Trapped

Behind two eyes I look out towards the world, with two ears that listen to every sound that is around and one voice that is trapped behind a mouth that cannot work.

Everyday I sit confined to a bed, unable to move, unable to communicate, unable to take care of myself. I am only able to see and hear what is going on all around me. From the birds singing their lovely songs outside, to the consistent drips from a faucet, I am all but an observer looking out through two windows unto a world that I cannot be a part of.

Daily I have a visitor that tends to me. She is not my wife, as I have not ever married; she is not my mother, as she died many years before; nor is she any other woman that I can recollect to having been in my life. Her name is Alice and she is my caregiver.

Alice visits me daily with an upbeat, cheerful tone in her voice. She talks to me as if I am able to talk back and at times replies to me as though I have said something relevant to what she had been discussing at the time. She goes about her business of giving care to me with feeding, washing, checking my signs but most important, she is there so I can listen to her.

I am not sure what has caused me to be confined to this prison of flesh and bone or what benefactor it is that pays for my care; if there is even a benefactor. I do not know who I am or what I did before this, I cannot even remember how long I have been in this condition. Do I have family that pays for this or is it I that is able to pay through whatever means that were obtained before this period of my life?

I shall probably never know of this as it seems that I may never know more than this bed and Alice for the rest of my life. No doctor ever visits, no other nurses, just Alice.

Alice is such an easy name, it would roll off of the tongue; if I were able to be able to use that. It is a name that could be easily whispered with little movement of ones mouth or even much breath. It is not obtuse or hampered by the impedance of any hard syllables, it is soft like a cotton ball with no sharpness to it. I believe that all names of caregivers should be of such a nature, with such softness and ease of sound so if by some way the person being cared for could say it, it would be an easy thing.

Unfortunately for myself, I may never be able to whisper her soft name but if I am ever able to, I would do so with tears in my eyes.