The Intervention

Green waves lift and touch the side of a long-tail boat. The gentle tap, the gentle slap of the seawater, the smell of salt air. The sounds: water against the small white boat, the occasional cry of a gull, the light backwash of ocean wind.

It was all so familiar to Hannah, as the boat moved on. Gently on. It was peace and it was a tranquil blue and green that she seemed to awake from and slip back into. Her warm skin, the peace, a sapphire horizon that they were moving toward. Yes, in that moment it was all hers because she was not attached to it, had let go of it. A stone’s throw away, she saw them – the gulls cawing on the surface of the still yet stirring ocean. Like a living, breathing painting. A painting that moves. The boat was not travelling fast at all; it was not floating, nor drifting. It was being guided. Or being led by someone, something. All her senses began to register that things were good, were okay. She was shifting still, slipping in and out of realms: the paradise at sea and somewhere else.

Where am I … going? Home? Where have I just come from?

Shifting in and out of paradise, losing it, yet managing to hold on – a moment in paradise … the dream, and then the sense that she was right with herself and her place in the world.

All of it was right. And all of it was good.

Yes, that was the feeling – like she was going home.

“: away went Alice like the wind,”

That was how it was in the dream; that was how it always was. She was moving somewhere, but not with any guilt or anxiety. If Hannah could only remember how she came to be lying in these white sheets on this bed, perhaps she wouldn’t need to dream. But she didn’t know. She didn’t know anything. Maybe that was why she was swaying in the dream – suspended in the waters. She didn’t know the answers, she couldn’t remember her story; she couldn’t remember, no matter how hard she tried.

Maybe that’s the key, to quit trying.

Hannah was anchored to a bed – around her, no green ocean – just a white clinical-looking room. A hospital, of sorts.

The smell of something clean permeated the room, but it wasn’t natural like the sea air. It wasn’t natural at all, and neither was the woman sat opposite her. She was performing a role she didn’t much care for, she had a smile that was ‘nice.’ She was in white, of course, she had wisps of curly hair that were escaping from a bun. Hannah had decided a lot about her from where she sat – just a few feet away, which was not enough distance as far as Hannah was concerned. She wanted to be far, far away from everything that was this. She wanted to be back in the boat.

If I could smell her, she’d stink like a fruit cake.

The woman balanced a clipboard on her knees and was quiet as she waited; she wore a long skirt and beige tights that were as thick as trousers. It was the kind of quiet that hovered. Hannah’s eyes had come into focus when the woman smiled. The woman scribbled something on her clipboard and cleared her throat.

‘Hi there. My name is Sheila and I am your nurse.’

‘Sheila’ put out her hand. As if through instinct Hannah knew how to respond, except she was unable. She willed her hand to reach out in greeting but somehow her body would not do what her mind wanted of her.

What? This is weird …

Hannah was unable to direct her body.

‘Wh-oooh? Me-eeh?’ she asked the nurse.

‘I know how difficult this must be for you. You’ve just woken up. You’ve woken up for the first time since your coma – two years ago.’

Why was I put into a coma? Have you been sat there the whole time? Have you been sat there watching me like a pervert?

Only a muffled roar came out of her mouth. Sheila jotted down a few more notes on her clipboard.

A fucking clipboard? The patient? A lost cause. That’s what you’re writing. I know I’m not. I’m not!

Hannah imagined her to be writing all kinds of terrible things, but it was probably more like a doodle because, in reality, none of this was real. It was The Truman Show, or that other movie they made.

Hmm, reality. What is reality? Hold up, if I am mentally disabled, how do I remember the movies?

‘We’ll be getting you familiar with the world again, Hannah, one step at a time. Just don’t feel as though you need to know everything or do everything all at once. Your body will have to go through a process of relearning all of the basic things.

‘Re-education’? Brilliant! We’ve heard this before …

‘You’ve been kept alive with food and water through tubes for the last two years and that will continue for now. At the beginning, we’ll stick with this … when you want to say “no” blink once, and when you want to say “yes” blink twice. Shall we try that now?’

God this is awful.

‘Good. Now, I’ll leave you to rest and get used to your new world. You’ll get tired out by even the simple things at this stage, so you might drift off again.’

Sheila exited through the open door, leaving nothing behind for Hannah but the hint of something floral, which then began to soak further into the room.

Okay, so … hell, but I will escape. Now, let’s start with what I can.

This is an edited extract from the book The Intervention  by Stephanie Baloche (Foreshore Publishing £8.50).