The Comatorium

The Comatorium

	I awoke in a place I’ve never seen before. This confused me because only last night was I in my best friend’s apartment experimenting with drugs and having a grand time doing that. I must have blacked out because I’ve never seen this place before. I checked my pockets for my valuables and realized that not only did I not have my cell phone or my wallet, but I was in possession of a piece of paper that I don’t remember having. The paper read “4 answers go to 67th and Main”. I began to survey my surroundings. I’m in a strange place with my identification, money, and way of contacting people gone, left only with a strange piece of paper with what looked to be an address scribbled on it.
	I looked ahead and saw my first landmark, a grey building with markings on the side. The markings were in a graffiti style and imposed the words MAIN. I figured this was where I needed to go and I started walking.
	I began to think back to last night and wondered how I could have gotten myself into this situation. My friend’s apartment was in the heart of Baltimore, but this area was unknown to me. Hell, it didn’t even look like Maryland let alone Baltimore.  The trees around me were very grey as was the sky. They drooped over the road in a canopy and created a sort of tunnel towards the first building. The odd thing was that there was extremely quiet. I’m used to the busy sounds of traffic, the call of sparrows, and droning hum of electricity pumping though circuits.  This place was dim and dark. I kind I don’t think I’ve ever seen before. This began to worry me because I began to think that I might be in some sort of trouble.
	As the building grew nearer I began to finally see shapes of people walking. This excited me because for a minute I began to think that I was dead and that this was some sort of limbo. I approached the building that said MAIN and realized that it was the beginning of a whole street. My guess was that this was Main Street and that my destination wasn’t too far away. I turned the corner and bumped into an elderly man.
	“Watch your step boy.”
	“My apologies old man. Say, could you point me in the direction of 67th and Main please? I’ve never been here before and I need to find this location.”
 	“Oh will you just WAKE UP!”
	“Look, I’m sorry I ran into you. Like I said, this place is new to me and I was trying to get my bearing when we collided.”
	“WAKE UP!”
	Just then a feeling I’ve never felt before came across me and I doubled over in pain. My stomach was aching and I began to feel nauseas. The grey atmosphere suddenly began colorful and I was starting to hallucinate. I began seeing an empty bed with a woman sitting on a chair next to it. I couldn’t see her face, but could tell she was an older woman. Just then, what looked like a doctor came in and escorted her away from the bed. I wish I could see her face, but before I knew it the hallucination stopped and I was returned to grey. I looked up and the man was gone.
	My stomach still felt weird but I continued on down the street. I began passing weird stores and shops. I passed a place called “The Drip Trip”, which was full of saline pouches hanging from hooks. People inside were just sitting on tables hooked up to these bags of clear liquid. The next shop I passed didn’t have a name but was filled with people. There seemed to be televisions EVERYWHERE. There must have been a hundred of them and they all had dates written under them. One man was watching 9/16/89 which was funny because that was nearly two years from now. Another television read 8/12/87 which was two weeks ago. I wanted to go inside and see what was going on but I remembered that I needed to get home and apparently 67th and Main held the answer to that question.
	I started looking at the numbers on the wall and was confused. I was standing in front of 59th and Main but when I got to the next building it jumped all the way to 112th. The building after that fell all the way down to 21st. I began to feel helpless. I began to feel scared. I had no idea where I was and nothing was making any sense.
	I gazed across the street and saw a looming billboard. Written in gangly text were the words WAKE UP. I began to feel nausea again and this time it was much worse. I lied down on the ground because I could barely stand.
	“What’s happening to me?”
	A woman appeared standing over me.
	“Don’t worry son, everything will be all right.”
	“What are you talking about? I have no money. I have no way of contacting anybody. I have this horrible pain in my stomach and to top it all off I have NO CLUE WHERE THE HELL I AM!”
	“Just wake up son. Just wake up.”
	I began to scream. The pain was just too bad. I was sitting with my back against the wall of a building and I put my head in my knees. I felt like I was going to vomit. I closed my eyes and began to focus on good things. I began to see the lake where I grew up as a boy. My father was teaching me how to ride my bicycle. I couldn’t make it ten feet without falling, but my father didn’t give up and neither did I. I saw my family at dinner together. I knew it was a Thursday because we were eating meatloaf. We seemed to be laughing about something because everybody had a huge smile on their face. I must have been about 15 at the time. The scene shifted to a graveyard where I stood above my father’s grave. He had died of a sudden heart attack when I was eighteen and our family was never the same. Thursday night dinner disappeared and I was lucky to even have a dinner a week with my mother and brother. The day I left for Maryland flashed. What I didn’t remember from that day was how sad my mother looked. I was looking for a fresh start and was getting into the car with a friend of mine. She just stood there staring at me while I drove away from her. I think I’ve only seen her three times in the last two years.
