The ways of the mind

Day and night, he went to the gym. And when he wasn’t there, it wasn’t strange to see him on a swimming pool, playing tennis, kicking footballs on a park or just jogging around the neighborhood. Jason had been a chubby kid fro ma very young age and the bullying he suffered in primary school and then high school, made him start his training. He finished high school from home and once he entered university, he was an entirely new person. Many of those who had mocked him, were now envious of him.

 Of course, Jason loved that. He really liked to see the face on the people that had pushed him into lockers or shamed him in the changing rooms after gym class. He had seen a number of them in his university and it was always a pleasure to see their faces when they realized who they were looking at or, even better, who they were talking too. Even the many girls that mocked him in school were now falling for him left and right, forgetting their past words directed at him.

 He had been called a “pig”, a “hog” and a “chubby little fag”. Children can be mean, that’s true. And it’s always blamed on the parents, rightfully so. But Jason had discovered, with time, that all those people that had mocked him earlier in his life had always been that horrible. Yes, maybe they learned at home or they picked it up from the television, but the fact was that they hadn’t outgrown their bullying ways. Even in university, Jason saw how many were made fun of.

 For a while, he tried to help those people that had been left out by society at large, either because they were fat or maybe because they were gay. There wasn’t a single minority that was out of range for those that mocked them. He went to several meetings of college groups, he held rallies and supported the so-called liberals to help improve the situation on campus and he even experimented on a private level to fully realize he was as open and really free as he thought he was.

 The first year in college was good but then he grew annoyed by the crowds, by those who wanted everything to change. They wanted the world to see itself through their eyes, instead of trying to be part of the community. He met very angry people and extremists, where he would have never thought to see any of those. He stopped going to the meeting, supporting political candidates and even helping shamed people to stand for themselves. It had become a burden on him and he felt it wasn’t fair to carry someone’s load when he had so much to process by himself.

 He focused in only two things: his studies and his workout regime. A year before he got his degree, he was able to pay the rent for a small apartment not so far from home. He had gotten a job at the gym he worked out and that had given him enough money to get where he wanted to go. He was to become a real state agent and he would try to be the best at it. Jason had always loved many of the things related to that job and he was certain he could get his license in a heartbeat.

 He started as a part-time intern in a real state agency. There, he could get all the necessary experience to get his license and maybe even get noticed by some of the bigger agencies to get hired for a full-time job, hopefully being the person that shows people houses and apartments. That’s what he wanted to do, for a long time. Jason was even willing to leave the gym regime in order to get his dream job, although he would still try to workout as much as he could on nights and weekends.

 One day, Jason had left for his job from his tiny apartment. It wasn’t a perfect life, but the liked it a lot. He really loved to go and learn a little bit everyday. He had learned some architectural terms, as well as many things an engineer should know about how houses work. He had even been taught how to properly accommodate furniture in order to secure a sale. He was really in love with it all, with every single detail. And it showed. People would often tell him they thought he looked better, somehow more energetic.

 That morning, when he felt on top of the world, an SUV came roaring through his street. Jason woke up really early, so he knew it was uncommon for that to happen. Nevertheless, he didn’t looked back to the noise, as one would have. He was busy thinking about his day, he was busy being too happy about himself and his achievement. He was to busy to notice the SUV had veered towards the building and that it was going at full speed on the pedestrian side of the road.

 A neighbor called the ambulance, several others watched from their windows or from their doors. No one else helped, no one else said a word. The woman that had found him had lost a husband recently, so she knew exactly how it felt to lose someone like that, in the blink of an eye. So she decided to call and help another family not being torn apart. The ambulance took a bit too long to get there. When he got to the hospital, Jason had lost a large amount of blood and the doctors where not optimistic. It was nothing short of a miracle how he recuperated, in a way.

  The hardest moment was when he woke up. Jason knew immediately what had happened. He didn’t have a hazy memory; he didn’t pretend he didn’t know what was going on. The moment his eyes opened, that young man knew his legs weren’t working and they might never work again.  He touched them softly and, when the nurses weren’t there, he pounded the hard, in rage. He wanted to die several times during the course of the next few weeks. Aside from his legs, the rest of his body was fine.

