‘Blink once if you’re okay, twice for not okay, three times for water.’

‘Squeeze my hand if you can, just something.’

You know what? I don’t feel like it, okay. What if I want to just lie here dead still?

Jokes, not really feeling that you know; what I really fancy is a decaf no, fat foam, double latte with full-fat cream on the side.

See! I got you again.

This is the best I’ve got, comedy.

So far, it’s going well. I’ve played a mental game of football against myself, won and lost, counted sheep, re-watched E.T., and fake mentally cried over his ‘almost’ death.

It’s been a really fun week for me. I feel like I’ve achieved a lot.

Have you got it yet?

What I’m in for?

Murder? Treason? Petty theft?

Well, guess again.

Still no clue. Guess you aren’t much further than I am.

It’s been a week. A whole freaking week that I’ve been stuck in this hospital bed, lifeless. The doctors describe it more as being in a ‘catatonic state’.

That’s great you see they have a name for it, so you’ve got a name now get a quick diagnosis and get me the hell out of here!

***

My morning started off fairly normal I was late; that was pretty standard.

I got changed into my blouse, blazer, and pencil skirt, forced myself into some ugly trainers (heels come later), had some breakfast, brushed my teeth hair, and ran out the door and started chasing down the metro.  

After a 20-minute bus ride, I was finally at work two minutes early. Nice. I changed over into my ridiculously uncomfortable Jimmy Choos and headed up to my office at Martin & Reed and Co., the top criminal law firm in Washington.

I had become a senior associate after three years of working here. It took me months of hard work, late nights, and Chinese food to get here; I couldn’t screw it up now.

For the last few weeks, I’ve been having trouble sleeping; I think the working hours really seemed to have gotten to me; when I did eventually pass out, I would sleep through my alarm, making me late.

Martin, one of the managing partners, had started noticing my ‘great work’ recently; we had a new case topic, manslaughter, which was extremely high profile and needed to be dealt with quickly.

Apparently, I had made a significant difference in gaining the client’s trust; all it took was a little Irish coffee, and the man started to spill all of his secrets. I was just using our client’s weakness against him; every senator loved a bit of alcohol to wake them up; it was just a way of life. Not my fault that it made him talk.

Our client was being prosecuted for manslaughter because of a night out, which ended up being someone’s real last night out.

A group of senators decided to all snort up some lines of coke and have a high evening, it turned into a pretty low one after on the of senators overdosed and died.  

So, his case was a pain in the arse it stressful trying to find evidence against the case when the client doesn’t exactly remember half of it.

Anyway, I’m getting off-topic. It was a week or so before the case was going to trial, and let’s just say that the stress levels were pretty high, all things considered; I seemed to keep forgetting key parts of the case, which didn’t help, especially when knew I had gone over the details recently.

Also, I may or may not have shouted at our client, calling him an ‘ignorant arse full of bull crap.’ Luckily, only the client heard and chose to agree with me for some unknown reason all I can say is thank god no one else heard, or things could’ve got a lot worse!

***

Owwwwww!

Damn lady that needle hurts, this old lady nurse keeps coming in to check on me and let’s just say that her bedside manner is not at all polite. She keeps attacking my arms, trying to attach some weird liquid bag to me.

I can’t exactly do anything, being in an Egyptian mummy state and all.

Don’t think this lady even cares. She stabs people daily with needles checks it works then moves onto the next one.

When I get out of this place, I am so suing her for some sort of malpractice just need to work on something that is actually real.

Sometimes there is this really nice nurse lady that comes around and chats to me acts like I am just another human being, someone that has feelings and could actually have a real life outside of this hospital.

She wears the typical nurse lady outfit with a hat and everything she has a really kind face and must be in her early forties, doesn’t seem like the world has hit her yet. Although she does walk around like she’s dealing with a lot, as though there’s a massive weight on her shoulders. It something I definitely need to remember to ask her should I ever get the chance to with this stupid bloody paralyzing illness.

This was written by our contributing writer, Shanai Besst.