	The nausea ceased and I looked up and the woman was gone. I looked around and I was reminded of my situation. I got up and began to run. I ran past 32nd. I ran past 196th. I ran past 4th, 82nd, 63rd, and 50th. I ran until the grey faded to black and whirred past my face in a blur. I ran until my muscles burned and I was soaked in sweat. I ran until the fucking voices in my head telling me to wake up stopped. I ran until I hit a wall. Literally. I was staring up at the sky when I noticed something odd. An orange hue was beaming from the side of the wall that I hit. An orange hue in a sea of grey. When my head stopped spinning and my heart returned to a normal beat I stood up and gazed upon the orange sign.
	“Welcome to 67th and Main”
	I walked inside and was immediately blinded by white light. At the end of the room was an office window. The person behind the window was dressed in a white gown. The woman behind the window told me to take a number and a seat. The doctor would be with me in a moment.
	“Doctor?”
	“Yes sir, the doctor. Please have a seat.”
	I turned around and looked upon the only seat in the room which was positioned in the middle. I sat down and waited for what seemed like hours. I asked how much longer it would be but was given no answer, not even an acknowledgment of my existence. I eventually fell asleep and when I woke up the woman behind the window was telling me that the doctor was waiting for me in his office. I walked down the hallway and opened the only door I could find. I sat down in the chair and an old man swiveled his chair from behind the desk and stared at me.
	“Hello my boy. How can I help you?”
	“Umm yes, you can start by telling me where I am.”
	“You mean you haven’t figured that out yet? My boy, my boy, what have you been doing for the last three weeks?”
	“Three weeks? Sir, I’ve only been here a day.”
	“Oh you’ve been here longer than that my boy. I’m surprised it took you this long to get here. Sometimes people have an easy time, but there are a few that take as long as you have. But unfortunately by that time there really isn’t much we can do except find them appropriate housing.”
	“Doc, what are you talking about? Where the hell am I and how do I get home?”
	“Oh I’m afraid that isn’t up to me. You see only you can determine when you get sent home. I am only a simple doctor making sure that you don’t make yourself crazy in this place. It can be a little scary. And looking at your chart here I can tell you that it will all be over soon.”
	“Doc, I want to go home. Now. Just let me go home. Please.”
	“Then wake up. Just wake up.”
The floor opened up and I began to fall. I tried grabbing the desk but was met only with smile and the cold hands of the doctor telling me that it will be fine and that I needed to let go. I closed my eyes and images of the past began to fill my head. My hands began to slip and I did not care anymore. I didn’t want to live like this anymore. I wanted to go home. My grip loosened and I fell. I fell forever. Scenes of distant memories with my father flashed in the blackness. My father laughing. My father swimming. My mother crying. My father dying.
	I fell and I fell and I fell until at a certain moment I didn’t feel like I was falling anymore. A feeling of content came across me and I began to laugh. Not because I thought anything was particularly funny, but because in the situation I was in, there wasn’t really anything else I could do.
	A voice behind beckoned me to turn around. The voice was that of my father. Ther was his face, just looking at me.
	“Dad!” I screamed. My laughter turned to tears.
	“Dad, what is this? I want to go home.”
	“You are going home son. Well, you’re on your way. There is just one thing you need to do for that to happen and I promise everything will be alright.”
	“What is it?”
	“I need you to wake up.”
I hit something. Something soft. I opened my eyes and I was staring at a white ceiling and there was a tube in my throat and tubes in my arms. I heard sobbing and I turned to my right and saw my mother sitting next to me weeping. I looked around the room and realized I was in a hospital with the sun shining outside.
	“Hi mom.”
My mother turned to me and she began to cry harder. She wasn’t sad anymore. These were different tears. My mother couldn’t speak. She was just kissing me and holding me like she hasn’t seen me in years. The doctors came in and removed the tube from my mouth.
	“What happened?”
	“You left us for a while. But you’ve finally woken up. Oh my god, you’re awake.”
She wouldn’t let go of me, and I didn’t want her too. I was finally in a place where I didn’t feel nausea, I didn’t feel like dying. I knew where I was. I was home. My brother rushed into the room and began to hug me. I’ve never been hugged like that by my brother.
	“You’re awake! You’re awake!”
	“How long have I been out?”
	“About three weeks. Mom’s been here every single day since you overdosed. It’s been tough man. We didn’t think you were ever going to wake up. You have any good dreams?”
	“Just one. Just one.”