 Well, except for his brain. Because he was pissed with the world, with life and with everyone that owned a fucking SUV. He couldn’t understand how people drove drunk. That was what the police had told him, that a drunken man had being the one that had put him on that hospital bed. But they could not really prove it because the SUV had never been found as no surveillance cameras had ever being installed on that street. No neighbor had seen anything, or so they said.

 Jason grew to hate everyone, especially the days his mother and father came to his house to take him out for some fresh air. After being the most admired man in his gym, he was no a ghost of his past. In a way, he was that “chubby fag” again. He hated everyone for being able to walk and he preferred to be inside, away from others, sheltered from their laughs and their lives. His was over, so he didn’t really mind about anything else. As far as he knew, his life had come to an end.

 However, a young policewoman had entered the force recently. She was called Susannah and had freckles all over her face. She had being bullied at school and now she was a real police office. She investigated Jason’s accident and, with resilience and intelligence, she was able to discover that the person that had run over Jason had not being drunk. Furthermore, he was a former student in the same high school as Jason and also in the same university. He was called for questioning shortly after.

 Months later, he was sent to jail for attempted murder, as he confessed he had hated Jason from day one in high school. He hated that people that he deemed “less” could become successful when others like him, so successful in early life, were now facing the hard reality of life.

 Susannah explained it all to Jason and he thanked her for giving him back his life. Inspired by her, he went back to the gym to try and recover his legs. Nothing was lost forever, not his real estate license, not his legs, nor his will to live. Jason would never again let go.

Accidents happen

   The pain in my legs was, for lack of a better word, horrible. Any movement caused me awful pain, so I had to learn to be still or to move only from the waist up, twirling that part of my body like a gummy candy. The bed they had assigned for me was, thankfully, larger than myself and very comfortable. It even had a sweet scent that I couldn't point to but that I found really interesting and soothing. I think it may have been vanilla or something very similar because it reminded me of my past. For some reason, that smell help me calm down whenever my legs would start to make me feel as if I was in front of the devil in the depths of hell. It was that bad and, looking back, I can easily say it was one of the worst moments in my life.

 The accident had caused me to stay in that bed for months, in that hospital located in the middle of nowhere. The number of patients changed dramatically during my time there. At one point, I could swear we were not more than twenty people. Later on, it felt like a filled up prison holding more than a thousand inmates. And I talk about prison because that's how it felt like sometimes and the building really did help to that effect. It was one of those relics from some war long ago and they had tried, without much success, to convert it completely to a hospital. Apparently it had also been a mental house, a school, an orphanage and even a place where alcohol would be hidden from the local authorities.

 The history of the place, without a doubt, was very interesting. But during my stay I could only think about when I was going to be released. The doctors told me, through a translator they had called only for my case, that my recovery was going to be so difficult that it was best if I stayed there for several months. All in all, I stayed there for around five months until I was finally released. The doctors and the nurses were not the most loving or soft people in the world but they were very good at what they did. Maybe I didn't see them smile very often but I know that they did the best they could with my case and thanks to them I was able to recover. Of course, my legs still have some moments of "weird behavior", but I have learned to live with that.

 After all, only centimeters and seconds had separated me from being dead. Everytime I think about the accident, I understand everything a little bit less, if that's even possible. Because I have no idea how I got to be fighting for my life, my legs covered in blood and my body just aching with pain. I have no idea how I endured after all of that but here I am, I guess. It happens often after I shower that I sit down on a chair in my bedroom and I look down to them and I see some of the scars, still visible below a not so thick layer of hair. I am thankful to be alive and walking around because I have no idea how the hell they did it, how they made my legs work as if nothing had ever happen to them. It's just amazing.

 I am not a religious person and doubt I will ever be but, during my stay in the hospital and even recently, I have found myself praying somewhere in my house. I had never done that before but I guess that when death has been so close, you just want to cover your bases. And besides that, I really think it was a miracle that I could walk again. I don't think it was the Lord or anything like that that helped me recover, but I cannot find a proper way to understand how it all came up to this. to me writing about this, here and now, as if had been nothing. It just amazes me every day and I think many people that know me and that know about what happened to me, are just as amazed by all of it as I am.

