Chapter Nineteen: Now You See It, Now You Don't

Blogger is down more than it is up, Chris thought. It was late and he wanted to post an entry, but it kept timing out. He couldn't go to bed without posting, could he?

Chris jerked suddenly and sat up in his bed, sweat pouring from every pore. His surroundings were unfamiliar, but there were no machines, no doctors, no nurses. It must have been a dream. He hoped it was a dream. He kicked his feet over the edge of bed and started to stand up. Looking at the window he could see several large buildings – most of them covered with blinking lights, neon. One of them had an unearthly green hue. This must be Reno, he thought.

Things had been going along very normally, generally speaking; however, he had lapses that drove him crazy. His life had been very normal until losing his arm. After the accident, every day was just a challenge to keep moving forward, to not obsess with the missing arm. It wasn't that big of a deal. A lot of people had worse problems. He thought back to a video he saw in high school about a girl that lost both arms at the shoulders, yet she could drive a car, write with a pencil and paint using her toes. She didn't seem to know that she was different from everyone else.

Why can't I think like that?

This seemed to be a moment of clarity. He was thinking clearly. It troubled him that things could be so normal one minute, but then turn upside-down. How did he end up in Reno? He recalled the conversation with the doctors and the discussion of Reno. Maybe the question wasn't about how he ended up in Reno – it was more about what events in his life led him to this point. When he was thinking straight he liked to sort things out, since he was never sure what might happen between one day and the next.

Before his thoughts could settle, there was a knock at the door. Chris stood up and suddenly became unsure whether he was in a hospital room or in a hotel room. Then another knock. He took a moment to orient himself and then walked to the door. He started to reach for the door knob and was startled to see that his prosthetic arm was gone. At some point in the past he would have been shocked or surprised, but now he was just annoyed. He had long ago stopped expecting anything since he never knew what to expect.

“Room service!” Sam called out in a jovial voice before the door was completely open. Chris immediately embraced her, excited to see someone he knew – someone familiar in a strange place.

“What are you doing here?! I mean, I'm glad you're here, but what are you doing here?” He had already forgotten that he called Sam and asked her to come to Reno.

“I hadn't seen you at work for a few weeks, so I tracked you down. I called some of my bounty hunter friends and they ratted you out,” she joked, not wanting to draw attention to the fact that he had already forgotten the phone he made just yesterday.

“Sam, I'm going crazy,” Chris suddenly confessed without warning, still holding Sam in his arms. Sam could see that he was visibly shaken – his entire body quivered slightly. “I can't remember half of what happens from one day to the next. My arm suddenly attaches itself to me. Then it's gone. Now I'm in Reno for who-knows-what reasons.”

Sam backed slightly away from Chris to see his face better. She looked him in the eyes and said, “Let's sit down. You're okay and you're not going crazy.” She didn't have any answers for Chris. “You're here because you were hit by lightning and had some symptoms they were worried about.” She didn't want to continue to draw attention to his arm.

“My arm makes me a freak. I'm a freak for not having an arm and then I'm freak for having some stinking plastic abomination melted to me. Most of all I'm a freak because I'm losing my mind. They just want me to here to do their sideshow experiments,” he said as thoughts raced through his mind. Sam took his natural hand and led him back to his bed. She pulled a chair over by the side of the bed where she could continue to hold his hand as he sat on the edge of the bed. Chris was starting to calm down and now had a catatonic stare on his face that suddenly disappeared when Sam squeezed his hand.

“Chris, listen. The doctors originally sent you here to have a few tests done. It's not a big deal.” The moment was awkward for Sam. She liked Chris. She liked him a lot. It made her feel good that he needed her so much now. She also liked holding his hand. She reminded herself that this was not the right time. Besides, it was starting to scare her a little to see Chris like this.

Chris pulled Sam toward him, once again embracing her. “I'm glad you're here, Sam.”