{"id":319,"date":"2024-04-03T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-04-03T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.theworldrevolvesaroundmichael.com\/?p=319"},"modified":"2024-03-30T19:17:30","modified_gmt":"2024-03-31T00:17:30","slug":"part-7-waking-up-at-the-hospital","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.theworldrevolvesaroundmichael.com\/index.php\/2024\/04\/03\/part-7-waking-up-at-the-hospital\/","title":{"rendered":"Part 7: Waking up at the Hospital"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"color:black;font-family:Arial\">I&#8217;m faintly aware of crying. Of worry. Of people, rushing around me. The world. Spinning. My eyes are closed, they always have been, it seems. It&#8217;s bliss. Quiet. Here, in the darkness and lightness and fuzziness of the moment between sleep and wake. The darkness lures me in. I accept its pleas for my presence. I sleep.<\/span><span style=\"font-family:Times New Roman\"><br \/>\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"color:black;font-family:Arial\">I wake up, surrounded by doctors, nurses, and my family. And Daisy. And Daren. Ha. It takes me a moment to realize that I have spoken the words aloud. &#8220;What do you mean, honey?&#8221; my mother asks worriedly. I laugh. And laugh. The laughter bubbles up in my stomach and comes up my throat into a hiccup-laugh combo. I realized I must be creeping people out, so I stopped. &#8220;Don&#8217;t you see? I&#8217;m dead! I let the darkness pull me in! I&#8217;m free! Of Daren and his\u2026&#8221; I trail off. &#8220;I&#8217;m alive, aren&#8217;t I\u2026?&#8221; I say. Then I see what a stupid question that is and I say, &#8220;Well. Yes. Of course I&#8217;m alive. I&#8217;m fine. Ha! I scared myself, didn&#8217;t I. I&#8217;m okay, mom. Really. I&#8217;m fine. I&#8217;m wonderful. I&#8217;m full of bull. But it is amazing.&#8221; <\/span><span style=\"font-family:Times New Roman\"><br \/>\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m faintly aware of crying. Of worry. Of people, rushing around me. The world. Spinning. My eyes are closed, they always have been, it seems. It&#8217;s bliss. Quiet. Here, in the darkness and lightness and fuzziness of the moment between sleep and wake. The darkness lures me in. I accept its pleas for my presence. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,55],"tags":[36,18,11],"class_list":["post-319","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction","category-writing-samples","tag-carolyn","tag-fiction","tag-writing"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.theworldrevolvesaroundmichael.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.theworldrevolvesaroundmichael.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.theworldrevolvesaroundmichael.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.theworldrevolvesaroundmichael.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.theworldrevolvesaroundmichael.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=319"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.theworldrevolvesaroundmichael.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":320,"href":"https:\/\/blog.theworldrevolvesaroundmichael.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319\/revisions\/320"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.theworldrevolvesaroundmichael.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.theworldrevolvesaroundmichael.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.theworldrevolvesaroundmichael.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}