 Even the stay in that dreadful place is something I will keep forever in my heart. Because in that place I learned to love myself for who I am and not for anything else. I learned to settle down, to calm down even and let things fall into place before I rush into anything. I had many sleepless nights, many moments of reflection during days in which I didn't do much. I even met some great people and, towards the end, I also had a temporary lover who helped me in more ways than one to pull it off, to survive what I was going through. It wasn't easy and I won't, ever, forget that it happened because it is one of those pivotal moments in someone's life. It had to be that bad to get a slightly better with time.

In a second

   When she opened her eyes, she saw directly into the fire. The flames were in front of her, making her face feel warmer than she wanted to. As much as she wanted to move or get away, she just couldn’t move. Her body felt extremely heavy and her head felt really big, turning like crazy as she closed her eyes again and tried to convince herself she was not awake but sleeping, deep into one of her very crazy dreams. But she couldn’t do that either. It was all true. The flames danced in front of her and she could only look at them, feeling almost burned.

 Suddenly, she felt her body being pulled away from the car, which had being turned upside down. It hurt as the asphalt of the road caressed her skin and clothes. But she couldn’t complain. She couldn’t say a word even if she wanted to because of how weak she felt. Also, she was very dizzy and couldn’t quite understand what was happening. However, she kept her eyes opened because she just couldn’t close them anymore. The heat of the flames seemed far now and all she felt was the smell of it all, which was awful.

 Suddenly, the car exploded and several parts rained all over the place. One of them fell a bit too close to her face but she didn’t really mind at all. It was as if she was looking at a movie, at something she wasn’t really involved in. Her eyes were open the whole time and her brain worked so slowly she never really asked herself who had pulled her away from wreckage. She was just too shocked to think of anything. After a while, she felt very tired and decided to close her eyes for a moment. She fell asleep and only woke up many hours later in an ambulance.

 It was for long though. The only thing she saw was a very big needle and some blurry guy holding it. Or maybe it was a woman… She had no idea but she did now that a sudden pain invaded her body and then she was immersed again in the world of slumber. She dreamt about an ice cream shop she had loved as a child. Her father used to take her there in secret, as her mother was not very keen on sweets. They would ask for the ice cream and eat it in under thirty minutes, almost as a challenge to themselves before they had to head home.

 She woke up again many hours later, in a hospital bed. This time, the moment she opened her eyes, she felt the strongest headache she had ever felt. It seemed as if it was going to break her head into two parts. The pain was so awful that she screamed and in seconds two nurses came rushing in and injected what was probably a sedative on her IV. She calmed down but the headache was still there. She tried to tell them, tried to explain to them how much it hurt. But no words came out of her mouth. She couldn’t speak a word.

 When she woke up again, it was a very bright day outside. The light rushed into her room and she felt kind of happy to see the light after so much time spent in her dreams. However, her mind was still working slow, as well as her body. She was thankful because the headache had disappeared and she could at least look at the window without feeling a huge pain in her head. She looked on for a long time, so long in fact that the rays of sunlight changed angles as she stared at the world outside of which she couldn’t see very much.

 Outside, the sky was very blue and just a couple of thin clouds floated high above everything. Aside from that, she could only see some building, all made of bricks. She had no idea where she was or how but she was sure it was a safe place. Although, she did wanted to go back home as soon as possible. So much so, that she tried to get out of bed to have a better view of the window in order to know where in the city she was and if she could maybe walk home. She knew there was a hospital near her house, so maybe that was it.

 But when she attempted to move her legs, they didn’t respond. She attributed it to how slow her mind was running, so she decided to take a deep breath and then try again. But again, nothing happened. She looked at her legs and slowly touched them as much as she could. Her arms were not very long and they felt extremely weak, but she reached down as she could in order to verify what was going on. In that precise moment, a nurse entered the room and saw her. She then rushed back out, yelling someone’s name.

 The woman stopped trying to touch her legs and rested her body against the pillows. She felt exhausted and tried to think about what just happened: she couldn’t feel her legs. She couldn’t move them at all. Why wasn’t she reacting more violently to this revelation? Why didn’t she felt compelled to yell or cry or whatever? Her head felt like a balloon, filled with air that didn’t let her think of anything. She pulled her head back and closed her eyes, trying to get back to her last memory before the hospital. But that seemed to be almost impossible.

