Hallucination
So, I'll explain everything now. I remember some of it. But not all of it. Far from all of it. You've already figured out where I am. But you don't understand why I'm here. Neither do I, actually. I woke up not long ago. Though I don't know how much time has passed.
Let's think logically, about what's happening now. I'm in a hospital. I don't know which hospital. I'm lying on a bed. I can barely move. There's an oxygen mask on my face. Sensors, a cuff, needles. IV drips, of course. Catheters, of course. Yes, I know about that. And I definitely feel it.
The even hum of machines, somewhere nearby — the beep of a monitor. That means my condition is stable. Probably.
I can lift my head slightly, sideways. I see. A doctor is sitting on a chair, writing something in a chart. That's rather strange. A white, glossy suit. A zipper. A stethoscope. She doesn't even look at me. Maybe I've already become part of the furniture?
I closed my eyes... and the situation changed. The hum became more uneven. Was I asleep? Again?
Now there are two doctors standing beside me. Different ones. White, glossy suits again. At least these have buttons.
"She's almost ready."
"Too early. Not yet."
"Look, her eyes are moving under the lids."
Are you kidding me? I can't move! I can't even speak!
The scream got stuck somewhere inside. Only my eyelids twitched.
How am I even going to breathe without the mask?
And they left.
How interesting. I'm alone here now. Just me and the machines.
So, I did remember something after all.
Of course, it was evening. A club. Orange light, lots of people, music, alcohol. Yes, I was drunk. Too drunk, probably. I was probably doing the wrong things. And definitely saying the wrong things.
Then... then there was the bathroom. I needed to fix my makeup.
And after that I don't quite remember.
A mirror. My reflection — blurred, as if through water. The door behind me opened and closed more quietly than it should have.
A blonde woman. A white dress, a surgical mask. Something wet in her hand, a folded cloth.
I didn't even have time to ask what it was.
She pressed the wet cloth to my mouth. A sharp, chemical smell — and everything drifted away.
My glasses fell. I think I did too. Was that chloroform?
I was already lying on the floor. She put on long white gloves. And a syringe appeared.
Am I about to be kidnapped?
Everything drifted away completely.
I opened my eyes again. Is it evening now? Or morning? I don't know how much time has passed.
Another doctor is standing beside me. The fourth one? A green suit, a zipper.
Do they wear latex suits? That's absurd.
She smiles sweetly. Very sweetly. Very calmly — as if nothing bad is about to happen.
She says something. Quietly, gently. I can't make out the words — only the tone, soothing, almost like a lullaby.
Then — an injection. A light one, almost unnoticeable.
And silence.
The next time I open my eyes — something's wrong. In my throat. Something foreign, hard, deep inside. I can't cough. I can't swallow. Every breath isn't mine — it's someone else's, mechanical, taken for me.
A tube.
They've intubated me.
The light is different now. Brighter. White, almost without shadow — the kind that cuts into the eyes even through half-closed lids. No warm patches, no corners. Just even, sterile whiteness on every side.
The panic doesn't come right away. First — just surprise: how strange it is to feel air going in and out without my permission. And then — everything at once.
I want to rip out this tube. I want to scream that it hurts, that I'm scared, that I don't understand what's happening. But my body is a stranger's. My fingers won't move. My throat is clenched around the tube, and every breath from the machine echoes as a dull ache somewhere deep inside.
My heart is pounding — I hear it not in my chest but on the monitor. The beeping quickens. Someone will notice. Someone has to notice.
My thoughts tangle. Is this still reality, or not anymore? Maybe I'm still in that club, drunk, and this is just the worst dream of my life. Maybe I'm home. Maybe I don't exist at all.
The only thing that stays real is the white light. Too bright to be a dream.
A different room. Not the one before. More machines, more wires. There are at least three monitors here — each blinking with its own rhythm, its own numbers, which I don't understand.
Tubes stretch out from everywhere. From my arm. One — from the side, under the blanket, I can guess where exactly. A urinary catheter. One more item on the long list of things being done to my body without my permission.
I've stopped counting. I just register it. As if it isn't happening to me, as if I'm only an observer being shown someone else's medical history by accident.
Strange — it's this detachment itself that frightens me most. Not the pain, not the tubes, not the catheters. But the fact that I'm barely even trying to scream anymore.
How long have I been here? Days? Weeks? Maybe I was in a coma the whole time — and this isn't just a gap in my memory, but a whole absence, a hole into which an unknown stretch of my life has fallen.
No one tells me. And I can't ask.
Only my head moves. Everything else feels like a stranger's body, a borrowed one that no longer belongs to me.
A noise. Someone dragging a chair across the floor — a sharp, scraping sound that cuts through the silence.
Another doctor. A different one. A white suit — this time definitely latex, I can see it glisten under the light. Large white buttons. A surgical cap, a mask, glasses.
I see her clearly. Too clearly.
And another syringe.
"Don't worry," she says. Her voice is calm, almost tender. "It's just a sedative."
Sedative. As if the word itself could soothe anything.
"You've been intubated for eleven days now," she goes on, not taking her eyes off the syringe. As casually as if announcing the weather. "Longer than we'd have liked."
Eleven days.
I try to grasp that number, and it slips away, refusing to hold still in my mind. Eleven days means nothing. And at the same time, it means everything.
"We'll probably need to talk about a tracheostomy," she finally looks at me. "It'll be easier that way. For you. For us."
For us.
