It was silent. I felt as if I was floating, swaddled, the only sound was a rhythmic pulse, not unlike a heartbeat. I had never experienced a sensory deprivation tank, supposedly a way to totally relax, it is suggested that the experience is not unlike being in the womb, warm and secure. Of course, nobody can remember this formative time of their life, and I often thought that this was a shame, to have that memory of such an idyllic state would be comforting in times of stress, but then I suppose the opposite could also be true. The birth process is not always smooth, there is sometimes trauma. Maybe there is some residual memory, maybe some peoples’ tendency to suffer from claustrophobia, is in some way linked to a difficult journey through the birth canal. Wherever, and considering my recent experiences, whenever I was at this moment, the feeling of calm was to be only fleeting. There was a noise, like water receding and I felt my body drop, it was as If I had been floating in a bath and somebody had taken the plug out. I went from having no perception of my physical state to a condition where-upon I became acutely aware that I was facing downwards and slowly falling. I was now in a cramped space, I felt pressure, a pulsating force pushing me ever further downwards and the space behind me closing as I passed through.
Fear of the unknown gripped me, I had no control, the pressure on my body was becoming intense, painful, when finally with a dramatic lurch I was free.
I opened my eyes, with some difficulty it must be said, it felt as if I had been the victim of a drunken prank, where-upon some wag, who found it impossible to discriminate between humour and sadism had glued my eyelids together in my sleep. With some effort, and not a little discomfort I eventually managed to open them and immediately slammed them closed again as a blinding white light assaulted my senses. I was more circumspect with my second effort and peered through as small a gap as possible, until my retina accepted the change in its situation. I found myself in a hospital room, the bright light was a fluorescent tube immediately above me on the ceiling, a large very angry fly was engaged in a futile attempt to escape the casing. Why it is that flies are clever enough to find their way into just about anywhere but find it impossible to get out again, has often made me wonder, you can leave the door open that they entered by, only for them to spend the next twenty-four hours throwing themselves at a closed window until they die of a combination of exhaustion and the mother of all headaches. The beeping noise I had heard turned out to be a heart monitor attached to me by one of the many tubes and wires that now seemed to be a part of my anatomy, having spent my recent past experiencing historical events I began to wonder if maybe I had now made it into the future ,and was in a reality not far removed from the one explored in the matrix movies, I expected Keanu Reeves to come through the door at any moment, it would make as much sense as anything else that had happened to me. In fact, when the door did open, rather than the unkempt appearance of mister Reeves I was treated instead to a vision of beauty. Her smile brightened the room, no mean feat when you consider the power of fluorescent light, her jet-black hair was tied back and tucked into a white cap, her green eyes scrutinised me and her crisp white uniform rustled as she approached the bed. It never ceases to amaze me, how, whatever torment a man is going through, the appearance of a beautiful women transcends all, as I gazed at my own personal Florence Nightingale my heart skipped a beat. “Finally sleepy head awakes” she said, I was temporarily speechless and just lay there watching as she checked my pulse and blood pressure, happy, or so it appeared with the results, she informed me that she would summon a doctor and left the room with a swish of her dress and a tantalising glimpse of black stocking seams. I was left to my musings none the wiser as to where I was or how I came to be here, and to be honest I suddenly did not care, I just lay in bed and watched the door, praying she would return.
She did come back; in fact, she came back on numerous occasions. I remained in the York general hospital neurological ward for a further seven days, during which time I fell in love. Her name was Mary Fitzpatrick, she was twenty-seven years old, and had come to York five years previously to train as a nurse, most importantly to me she was single. At first her visits were a part of her daily duties, but by the third day she began visiting me during her own time, holding my hand while I went to sleep, easing my anxiety of where, or more accurately when I would end up if I were not tethered to this reality.
Nurse Mary Fitzpatrick is now Mary Turner, and she is my wife, in fact she is more than my wife, she is my strength, my reason for facing each day as a new adventure. Having nursed me back to health after the fractured skull, head trauma and severe concussion, she encouraged me to face the demons of my dreams during the coma. The dreams, or experiences as I prefer to think of them as, are crystal -clear in my memory, which is unusual, at least for me as dreams have always begun to fade and disappear before my first morning cup of tea.
My experiences had seemed so real, so personal that I have become an amateur student of oneirology, the scientific study of dreams. Although little is really known, there is a school of thought that the jumbled images you get are akin to a computer backing up the data at the end of the day, so to all intents and purposes they are memories. I was intrigued as to this hypothesis, because although there was a certain pleasing logic to it, my experiences could not be my memories, that was impossible, as I had not been alive for any of them. It was then that I remembered the Sunday times magazine from my journey to York, the article on racial memory, was it possible? I would recommend anyone to research their ancestry, I found out so much about my present through my past, how the person I am today has been shaped by those that have gone before, but the parts that left me speechless were that my great, great grandfather had died after being knocked down in the street by a horse and carriage, my great grandfather had died when a v2 German bomb had destroyed his house only days before he was due to enlist and go to France to fight the Nazis, and my grandmother had died after being trampled in the crowd during the queen’s coronation.
My friend John is currently somewhere in Sumatra, possibly co-habiting with an orangutan, as far as I am aware, with John anything is possible. I applaud his lifestyle and admire his courage, is it for me? No not really, I still find comfort in routine, I suppose I am at heart a creature of habit; however, I will be forever grateful for that momentary rush of blood to the head that he inspired in me that morning. How, by turning left instead of right when I left the house, my life was sent down a different path, how changing my routine had put me in a train carriage instead of my car, how a random stranger had told me to read an article on racial memory, and how my unplanned walk from the station had led to the accident that allowed me to meet the love of my life.
THE END
© Gareth Mehigan 2026
