April 22.
Imagine being conscious but hearing nothing, seeing nothing, feeling nothing, tasting nothing, touching nothing, having the awareness of being awake but unable to move or sense a single thing-and then, every few seconds, or minutes or hours, because you have no sense of time, a wild explosion of light rocks your mind. The silence and the stillness are absolute. Then a grenade fires through what someone else might call my soul. Am I alive? Perhaps I'm on the point of death.
May 8.
A hum. It's all I'm aware of. I can't see anything. I can't touch, taste, or move anything. But I can detect that vibration, and somehow I know it's external to me. I can sense something. And I realize: I'm thinking about the hum. I'm thinking half-normal thoughts in undeniably normal words. I am alive. I am alive.
Dr. Monzales told me it would take time for my brain to connect with my new body, and my experiences during that process would be very difficult to predict.
Explanation A: That is what's happening right now, and gradually it'll get better.
Explanation B: I've survived the operation but my brain was injured. I have a degree of consciousness, but a permanent inability to move or communicate.
Either way, they'll know that something's going on in my head, because they had the world's most sophisticated brain scanners all lined up to use on me. They'll see activity in parts of the brain used for thinking, not just breathing and sleeping.
Which means Dad will be crying. Mum probably will be crying. Elliot? I have no idea what Elliot will be doing. I wish I could see him. Right now. I really wish I could see his face.
May 25.
A whining. It sounds like an insect, only it's higher-pitched, and it's…yes, it's changing. The pitch is changing. And I feel something. Pins and needles all along my left arm. My arm. I just thought: my arm. But can I read anything into that? Does my brain know what it's sensing? Did I really just feel something in my arm? High up. Near my shoulder. The exact spot where they were going to attach one of the electrodes for the brain-stimulating therapy. Am I dreaming?
June 7.
A voice. Low. Slow. I can't make out words. Dad's? No. I feel a trembling where my body should be. I can't pinpoint it. Could be legs, or torso. Could be purely imaginary. The voice, though-I know that voice. Elliot? No. Dr. Monzales? No. It's British. No-ha! But I can't make out the words. What's he saying?
June 9.
There's a flare going on and then off in front of my eyes. Bright white, then black. Bright white, then black. If it's real. It could be my mind hallucinating to escape the darkness, my equivalent of a desert traveler's mirage. But if I'm sensing the position of eyes, does that mean something?
June 14.
A scent: sweet, fresh. Familiar. My candle?
A voice: "I don't know if you can…me, so I'm not going to…yet. When…wake up, Rosa, I'll tell…Come on." That was Elliot. That was Elliot.
June 22.
"You remember that time I took you swimming at the King Edward baths? You must have been three. You'd only been in pools on holiday before. It was the first time I ever took you swimming in England. We got in there and you said, 'Swimming pools live outside!' And afterward all the mums had bananas and healthy stuff for their kids, and I had nothing and you were starving so we went to the closest place, which was a fish and chip shop, and it was getting dark, and you said, 'The streetlights are on; we're going down the road to a café and I want sausages and chips and ice cream.' And I knew you were thinking of that book-the one about the tiger who came to tea. He drank all Daddy's beer and I changed the words so Daddy wasn't watching a fight on TV; he was watching a documentary on giant redwoods-oh, but that was the other book-the one about the cat-"
"Da-?"
"Rosa? Rosa! Rosa!"
