Chapter Thirty-Five: David's Slumber

David awakes. He's in a hospital, with nurses occasionally coming in to check on his fluids and vital signs. He feels extremely exhausted, like he's been run over by a train or something, drained. What's the last thing he remembers? Let's see, there was the party at his friend's house in the suburbs, followed by 'the dare' - his buddies bet him $50 that he wouldn't walk the dangerous downtown streets for 30 minutes and live to tell about it. They had thought he was too afraid to step outside of his 'cushy, rich boy, suburban lifestyle' and experience anything different, anything 'too exciting'. They were right, of course, but David couldn't not accept the dare - he had to prove them wrong.

The events of that night trickled back into his rememberence, slowly, one at a time - like the cars outside the drive-up window at El Pollo Loco, David's favorite restaurant. Then he remembered them - the two guys he had encountered in front of the bus station. What were their names? Tony. And... Bill, was it? Something like that. A black guy and a small, thin guy. Something about a Super 8 motel. And Spongebob. And...

"How long have I been here?" David asked. A pretty, young nurse had just walked in, breaking his concentration as he searched his mind for answers. "You've been here for about a week - asleep..." she replied, answering him gently as she took his temperature. "Asleep?" David wondered, hesitantly, "The whole time?"

"You were in a coma, David." An older doctor was standing inside the doorway, apparently having been observing him for some time, which unnerved David slightly, but he brushed it aside. "You suffered a subdural hematoma, caused by a blunt blow to the head, and you lost a fair amount of blood. The anoxia caused you to lapse into a hypoxic coma. We thought, perhaps, that you might've suffered some minor brain damage, as well, but you're apparently healing quite well, given the circumstances." The doctor continued, "You were found by a homeless man, beaten unconscious, in an alleyway downtown. Do you have any recollection of how you got there?"

"I think so, but not everything - I just remember pieces. There was a bet, and these two guys, and floating...," David trailed off. He could hear himself talking, but he thought his ears were playing tricks on him. He heard his words clearly in his mind, but his hearing told him that he was slurring his words slightly. The doctor was taking notes on a clipboard, and after a few moments pause, told him that slurred speech and minor memory blocks were quite common after recovering from a coma, but were usually not permanent and nothing to worry about.

"We'll have you go through one more session of hyperbaric oxygen therapy tonight, and, based upon these most recent test results, I see no reason that you couldn't be released tomorrow, if you're feeling better," the doctor followed up. "Do you have any family nearby?"

"No," David answered, "I'll be fine by myself. My parents are I aren't really on speaking terms right now..."

"Well," concluded the doctor, "I'll swing by in the morning to see how you're doing. I know this sounds ironic, but get some more rest, okay?"

David fell asleep that night to a rerun of 'Ally McBeal' on TV. He dreamt of walking the downtown streets, of voices and dark alleyways. Of shadowy people he didn't know, and of nice men in suits. Lightness and dark. Conflict and peace.

He could feel himself floating a few feet above his body, but surely he must be dreaming, right? As he looked down, he could clearly see himself, lying there in the darkness, although he almost didn't recognize himself. His skin was a pale grey, and his body looked to him more like a container, a vehicle, than a living thing. As he looked up and around, David could see doorways. Not the hospital doors between rooms, but seemingly ethereal passages that didn't seem to be bounded by gravity or any other 'natural' restriction. From where he was, David could just barely peek through the cracks of the doorways without opening them and see fleeting glimpses of other places and other times. How he knew what he was seeing he did not know, exactly, but it all made perfect sense to him, and seemed oddly familiar.

A door opened noiselessly, and a handsome man in a suit stepped in, smiling. "Hello, David, my name is Tanagua. Follow me."