might lean on the wooden walls too hard and end up face first, twisted neck and all at the bottom of the tree. With one quick glance out the window, I can tell it would be a swift and hitch less journey down.

I have never been in a tree house before, and now with my new found sense of self renewal, I can’t help thinking how unadventurous my life had also been. The most exciting experience of my life worth remembering has to be the accident which has caused me to wake up in this mysterious tree house, questioning the path my life chose to take.

Surveying the surrounding area, all I see are more trees and bushes. Just a bit far off I see another tree house, and then just a bit further, yet another house of wood. Apparently this tree house thing is a continuous affair. A serious one from the looks of it.

“What exactly is going on here?” I mutter to myself. Is this some kind of community. Probably the kind that walk around in white linen, or in their tie-and-dye clothes trying to separate themselves from the rest of the world as much as they can, because they believe in the core values of peace, love and unity and they also believe that the television was a tool of mass enslavement. Yea, I have heard about them and I hope I was wrong about the whole thing because I am not cut out for a “commune” life right now or ever at all. I watched a documentary about them one time on tv, so I know what I’m saying.

At least I want wearing any linen or tie and dye fabric. I didn’t even think we had communes in Africa, so what is really happening here?

I take a deep breath to scan the entire space in front of me, cleared my thoughts and continued my scan. There wasn’t just two or three tree houses, the tree houses were more than that and It all had an arrangement pattern to it. There was one tree house, after which there was what looked like a carefully mapped out spacing system before the next tree house. Each patch of land that held the tree house had a drive way or a pathway I’m guessing depending on which works for you. This arrangement went on into the vast expanse of land until my eyes couldn’t see any further. It was like a giant maze, some how I felt like I was starring in a movie called “Ally and the woodland creatures” and it was looking like it was bound to get even creepier.

“Ally?” I hear my mum’s sleep soaked voice break through my thoughts. “Ally is that really you by the window?”

“Yes mummy, I’m awake” I answer while rolling my eyes thinking if there was any other person that could pull off this “just- had-a-brush-with death-but-still-killing-it look like I’m doing. Seriously though how do I even look this good.I know this since I caught my reflection on an antique mirror by the bed side when I was walking to the window. No bruises, no scratches, no nothing. I guess the blood was clearly not mine to begin with. Which now begs the question, whose was it ?

Again Seriously, I look too good for someone who nearly died.

“Ooh my God Ally, it’s really you, you are really awake” this time I sense the strain in mom’s voice, then the c***k, and finally the sobs came.

“Oh God you are awake, how are you awake?” she cried walking really fast towards me with her arms outstretched, hoping to enclose me in a hug. At least I thought so, until she said through the tears. “they told me you wouldn’t wake up”

Ehhh excuse me?

There are about five different ways that that sentence could be interpreted with the tears pouring from her eyes but I chose the first one off the top of my head.

“Wait you wanted me not to wake up?” I ask in shock, clearly not liking the course of this conversation.

She smiled through the tears and my heart gave a little squeeze again but this time, it felt good.

“No silly, the other doctors said you wouldn’t wake up” she said still sobbing.

“ They told me to move on Ally, but you are all I have left in the world, how can I possibly do that. They don’t understand that you are my life Ally, I tried to tell them you are my life, but they wouldn’t listen. They told me I had to let you go, that you have taken too long and that you might never come back, they said it wasn’t economical to keep you any longer.” she went on and on taking a break to clean her tears and dab her nose with the sleeve of her black shirt.

“Mum what are you talking about?, I know I was out for a few days, but why would anyone tell you to move on, who does that?. I have seen and read about people who woke up from a coma after 3 months. A few days and they are telling you to let me go? That’s just unethical, you of all people should know that”

I was livid now. Some one was planning to snuf the life out of me when I was stuck in God knows where in my sleep, struggling to keep my life. A life I just found out was quite empty and unmemorable, someone was going to take it away from me before I was conscious enough to fix it.

Now I’m mad. How dare he, she?, whoever the hell they are? They better hope I never get to meet them, or so help me God, they will be the ones struggling with everything.

No plans yet on how to achieve that, since I’m only seventeen but it would be a little task to think of ways.

Mum stares at me for a while, silent apart from her sniffing at intervals. She tries to control the tears pouring down her face, but honestly cartoon characters have nothing on her when it comes to these pooling tears.

I pull her into a hug while whispering that everything will be alright. I am usually useless when people were emotional around me, but with mum, my actions were all reflexes.

I have a lot of questions for her right now, but I’m really tired and she isn’t looking like she is in a good state to answer them, so I am choosing to believe that every thing will be alright.

We stand next to the window for a while with her still in my arm feeling so small and fragile. It’s sad that it used to be the other way round for us. She must have put herself through hell with worry that I might never wake up.

“I was comatose for a few days Mum, when was the last time you had something to eat, I can literally feel your bone”

I try to joke hoping it would lighten the mood but instead she pulls away from me with a weird look on her face.

She gives me a quick scan like she normally does while trying to access my particular state or mood before giving me an information. I have always loved how she could access my state with just one quick glance, and then decide whether I should get an information at a particular moment or wait til later when I’m was in a better mood. I would say it was our thing, but I was never really good at it. I have just always said things how they come to me.

I watched quietly as she played with her hands for a while which meant she was nervous about something, and that in turn made me nervous.

I had nothing to say, so I decided on giving her time to work out things in her head at her own pace. While on the other hand I mentally prepared myself to take a long torturous walk to seat on the bed, just so it wouldn’t seem like I was suffocating her with my presence.

“ Honey, you weren’t in a coma for just a few days, you have been out for a year now, and a lot has happened since you were living in between worlds. I mean like a lot, A lot”

Well now all I can think of was how she could have at least let me get to the bed , comfortably seated, before dropping that particular information.

This wasn’t the kind of thing you told people while they were still standing.