That phrase lodges in me deeper than the needle in my vein. Not "for you." Not "so you'll feel better." But "for us." As if I'm no longer a patient. As if I'm a vegetable, a toy that someone needs to optimize.
Tracheostomy. I know that word. Somewhere in my memory it surfaces — an opening. In the neck. Permanent or not, I don't remember. It doesn't matter. The main thing is: one more hole in my body, one more piece of me that will no longer belong to me.
I want to object. I want to say: no, wait, ask me, this is my body, let me decide something for myself just once. But there's no voice. Only the tube, the machine breathing in my place, and a woman in a white suit already writing something down in the chart, as if the matter is already settled.
Maybe it is. Maybe no one ever planned to ask me.
The needle goes into my vein. Warmth spreads up my arm.
My eyes won't open. I don't know if I can't, or if I'm simply afraid to try again and meet that same bright, cutting light.
But my body feels it. The body always feels things first, before the mind manages to name them.
Something in my nose. Deep, unpleasant, foreign — a thin tube going somewhere down, into the throat, further, to a place I no longer even try to imagine. Nasogastric. I remember that word from somewhere — maybe from a film, maybe from some previous life that now feels so far away.
It doesn't hurt. It's worse than hurting. It's a feeling of constant foreignness, as if my body no longer has any borders — everything can be pierced, inserted, pushed through, and it just silently accepts it.
And then I feel it. In front, on my neck. Pressure, a foreign opening where there was nothing before. The tracheostomy. So they did it after all. Without my "yes." Without a single word from me.
Breathing now happens differently — not through the mouth, not through the nose, but from somewhere below, directly, as if my own throat has become an unnecessary middleman. This is supposed to be "easier," she said. Easier for whom.
I've stopped counting the tubes. It seems like every part of me is now connected to something external, mechanical, cold.
And the worst part isn't the pain. The worst part is that I'm getting used to it. Every new tube frightens me a little less than the one before. I'm not afraid of the tubes. I'm afraid of no longer being afraid.
This time my eyes don't open right away. My eyelids are heavy, as if someone glued them shut from the inside, and I have to force myself, once, twice, until finally a sliver of light breaks through the darkness.
Blue lighting. Not the harsh white I've almost gotten used to, but a muted, cold blue, like being underwater.
A different room. I recognize it right away — the ceiling is different, the corners are different. There are even more machines here, and they sound different too: alongside the familiar hum, there's a new, deeper drone, and somewhere to the side — an even clicking, mechanical, almost rhythmic, like a metronome.
How many more machines do I need just to exist?
A figure by the bed. The blonde woman.
My heart — I only know this from the monitor, since I barely feel anything myself — quickens for a moment. Is it her? The same one from the club, with the wet cloth, with the mirror, blurred as if through water?
But her hair is different. Long, curly, stray strands escaping from under her cap. In the club, her hair was straight.
Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe so much time has passed that even hair had time to grow out and curl. How long have I been here? Weeks? Months?
Her suit is long, white, glossy — this time with metal buttons that gleam dully in the blue light. A cap. A mask. I can't see anything except her eyes.
She just looks at me.
For a long time. So long that I start to think — maybe she isn't going to say anything at all.
But then her eyes change slightly. Soften, as if she's decided something.
"You're safe," she says finally. Her voice is quiet, muffled through the mask. "You're safe here."
Safety. A strange word for a room full of tubes and strangers' hands on my body.
"This will be a little unpleasant now," she comes closer, and I hear something click — metal against metal, preparing some instrument. "We need to clear the tubes. The airways. It's important, otherwise there'll be an infection."
I don't understand half the words, but I understand the tone. The same tone adults use to warn children before a shot: it'll hurt a little, hang in there.
"Try not to panic," she adds. "It'll be quick."
Quick for whom.
Something enters the tube in my throat — thin, cold, and suddenly I can't breathe at all, not on my own, not through the machine, just pressure and the urge to cough that my body can't carry out.
It lasts seconds. Maybe ten. Maybe more — time doesn't count the way it should right now.
Then — air again. Mechanical, foreign, but air.
I lie there, shaking from something that can't even be called panic. It's deeper than that.
"See," she says quietly, almost tenderly. "All done."
All done. Until it isn't, again.
"A little more," the blonde says, and this time her voice sounds almost routine, as if we've done this a hundred times already.
The nasogastric tube comes out slowly — a strange, foreign sensation, as if something that had become part of me was being pulled out. Then a new one goes in just as slowly, and I don't even try to understand why anymore.
The catheter is changed in silence. I don't feel shame anymore. Shame is a luxury I left back there, in the club, along with the orange light and the music.
"Today we'll try something new," she says, and for the first time something like warmth shows in her voice. "A speaking valve. If it works — you'll be able to talk. Finally."
Finally.
Something clicks near the tube in my throat. The pressure changes.
"Try it," she says. "Quietly. One sound."
I try. The air doesn't move the way it should, it scrapes, catches — and then something breaks through. A hoarse, foreign sound that I barely recognize as my own voice.
"…Where am I?"
The blonde leans closer. Takes off her mask.
And I recognize the face. The same one. From the club. From the mirror.
"You're home," she says, smiling that same sweet smile. "You've always been home."
The blue light around me dims.
The hum of the machines grows quieter, farther away, as if disappearing behind a wall that was never there.
Maybe I'm still in the club. Maybe I'm still drunk, dancing under the orange light, and none of this ever happened.
Or maybe I'm here. Forever. And this isn't a hallucination.
Maybe this is just what I've become.
