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- 07/02/2018
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Note: While authors are asked to place warnings on their stories for some moderated content, everyone has different thresholds, and it is your responsibility as a reader to avoid stories or stop reading if something bothers you.
Dinner is Prompt-ly at Eight - 27. Chapter 27 - Private Speech
Protagonist: Amanda, with amazing legs
Goal: to be king of the heap
Obstacle: fear of heights
Action: gets married
Someone was singing. That was his first conscious thought. ‘She has a pretty voice’, was the second and it made him feel it was real, and not a dream.
Try as he might, he couldn’t open his eyes. They felt glued shut, and there was a sense of heaviness that kept them closed. The room was cool, with a gentle band of warmth across his chest and abdomen. It felt like an electric blanket that was only covering part of him.
When he attempted to lift his hand and move the blanket, his hand wouldn’t move. A lackadaisical numbness continued to pervade his senses, so it didn’t bother him too much.
The song was now just humming, gentle and happy.
He slipped back into sleep.
***
“Josh slipped the ring into my dinner. I almost swallowed it until he stopped me,” a woman said, waking him. Her voice was expressive and had a strange accent to it.
“Yeah, it was a surprise. I’d been hoping he’d ask. I can’t believe he asked last night. I thought I’d need more ‘suggestive selling’, she said, giggling. “I only had to point out a couple of wedding registries at Walmart and Bed, Bath, and Beyond. It was simple, just like you suggested.”
He felt a bit more aware now. His head wasn’t quite as stuffy as before, but it ached a little more. His eyes still wouldn’t open, as hard as he tried. Moving his hand was impossible. He felt his finger move, slightly, but it was so hard. The effort he was exerting just to move his finger was excruciating. It made his head hurt even more.
“He said over the chicken parm, Amanda, you are the one for me,” the voice tittered. “I won’t repeat what he said next, but I’ll say he’s a legs man, and he thinks mine are amazing.”
Even concentrating hard, he couldn’t figure out where he was. He smelled cheap, funky perfume, the sting of disinfectant, and maybe lilies? He couldn’t be sure.
“I think he cheaped out on the ring though. It’s a nice size, but it isn’t as sparkly as it could be. You’d think the son of an owner of a car dealership could afford more. Right?”
The woman’s voice was whiny and biting now. The accent hurt his ears.
“Naw, I said yes and we’ll see if he springs for a decent honeymoon. That’s how I’ll know if he’s low-rent, or if he’s serious about me.”
His awareness faded away as the gray fog of sleep slipped over him.
***
The next time he awoke, and remembered it, he heard a familiar voice. He felt a warm hand hold his. He still couldn’t open his eyes. The voices sounded far away, and filtered, like they were coming from across a valley or tinny, as though from an old radio, though he could feel that hand squeezing his.
Someone said something about a ‘king of the heap’.
Another voice was talking about a honeymoon.
The closer voice seemed to get louder. It was a woman’s voice, a bit raspy and hoarse.
“What an exciting place to go. I’ve always wanted to go to the Grand Canyon.”
The other person’s response was mumbled, barely audible, until at the end, “I wanted to go someplace exotic, like Paris or Rome or something. His dad knows I’m scared of heights, so why he picked there…”
He tried so hard to open his eyes, but they wouldn’t move.
“Oh my God!” the closer person barked. “His hand moved.”
“Really?” the other voice said, coming nearer. “Let me check.”
He felt his eyelid being pulled up, stretched and it hurt as it grazed across his eyeball. The light was like a spear, piercing it…excruciatingly. He wanted to scream, and still couldn’t.
“His eye is responding to the light, so that’s a good sign,” he felt the puff of breath on his cheek.
“It’s a miracle,” and he felt a bit of water on his hand followed by a warm patch of skin, soft and powdery on his hand. Lips kissed his forearm, and then he heard the sounds of relief with a gasp. “He’s not gone.”
His other eyelid was raised, with another puff of air making it twitch. There was nothing to see, it was all gray and fuzzy, but he was now a little more awake and aware. The pain wasn’t quite as horrible.
He tried to squeeze his hand again, but this time it didn’t work. He attempted opening his lips, and then he heard a squeal again.
“Christian is trying move. I think he’s waking up, for real this time.”
The voice now registered. It was his mother’s, Gail, and it sounded like an angel’s. A sense of relief washed over him as he fell back asleep comforted by her presence.
“I’ll call the doctor…” were the last words he heard from the woman with the accent. The woman who would soon be married.
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12
Note: While authors are asked to place warnings on their stories for some moderated content, everyone has different thresholds, and it is your responsibility as a reader to avoid stories or stop reading if something bothers you.
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