I DREAM OF DEAD GIRLS
Friday, 4:45 P.M.
ME : "Well, see you Monday, Mr. Full."
MR. FULL : "Yeah, if I'm still alive by then. Hahaha!!"
ME : "Don't say that."
I hardly dream.
Or more accurately, I hardly remember them, like most males. I mean, the only time I remember my dreams is if I have a massive carbo load before going to sleep (like pizza, very bad) or if I am dead tired.
I was lid-hanging feet-dragging tired yesterday. I've been really bad about getting enough sleep for the past week. I go to bed too late, and the sun in our bedroom wakes me up too early. I've been waking up exhausted all week.
But last night I went to bed at 8 p.m. … on a Friday night! Goodbye all-night net surfing and video gaming. Hello nursing home! My last waking thoughts were,
"Must … watch … Powerpuff … Girls … at … 8:30 … zzzzzzz."
Enter dreamland.
I don't know where I was. Clean carpeted well-lit spaces. A clinic, a store, that part didn't seem to matter. Comfortable spaces (for me) I guess.
I recognized her right away. She looked nice, but different. Vibrant. Well. Alive.
Her usual blonde hair was dyed a dark brown. She was wearing black slacks and a dark brown shirt as well. Her wide blue eyes sparkled. Fair skin. Her familiar strained smile replaced by one of easy tranquility.
She seemed to be looking for something but did not appear lost.
We briefly talked about something completely unrelated to what I was thinking.
Meanwhile, I was thinking,
"You're dead. I saw you die. I was there. You look happy. Don't you recognize me?"
Eventually I had to ask her,
"You're Silvia, right?"
"Yes, I am," she seemed a lot more polite than I remembered.
"Do you remember being in the hospital 2 1/2 years ago? You were really sick (as in dead)," I asked.
"No. I'm sorry, I don't recall," she smiled, unphased.
I was totally amused at how placid and happy she was.
Gone was any trace of her alcoholic hepatitis B and C cirrhotic liver, and HIV / AIDS complications. No stuporous yellow eyes. No wasting limbs and spider belly looking 13 months pregnant. No poorly healed scars from all of her recreational and/or medicinal intravenous injections. No puking up blood. No breathing tube down her throat. No excruciating pain from having her herpes and candida infected esophagus rupturing in her chest cavity and collapsing her lung.
Being her doctor and being called her friend, and being there when she died was probably the most affecting thing that happened to me during residency. Death has never had the same impact since. I've maintained distance since then.
She was just a year older than me. That was two-and-a-half years ago. Dead people always appear as the age they died, right? Would I be considered a year-and-a-half older than her now?
I'd met her frazzled mother since then in the hospital. Her mother wasn't sick but her middle-aged boyfriend was, a year ago. He spoke kindly of me, told me how Sylvia saw me as a friend. Her mom looked a lot calmer then too. Happy even. She had put her life back together by then. It was just too bad she picked some guy with bad heart failure and prone to pneumonias to do it with, I thought. He got better though, this time.
The mother didn't seem too comfortable with me though. Maybe the hospital and myself just reminded her of losing her only child.
I feel like I still talk about dead people too much. But how can I not? They haunt me. And there's just so many of them.
But back to the dream.
Dark-haired Silvia didn't remember any of this, but she seemed quite pleased and comfortable talking to me, even though she didn't remember who I was either.
As cliché as this dream scenario sounds, it felt good to see her like that for once. Happy and peaceful.
Although I wouldn't have minded hearing her say her usual, "Fuck this shit. Excuse my French, Dr. Scott."
Then the 6:30 A.M. sunlight shone through our bedroom blinds and woke me up again this morning.
Only today I didn't wake up dead tired.
_______________________________________
Last week :
PATIENT'S GRANDDAUGHTER : "Grandmama, you got yourself one FLY doctor. Nice shoes! Are they Prada?"
ME : "Hahha! No, they're Korean."
