Ally Harris

Mrs. Belden

Honors English I

5 October 2014

Smoking Red

There were no colors except white.  What was happening to me?  Where was I?  What’s going on?  I pondered upon these question for several minutes trying to think back to the last thing that happened to me.  The only thing that came to mind of what was going on was a dark, creepy, white, skull like figure, such as death.  I had no feeling in my body, and could not move anything.  My mind was white with blotches of red appearing here and there.  The last thing I could think of was sitting in my bedroom reading a short novel.  Little pieces of my memories appeared in my mind, like getting a punch thrown at my face, over and over.  While I was reading I remember the sun passing through my window, shining on my face, and the smell of a cinnamon sugar candle on my bedside table.  It was like my memories just stopped there.  I had no idea of what had happened next.  My mind was a book with a cliff-hanger, leaving you wondering what happens next.  I sat there, trying to remember more, but had no luck.  I decided I should try to relax my mind or I guess sleep….SLEEP!  There was a sudden outburst in my mind when I thought of that word.  Sleep.  I felt sudden movement in the lower part of my leg; as if the more I remembered, the more I could start to feel movement in myself.  Sleep, sleep, sleep, SLEEP!  I remember! While reading in my room I fell asleep!  I could feel this sudden opening, and clearing that I can’t explain in my ear.  I heard something, voices that started getting clearer by the second.

“Your daughter is Ava Madison correct? A low-voiced man spoke.  I heard this lady say

“yes” with a voice sounding as if she just cried.  I’m pretty sure this lady was my mother; she is crying because it seems to look like I’m not okay.

“Ava is severely damaged all around her body.”  The doctor spoke quietly trying not to let the rest of the family hear and be frightened about it.  

“And what can we do about this doctor?”  My mother spoke.  

“Currently, there is nothing that we know of that could help her.  I’m very sorry Mrs. Madison.” Said the doctor in a sincere voice.  I could hear the gasp in my mothers voice, shocked that there is nothing to help me.  She quietly said under her breathe,

“This can’t be true!”  I tried yelling, screaming, trying to let my family know that I’m still here trying to get better!  Although I tried, nothing came out.  Suddenly I felt this terrible feeling that made me think that I may not get better.  My mind was stabbing my brain; making me feel like I wasn’t able to get through this.  I felt discouraged, melancholy, and heartbroken, thinking my life was coming to an end.  The only way to get through this was to find out what had happened to me that had gotten me into this position in the first place.  The more memories, the more I was getting better and could start to get feeling in my body.  I tried thinking back to the day this had happened; I had no luck.  While feeling in this depressed state, I heard footsteps, each one getting closer and closer to me.  I assumed it was my doctor.  This person came into my room and set down what sounded like a stack of papers, and a glass object.  I then heard a faint sound of something getting rubbed against each other, sounding like a match.  This sound was followed by a vague sound of crackling.

“Sizzle, sizzle” I sniffed in, smelling a soft vanilla.  Suddenly a load of memories packed my mind, like a swarm of birds flying south for the winter.  Almost everything had appeared clear to me from the observations of what I had smelled and heard; a candle.  I felt my body clear of almost all the pain that I had been in for a thousand years it seemed like.  I started to feel my fingertips against the soft, silky bed sheets, my toes in the open air, free, and my stomach hurting from hunger.  I lifted my hands and placed them on what I thought was my face…there was no feeling.  I could feel almost everything in my body except for my face.  My eyes were glued shut.  What did I need to feel the rest of my body?  What did a candle, novel, the color red and sleep, have to do with what happened to me that got me here?  I put these four things into many situations to find out what happened.  Candle, red, paper, and sleep seemed to be what happened.  My mind screamed out,

“I know what happened!” Abruptly, I felt my hand rub against my face, as if I had no control over it.  But something was different this time…I actually felt my soft, smooth, 15-year old skin.  I put all the pieces together, like a puzzle figuring out what went where and in order of what happened.  I was reading a novel, a candle on my bedside table, put my book on the table, fell asleep, then ended up here.  For the first time in what felt like forever my eyelids slowly opened to a blurry picture at first.  I saw the hospital bedroom with the brown leather chair, medical appliances, and a hallway full of chatter to the right of me, a hard, wooden table with a burning candle, smelling like warm vanilla to the left, and a blank white wall in front of me.  The first time I had blinked again felt like the first time I had ever in my life!  

“I have waited so long to be able to move again.”  I thought to myself, having a bright, big, genuine smile on my face.  My mom walked into the bright, hospital room, with a dazzling smile on her face and asked me,

“Ava, how are you feeling? Are you okay?”  All I said was

“There was no feeling, white, red.” Then, I fell asleep, mouthing the word FIRE.