 The door opened again and this time it was a man dressed in those mint green uniforms that people often used in hospitals. She looked at him quietly, as he checked the machines around him. A nurse was behind him, taking notes. He then checked his patient by looking at her eyes and then checking her ears and skin. He asked for her to pull out her tongue but she didn’t seem to hear or understand what he had said. He tried again but she didn’t do anything.

 Then, he pulled out a very small bottle from his pocket, along with a syringe. He filled it with the liquid in the bottle and injected it directly into her arm. At first, she didn’t feel a thing. But then, it seemed as if whatever that liquid was, it worked as a way to shake people up in the most violent way possible. She suddenly felt pain and many thought rushed into her head. Everything seemed to be happening so fast. Sounds were loud, maybe too loud and the sunlight felt too bright. She covered her face and cried, trying to control what she was feeling.

 After a while, the pain and awkward feelings went away and she knew exactly where she was and what had happened. She was finally aware of everything and not in some sort of trance. Whatever the doctor had put in her bloodstream, it eliminated all the effects from the other shot she had received. She was no longer a peaceful lamb that couldn’t even think for herself. She was her again, with every single memory and pain possible. But she couldn’t remember why she was there. As much as she tried to remember, it seemed hidden somehow.

 The doctor asked her if she knew her name. The woman said it out loud, hearing her own voice for the first time in a while. Then, he asked if she could remember the reason why she was there. She indicated that she couldn’t and asked him to tell her because she was going mad trying to remember, trying to go back to at least a sound or an image or whatever that could help her remember. The doctor said she had been in a car crash, having been expelled out of the car by the force of the impact. That’s why she had some cuts all over.

 When he said it, she looked at her arms and realized that was true: she had small cuts on her skin. And suddenly she remembered the flames and someone pulling her away from them. She told this to the doctor and he asked her if she knew who had done that. She replied that she couldn’t remember a face but that it had probably been her husband. But then the doctor looked at the ground and got closer. He explained his patient that it was not possible that her husband had done it because he had died instantly in the crash.

 The news hit her hard. She started crying and was held by the doctor for a moment. When they separated, she looked at her legs and realized what had happened. She looked at the doctor and he nodded, words being useless at that point. She cried in silence and the doctor left with the nurse. It was a lot to take for her and she was going to need all the time in the world to adjust to the fact that, in a single second, her whole life had been turned upside down, almost destroying her in the process.

Physical

   The first thing was to remove my clothes. I had no problem with that except that the area destined to that wasn’t at all empty. One of the men that served as janitor in the premises was taking a very long time emptying each one of the trashcans in the area and then two other clients stepped in. But as fast as I could, I used my towel wrapped around my waist first and then I removed the underwear. When I was ready, a woman was expecting me at the door. I thought she might not be very happy about me taking so long to get undressed but the truth was she didn’t seem to mind.

 I followed her through the maze like first floor of the building and then we stopped in front of an elevator. She told me, as if she was telling me something she had learned by heart, that there were no rooms available on the first floor so someone was waiting for me in the fifth floor. I just nodded, as if accepting that would change anything. I was already there, I had paid up front, so nothing I could do would make the slightest different whatsoever. Waiting there for a while was not the most comfortable thing though.

 I always thought they gave you some kind of robe to cover your whole body but that was not the case there. Everyone one I saw, including myself, was wearing just a towel around the waist and that was it. If someone wanted to cover more they had to use their arms or probably ask for a second towel although I had no idea how that would happen, as the workers in that place tended to disappear in the places you needed them the most, like in the dressing room that was filled with other people so it would have been the same if one of them was there.

 In front of the elevator, other clients started stopping by. I was surprised to see a woman but then realized she probably had an urge to do it too so it made sense if you thought about it. A man with his back covered in hair also parked himself in front of the elevator. He was very tall and all his furriness was very distracting. It was like looking at a very large bear or something of the sort. Each one of us was accompanied by someone form the place, which was kind of weird. In any other place, we would have been very easy to pick out from a crowd.

 The elevator finally opened and we all, the six of us, got in. I felt a sudden wave of heat when the doors closed and I realized I had my face only centimeters away from the hairy back of the tall guy. The woman was on a corner, not even faking she was not liking it so much. She wasn’t alone as I had the sudden thought of staying in that elevator once it got back down. There was no way in hell I would be staying in such a place. I had committed a mistake and needed to save myself from it as fast as I could. My mind was racing.

