Buffista Hivemind at work.

I'm not feeling dark. I'm feeling the cheerful. Hence, new drabble:

Carla bounced as high as she could, her little body stretching towards the unreachable pinnacle of her mother's ceiling. "Wake up, Mommy, wake up! It's my birthday!"

"What?" teased her mother from below, her head miles away but her voice strong, "It can't be your birthday! I didn't get you any presents!"

"Moooommmmmmmmmmyyyyyyyy, you did so! I saw it in the back of the car and it was wrapped and it had my name on it!"

With a loving laugh, Mommy swept Carla's legs from under her, mid-bounce, capturing her daughter in a strong, affectionate embrace. "Yes, Carla. I did."

I swim into consciousness slowly. The world shivers into focus: white light. A pale yellow curtain. Brown eyes. I begin to hear voices in the background and the impersonal beeping of the machine telling me I still have a heartbeat.

I can feel the tape pulling at the fine hairs where the plastic tubing enters my arm and the stiffness of the starched, white sheets folded across my chest. They are perfectly sqaure and unrumpled, as if no one is beneath them.

Brown eyes. His hand on my cheek, tentative and gentle, is the only thing that seems real.

I had nothing until I read this last one, and coupled with Steph's surgery one, (thank you Steph and Kristin!) made me realize I do have something to write about that has to do with someone lying down and someone standing up. I hope it works.

Resurrection

Let me close my eyes against this.

Murmuring sounds the call and response. A tugging--catch, release--parts my body from itself strapped to a crucifix beneath fluorescent sky. The instruments sound a faint tympanum and the congregants make bright chatter while I flinch.

There is someone holding my hand, vaguely felt through the buzzing of the puncture in my spine. Someone exhorts, "Look up! Look up! Let me see your eyes."

A baby body swings past my tilting vision and is gone, soundless. The punching begins. And ends, and I am made different, undone.

Let me close my eyes.

Oh Deena, that's beautiful.

Thanks, Kristin.

What I like best about these drabbles is that all of you are making me feel brave enough to write what I think without the filters I normally employ, trying to be safe and socially acceptable. It's something I've wanted to do for a long time and haven't been able to cut through the crap and do.

Oh, man, the medical memory drabbles you people are doing are so damned fine.

I'm not doing hospital drabbles. I'm tired of thinking about how often I stand by a bed with Hubby in it, attached to things that beep at me.

That was exquisitely powerful, Deena. I know what you mean about filters, and it's something I've always struggled with. Part of the reason I'm writing very commerical stuff, in fact. Which makes me sad when I think about it too much.

KristinT, I love "The world shivers into focus" and the machine being the thing that tells her she has a heartbeat. Oh, and the little detail of the tape pulling at the fine hairs on her arm. It really achieves that floaty, not-quite-here feeling of waking up in a hospital bed.

The drabble that came to mind for this is very weird, in that I have no idea why it came to mind, and I haven't actually written it yet.

The medical ones make me shiver. Atavistic fear, powerful.