Kristian Burford | |
 | < | Rebecca has returned to the house in which she grew up to convalesce after waking from a coma three months ago. She awoke to discover that her body was paralyzed from the neck down.
The accident occurred late in the afternoon of a warm July day. A dive into murky water which concealed a large tree limb, that floated away as invisibly as it had approached, left her with a broken neck and a severe concussion. Her injuries were efficiently inflicted. Her only disfigurement was a lump raised at the back of her head that remained concealed beneath her auburn hair. The modesty of the spectacle belied its dramatic effect on those who witnessed it. The climax of anticipation, produced in the silent period between a diver entering the water and his subsequent revelation at its surface, was powerfully enhanced in the moments that marked Rebecca’s submersion as unusually long. This left the swimmers who witnessed the gentle resurfacing of her unconscious body momentarily incapable of action, as if they were unable to conclude that they were looking at the same body which had recently entered the water.
In hospital Rebecca’s unconscious body was bathed, massaged, and nourished intravenously. On the morning of her 164th day of hospitalization, a nurse noticed that her closed eyes were reddened and puffy and that the pillow supporting her head was dampened where it touched her cheeks. The jubilation occasioned by her awakening was impossible for Rebecca to involve herself in. Thankfully for her, this excitement subsided after she returned to her childhood home to begin an indefinite convalescence. In the three months that have passed since her return, she has endured a sparse but consistent pattern of visitations from friends and family brave enough to witness the wretchedness of her condition—or innocent enough to fail to comprehend it. Friends have normally appeared during the week, thereby containing the duration of their visits to the period between work and dinner. Relatives, however, owing to a compulsion to mobilize their entire families and make of their visits a kind of reunion, have invariably chosen weekends...
2006
Rebecca...
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