The Mirrorverse

Maya’s wet hair hung limp down her back, soaking the towel she was sporting as she put her feet up in readiness for her favourite movie and a tub of strawberry ice cream, despite it still being early morning. She had just been for a dip in the pool, and didn’t see any point in wearing anything that was just going to get soaked by the mass of hair that she couldn’t be bothered to blow dry. Especially since she was likely to re-enter the pool post movie.

Maya was sat beside Paws, her cat, on the large leather sofa that took up much of the open plan living area of their opulent home.

It wasn’t one of Ka’s films that she was going to watch, she could never take any movie seriously that Ka was in. All she saw was her man, and she was never too enamoured with watching him kiss other women, even if it was for work. So, ice cream at the ready, movie playing on the vast television hanging on the living room wall, she settled down, trying to forget the nightmares of late. If only they could have forgotten her.

Maya must have dozed off at some point, as when she opened her eyes an unfortunately familiar vista greeted her. She was in an open ward, surrounded by beds and sleeping people. Again. Her limbs felt like lead and as she tried to shake her head from side to side, it merely twitched.

she closed her eyes tightly, praying to wake up back at home. She knew she would wake up, she always did, so why not now? Tentatively, she opened her eyes only to witness the same surroundings. Repeating the process, squeezing her eyes shut as tightly as humanly possible, she failed to wake up at home. Again. And again.

Come on, wake up, she thought to herself, wanting out of her nightmare. This isn’t real. It isn’t. Wake up. WAKE UP! she screamed inside her head, willing herself home. But nothing she did worked, she couldn’t get out of there, so she just had to ride it out until she got to go home.

Exasperated, Maya lay there prone, her arms barely responding. Her eyelids felt heavy so she let them close.

Maya moved her hands and fingers, followed by feet and toes. She tried to move her head from side to side, but that was harder. She noted with disgust that the tube was back in its place entering her nose and snaking down the back of her throat.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw a figure moving.

“Hey!” she called, the all too familiar croak appearing instead of a voice.

“NURSE!” the figure was shouting and a woman in a pink sweatshirt and jogging bottoms came into view, waving her arms around and pointing at Maya. Another figure advanced on her rapidly from her right, coming into focus as a nurse.

“Good afternoon,” the nurse said pleasantly, reaching behind Maya to do something she couldn’t see.

“Good afternoon,” she replied, thinking that it was in fact a particularly horrid afternoon, and not good at all.

In rushed the balding man whom she recognised from her last jaunt into the psychiatric ward, and a severe looking woman she didn’t recognise. The man told the first nurse to telephone her parents, and she hurried away to do his bidding.

“Hello,” he greeted, beaming broadly before shining a light into each eye. “Pupil responses normal,” he announced to the woman next to him, who nodded whilst keeping a totally straight, emotionless face. “Your parents will be along shortly, just relax, and please try and keep your eyes open,” he said to Maya in his now familiar condescending tone.

“Want to go sleep so can wake up,” she announced, realising the paradox she had just muttered, the irony not escaping her.

“Yes, yes of course.” He brushed her comments aside with a shake of his hand as he embarked on a series of questions.

“What is the last thing you remember doing?” he asked, as the nurse to his left scribbled on a clipboard.

“Eating ice-cream and watching a movie.” The voice that uttered these words was beginning to sound more like her own, but was still somewhat amphibious.

“And what was happening in your life around that time?” his voice was level and practised, Maya figured it was the typical bedside manner of a psychiatric physician.

“I was playing concerts with the orchestra.”

“Okay,” he nodded slowly. “And what orchestra was that?” he pursued, his tone beginning to irritate her.

“Los Angeles Symphonic Orchestra,” that took a couple of attempts to get out, but she managed it somehow.

“Okay,” he said again, still nodding. “And what year is it?” At this, his head ceased all movement as he fixed her in a stare, his overgrown chin resting in his hand.

She told him what year it was, and the date, or thereabouts, she was never too sure what date it was anyway. Or day of the week for that matter. His head jerked upwards, out of its cradling hand and he stared at her in amazement, looking actually interested for the first time.

“Might not be 20th,” she continued. “Not good with dates.”

He sounded surprised as he asked, “How, has somebody told you the date?”

“No,” she replied disdainfully.

“Right, let’s leave it at that, as your parents will be here any moment, and they’ll be very happy to see you.” He bustled off, leaving the nurse writing on a clipboard, while the other nurse tucked in and straightening her sheets.

To occupy herself until she awoke at home, she moved her arms and legs around. She tired quickly and drifted off to sleep, only to be prodded awake by a nurse who was checking she hadn’t returned to her apparently comatose state.

“So you can’t even get some sleep around here?” she complained, giving the nurse a sideways glare.

