Blood erupts and flows down my mountainous stomach like a messy science fair project. Tim dumped me because I got fat, but isn’t that so entirely predictable of a man these days? Tim is my ex-boyfriend and from now on he will only be used as a plot point. You won’t get to know him, I’ll spare you the heartache.
There’s been complications.
People are busy trying to save a life.
Oh, and Merry Christmas.
Darkness seeps in and my soul goes cold. My grip loosens from the use-to-be-white sheets designed to soak up blood and urine. A nurse slaps me across the face and shouts, “Wake up! Now, wake up, sweetie.” Honestly, haven’t I suffered enough? My eyes roll back into my head as I beg her for pain medication. The nurse, who’s definitely someone’s mom says, “It’s too late for that honey, and besides, you already have enough chemicals in your blood.”
Can’t you just hear the disappointment in her voice?
“We’re losing her doctor,” a younger nurse says.
Someone shouts, “One hundred BPM.”
And another says, “Ninety over sixty and dropping.”
Everything’s become an out of body experience.
“She’s slipping into a coma.”
Everything’s officially out of my control.
“Then we need to get her out,” the doctor shouts.
Blood is pooling on the shiny white hospital floor and dark gooey footprints are being stamped in a flamenco dance pattern. A part of me is floating above my bloated and bloody body trying to commit the scene to memory. To satisfy my ravenous need to record everything in my life. One of the benefits of having a super power.
I remember shit.
When I was a kid, back before my daddy left, but way before my first period, he used to say, “Darlin, you have one highly superior memory. It’s a goddamn super power.” Now, I don’t know about all that, but autobiographically speaking, I can’t be beat.
I suppose it’s why I’m a photographer. I suppose it’s why I’m covered in tattoos. Always looking to record life in vivid detail.
The whole scene looks like a choreographed dance routine.
I take a mental picture so later when I’m laughing about this with friends I’ll be able to close my eyes and smell the iodine. Feel the lights hot against my skin. Everyone will laugh when I explain the look of horror on the doctor’s face when my guts finally spilled out. And for all of you that don’t believe that I have the most rad memory of all time, well: July 25th, 1965 was a Sunday and the weather announcer on the radio said it was a twenty-year low. I wore tight, flared out bellbottoms and a turquoise tank top and I remember thinking men who are old enough to be my dad are giving me the heebie-jeebies. I had cereal for breakfast and a burger and fries later that night and my horoscope said “One day you will become a leader of men.”
Everything is speculation.
Opinion.
Assumption.
Consumption.
My perspective.
My mind shrivels thinking about the past and what that means for my future. Floating above the room, looking down, even I don’t want to go back in there. My breasts are huge saddle bags hanging on either side of me, and I’m thinking, how embarrassing, I’ve forgotten to wear a bra. But no, if I’m going to be honest, it’s that I’ve grown, grown, grown.
This old grey mare, well, she aint what she used to be.
It’s what happens when you eat, eat, eat.
There’s something about emergency room lighting that does very little for a healthy self-image.
The doctor that’s inside me, like, what a pig right? Well, a couple of months ago I came to see him and he told me I could stand to lose twenty. Shocked, I said, “Twenty pounds!” He snickered and said, “No, twenty kilos.”
Ugh. Doctors, right? Ugh. Men, am I right?
There’s so much blood I’m starting to think I’d look good as a red head.
People say I’m scatterbrained.
Call me eccentric.
Call me disturbed.
Call me what you like, but please, whatever you do, don’t call me Calibri.
I was named after a font, of all the things to be named after.
My name is Calibri but you can call me Brie, or Cali if you prefer.
Calibri has been described as a ‘warm and soft character’ but in that sense perhaps I should have been named, Wingdings.
Of all the times I’ve died, this one is my favorite.
From up here I’m crowd surfing above a sea of doctors and nurses splashing around a mosh pit of my insides. They’re telling me to relax but c’mon man, are you kidding me?
Ever heard of, second-hand stress?
Ever heard the saying, smiling is contagious?
My body is lying on a gurney bleeding like a stuck pig and my mind is shredding all the evidence that I ever existed.
I’m running out of time.
I’m an emotion lost somewhere in the crease between life and death.
Am I dying or being reborn? Is this my death or my rebirth?
Cue the light. The blinding afterlife. A little girl, a young me basking in its glow awaiting my arrival. Was I ever that young? She waves me in, she says, “This way. Quick, hurry up, it’s not too late for the both of us.” She means that sweet innocent child is still somewhere inside me. Hope. The only thing I have left. To be that young again. When everything in life was fresh and new. When each day was an adventure. When my life was still on the rails. I’m wondering how I can get that curl back into my hair when she grabs my hand and says, “This way. I’ve found a way out.” I gotta say, this isn’t the weirdest thing that’s ever happened to me. Heroin is one hell of a drug and it’s gained significant control over me at the moment. My Hope, she pulls me into the light saying, “We don’t have much time.” I feel weirdly sentimental leaving my body in such a state. I look back, at the orchestrated chaos now moving in slow motion. Sound begins to disappear the closer I get to the light. My old dying eyes are closing. The nurse is silently screaming, “Wake up,” while she slaps my face. The doctor pulls out paddles and mouths, “Three, two, one. Clear!” My body jumps up off the table in the slowest of motion. My head snaps back and rolls to the side. The clock on the wall is counting backwards. My body snaps up, the doctor brining me back with his paddles and then hands them back to a nurse. One. Two. Three. A nurse takes her slap back and my eyes jolt open. We lock eyes and I wave as we disappear into the light to find a way out of this mess.
My name is Calibri, but you can call me Brie, or Cali if you prefer, and this is my life as I remember it.