Chapter 45. Micah
MICAH
I lie like a corpse on my second bed of the morning.
My hands and feet lie cold with sweat, my stomach raw from not having eaten or drunk anything since last night.
I debate ripping up the waiver I signed exonerating the doctors from whatever happens to me after they zap my brain with one hundred joules of electricity.
It could all go south from here. I turn into a vegetable and they hang my mug in the museum of medical mistakes.
Where the hell did Dr. Val motor off to? We agreed electroconvulsive therapy (ECT for short) would be the next step in my treatment after my body’s resistance to the last few medications. She said she’d observe my first round.
I called my dad, not wanting our last conversation to be a fight. He knows I’m apprehensive about going down this road. It went to voicemail.
This part of the La Jolla facility harks back to the 1950s with its low ceilings, frosted windows, and sickish light spilling over the bed and equipment.
My nose twitches from the stench of bodily fluids and antiseptic.
A handful of whitecoats putters around me, attaching electrodes to my head and cardiac pads to my chest.
The Woman in Black leans against the wall in the corner, biting her nails.
They harness my ankles and wrists, though the docs say most patients’ bodies don’t convulse like you see in the movies. Nor should I feel the currents when I’m asleep.
I need to pee.
A woman in pink scrubs leans over my chest. Electric blue liner circles her eyes; fleshy, rosy skin pokes out around her mask. “We’re going to start your anesthesia, Micah. I’m going to put this in your mouth so you don’t bite your tongue. Count back from twenty for me?”
I inhale a quick breath. My vision blurs, and I squint to find her again. Dr. Val said after these next few weeks of ECT treatments, all the Shadow People could be gone. At last, I locate the Woman in Black, expecting her emotions to mirror mine.
She looks away and spits out a nail.
“Out loud.” The woman’s eyes pierce mine like blades above her mask.
“Twenty, nineteen . . .” Tears roll down my cheeks and into my ears. I mouth goodbye to the Woman in Black, wishing she’d come closer and hold my hand one last time.