The door finally opened and we all got out at the same time. It was as if we had been liberated from jail or something. Each one of the assistants from the place took each one of us in a different direction and I think we all thanked them for it. I walk by a large quantity of door and then the woman that was leading the way told me to wait inside one of the rooms. She opened the door and revealed a really nice office with something I hadn’t seen in a while: a big window overlooking the city.

 As I stepped in the room, the woman slammed the door behind me leaving me completely alone in a space I had never been in before. I saw the table, the classic one, right there in the middle. There were also some chairs all around and a sofa, although I had no idea why that was there. Was someone staying overnight to sleep in that office? Or did they have an audience each time they were with a client? The seating capacity was unusually high for what I would have expected in such a place. The view though, was the best part of it all.

 I got close to the window and looked in front of me: the city appeared to be all at my feet. The tallest building was not that tall and all the people and cars looked like ants under my feet. As I was barefoot, the sensation was even more powerful and funny. I decided that if I ever won the lottery or if my job gave me the possibilities, I would try to live in that area in order to get that same view from my bedroom and even my bathroom. Imagining that made me smile like an idiot and ignore that the door had been opened moments ago.

 My towel almost fell to the floor the moment a person coughed, obviously trying to get my attention. I thought they would knock first or something but no, that wasn’t a thing in that place. When I turned around to see the person I would be involved with for the next hour, I realized there was something wrong. Well, not wrong but it wasn’t like I was expecting it. The person who had coughed was a man. Granted, he was a very handsome man who was probably very good at his job but I wasn’t expecting a male on my first time there.

 He noticed my hesitation to get near him and it was him who walked towards me and extended his hand for me to shake it. We did that and it was very amazing to feel that the man was very calm and had one of those smiles that make you very mellow in a second. He told me that the person assigned to me wasn’t going to make it so they had decided to send him instead. He apologized for that and hoped I didn’t mind him being assigned to me. I was so relaxed by only watching his face that I didn’t answer with words but only by shaking my head affirmatively, with a silly smile.

 Out of the blue, he grabbed one of my hands and I thought I was about to burst into happiness. Why did it felt so right, so perfect? I had no idea back then and I couldn’t find the reason why many days afterwards. His touch was a very special thing, that was for sure. He took me to the table in the center and told me to lay down there for him. Again, I nodded and smiled like an idiot, unable to actually talk like any human would normally do. There was something about him that made me act like that and I didn’t care what it was at the moment.

 I laid down on the table for him, still smiling. I looked at the ceiling as I smiled and I was so distracted by my strange behavior that I didn’t notice he had already started. His hands were a little bit warmer than before. They glided down my skin with grace. My body started feeling every single touch as if it was the first contact with anyone in my life. It was such a strange feeling to have but I certainly like it and I think I got him to know that a couple of times.

 He started on my arms and then on my neck area and then my chest. It was a really nice experience. People had told me that it sometimes hurt but I realized they had all been wrong or had visited awful places because that guy was making me feel as if he was taking layers and layers of unnecessary stuff from me. He was taking away all the things my body didn’t need anymore and I truly began to feel lighter, to feel as if I could float away and wander around the room if he wasn’t there to hold my body. It was a very nice feeling.

When he moved on the legs, I have to say the magic went away for a second. I have always been ashamed of my legs so having someone touch them was not a very easy thing for me. But he did his jobs in such a way; I just didn’t care about my problems anymore. As he did my legs, he asked me to turn around in order to do the rest. I complied almost without hesitation, turned around in an instant. In that moment, I didn’t want such an amazing experience to end. I felt so much better than when I had entered the building.

 He finished with my legs and then did my back and neck in order to finish. When I felt his hands off me, I felt a bit sad. So sad in fact, that I laid there way too long. When I turned around to ask for his name, he was gone. The woman that had brought me there was waiting at the door, again. We took the elevator down; I dressed in the locker room and left feeling much better than I had ever felt before. But I was also wondering about him, I could still feel his hands all over my body. Who thought a day in the spa would be so rewarding?