It is amazing how fast something can happen.
Dale had pulled into the tiny little coffee stand, got a $4.95 double chocolate flavored java, tipped the scantily clad server.
It was a Friday night, his work week was done, Dale stopped every Friday night for a coffee.
He took a sip, it was very hot, so he reached out and set it on the dashboard, reached over and lifted the center console on his Impala Super Sport to get his coffee cup sleeve, it was one of those reuse over and over kind, heavily padded.
Much better than the paper ones the coffee stand placed on the hot drinks.
He was rolling towards the street slowly, in that exact moment of inattention, the coffee cup began to slide.
Dale leaned forward to grab it before it could spill and his right foot pressed on the throttle.
There was a flash of light and something hit the driver's side door, that was the last he remembered.
+++
Dale opened his eyes, the light was blinding but blurry. He tried to blink but could not.
"Oh my God, he is awake!" Someone cried out, then there was a flurry of activity.
After quite some time, he heard a male voice.
"Just a reflex, we still have almost no brain wave activity". Whoever it was said.
That was odd, Dale felt perfectly normal except for the fact that he could not move.
His wife Janet came in not too long after, he could see her face as she leaned forward to kiss him.
Something was wrong, it took him a minute to realize.
Her hair was too long, and the color was not Sandy blond now but an impossible shade of red?
He remembered seeing her just that morning.
He saw rather than felt his eyes close again, he knew because he could still see reddish light through the flesh of his eyelids.
Dale tried to open his eyes but try as he might, they would not. He tried to call out, say something, but nothing happened.
"God, when I got your call, I was hoping...." Dale heard Janet say.
"False alarm honey, sorry." A woman said.
"This is terrible, it goes on and on. Ever since we took him off life support, and he breathed on his own I have been hoping..." Janet's voice broke, went into sobs.
Life support? She had them take him off life support? But, Dale wasn't dead, he knew very well he was not.
He just couldn't move for some reason.
"Come on Janet, let's go down and get some coffee, I will try to explain what is happening." Dale heard the man's voice, then they were talking as their voices faded away.
Suddenly tired, Dale felt himself drift into sleep, even though he tried not to.
+++
Dale walked over to the machine, the steady peeping sound was driving him crazy. He reached out and pushed the button that shut off the monitor. The sudden quiet felt good.
Then he realized, he was standing up? Glancing at the cot, he saw the form lying there motionless. He walked over to the edge of the cot, looked down.
With a shock, he realized it was himself lying there! Just then a nurse burst in, hit the lights and went over to the monitor.
"Damn cheap Chinese made shit!" She mumbled. She stood there and studied the machine for a few moments, then walked out of the room without giving him a glance.
That was strange, he was standing right there in plain sight. Then for a moment he felt dizzy, his eyes opened again.
The lights were blinding, he tried to close them but could not. He thought he could feel a tear escape and drift down his cheek, but he wasn't sure of it.
+++
That happened several times over the next few days, Dale had no clue at all of what was happening. When he was awake, he was lying there on the cot, unable to move.
When he drifted off to sleep it was like he was perfectly normal, he could reach out and touch, do things, move around.
He even attempted to go out into the hall and he actually made it past the door, but then suddenly he was back on the cot.
It was like he was limited to perhaps 30 feet or so, any further and there was a sudden end to his explorations.
He was standing there once wishing there was a TV set at least in the room when the night nurse came in.
Oddly, she stopped and looked around, a puzzled expression on her face.
Dale liked it when she came in, she was cute, but business like. She took a pan of warm water and washed him, she didn't bother to cover him with a cloth or anything like that. She even held his penis in one latex covered hand and rolled back his foreskin with the other, washing him carefully there, then patting him dry.
Dale stood there watching as she did that, he felt himself erect at the touch and washing, his body lying asleep on the little cot did also.
The nurse held it in her hand, looking at it with a grin on her face.
"Thank you." Dale said out loud but no sound came out, instead there was a gargling sounding grunt from his body lying there with his mouth stuffed full of hoses.
The nurse let go like she had been burned, she quickly covered his body back up and left the room.
Later he overheard her speaking to the day shift nurse when she came on duty.
"Just a reaction to stimulus, there is still no brain waves so he really can't feel that or know about it." The older woman said.
"It just seems to me like he must feel something for that to happen." The younger woman said.
"He really can't honey. I have washed him myself several times in the last two years, I got the same reactions. I even talked to the Doctor about it, he says it's different but not that abnormal in cases like this." The older woman left and went to her station down the hall.
The younger nurse watched her go, then she turned and came over beside Dale.
"You are in there, aren't you?" She whispered.
Dale felt his eyes open, he was back in his body again. He wanted to yell out "Yes!" but no sound came out.
"I thought so." The young nurse reached out and patted Dale's stomach, then quickly left.
Dale almost thought he could feel that.
