A Trial By Water

The nurse handed me a single thin bedsheet and plastic pillow. She led me into a stark and windowless room of ceramic tile with a bare stainless steel exam table in the center. My 'bed'. Beneath was a tarnished brass drain puncuating the floor. It was to be my room for the night. I hadn't slept in days and didn't question my new spartan quarters. The nurse said it was my third night after waking from my alcohol induced coma. My blood pressure was still high. Something was supposed to 'happen'. She pointed to the nurse call button on the side of the table and bid me good night. Red light came from a video camera overhead.

I crawled upon the freezing table not really caring and for the first time since admission, fell into a fitful sleep.

Something woke me. My eyes flew open. Water was trickling somewhere in the hollow room.

There was no sink or basin. Annoyance. It was coming from beneath my 'bed'. I peered over the edge as a stream of water cascaded from my chin and fingers. It was me! The water was coming from me. Every pore seemed to weep onto the table and cascade over the edge in an audible spatter. It was as if my body was betraying me, perhaps my mind. I must be hallucinating. But then two nurses burst through the door, turning on the overhead light and began to take temp and blood pressure.

Something indeed was happening. It was the longest my body had been without alcohol or cocaine. It was giving up. Surrendering. For the first time in years, I agreed.