“I think you’ve been asleep for long enough,” she chirped in a matronly manner, stern but not unkind.

“Except I was up half the night with nightmares.”

“I’m afraid that is impossible,” she said in earnest. “You woke up five nights ago in the coma unit, and were brought here so we could treat you properly should you awake again, which you did three days ago.”

“I dreamed those too,” Maya’s voice was lazy, benign. The nurse registered her disinterest with surprise.

“You are not dreaming, you are quite awake,” she insisted, adjusting my drip.

“But it feels so real, it’s all so real,” murmured Maya, more to herself than to the nurse.

“That’s because it is real. You have been very ill, young lady, be glad you are back here so we can make you better.”

Maya lay there, stretching her arm out to the side and pondering on the situation she had landed back into.

How can this be so real? She thought, pinching her arm hard.

“Ow!” she cried out. The pain was most certainly real.

Any train of thought from that was put on hold as her parents were escorted through the door by the doctor with the dimple in his bulbous chin. She decided that all he needed was a dimple in his bulbous bald head and he’s have a matching set.

“Maya!,” cried her mother, coming towards her with her arms out. She grabbed Maya into a tight hug, almost crushing the life out of her. her father followed suit, grabbing her into another hug she was concerned she wouldn’t get out of with her life.

“You’re awake, it’s amazing, how do you feel?” asked her mum, taking one hand while her father took the other, leaving Maya wondering if she was going to be made into a tug of war toy.

Her mother then did something that shocked Maya more than anything so far in that dream; she burst into tears.

“Oh mum, don’t cry.” The words were designed to calm her but they only served to turn her into a weeping jelly. Maya turned to her dad for support, but to her horror found that he was crying too. Confused, she lay in between them, wondering what was going on. She decided that in her dream, this version of her had been in a coma for months. If that was the case, then it was no surprise she had a pair of blubbering parents.

“I am dreaming,” she told them earnestly. “I’ll wake up soon, don’t worry.” This seemed to have the desired effect, sobering both of them up immediately.

“How can you say that?” demanded her mother tearfully, bringing her hand up to her face and kissing her fingers. “You’ve been dreaming for nearly three months, now you are awake. We’ve waited so long, they told us you would never wake up, that you had no brain function above the processes keeping your body alive. They said you’d never open your eyes, and you did! You did! Only you weren’t very coherent, and they told us not to expect very much, and here you are, talking, looking, being alive!”

At this, her father broke down again, crying all over her hand. It was beginning to break her heart, seeing them like this. she had kept all the events surrounding her at a distance since none of it was real, but it all began to hurt. It started to pierce through the bubble that she was in, the dissociating device that kept her from really feeling anything of that bizarre world.

“How could you have left us like that?” cried her mum, turning over her wrist to show a raised, red scar perpendicular to her arm. The world stood still. That was the suicide that she had dreamed of, the cut from the razor blade drawn across the skin by my her hand. she could hear ringing in her ears, and her stomach was beginning to constrict, in fact it was imminently about to eject its contents. She turned her head to the side and threw up all over the bed and the floor.

Suddenly there was noise everywhere, nurses were running around and Maya’s parents were getting in the way. As the nurses changed her sheets, she saw herself for the first time. Her arms were as thin at the bicep as they were at the wrist. Her legs were sticks, sicking out of the bottom of the undignifying nappy that she was still wearing. Her limbs looked like she hadn’t used them in a long time.

Right away, she started to convince herself it was a dream again. She had woken up twice, why wouldn’t she wake up this time? But the seed had been sown, and it occurred to her that she had woken up twice, but which was the waking, and which was the falling asleep? Sleep. she needed sleep, she needed oblivion, nothingness.

“Let me go to sleep,” she begged, tears involuntarily coming forth and falling onto the newly changed bed sheets. “I just want to go to sleep, this can’t be happening.”

“It’s okay Maya, we’re here,” assured her mother, back at her side. She heard the doctor tell her parents that she needed her rest, and could they take a seat outside.

“Ka, where’s Ka?”

“Who is Ka?” asked her father sympathetically.

“He’s my boyfriend, Kairi Kirkland, where is he? I want Ka!” Fresh tears flowed as she desperately willed herself to wake up. she thought about how ironic it was that she had been praying that Ellie would believe it was real, but now that she was there and it seemed so real, all she wanted to believe was that it was a dream. They didn’t know who Ka was, of course they didn’t. This world wasn’t real, this body wasn’t hers.

“Sorry, what’s his name?” asked her mother, getting a sharp look from the doctor.

“Ka-ee-ree Kirk-land,” she pronounced syllable by syllable.

“Okay, okay,” her mum smiled.

Maya closed her eyes and pretended she was somewhere else. This body seems pretty tired considering it’s been asleep for three months, she thought sardonically as she felt the rushes of sleep overtaking her.