Christmas Bonus Chapter: December 24, 2022

"Lynn, I hope you had a good sleep. How do we feel today"

A light touch, then a heavy one. The heel lands before the ball of the foot, and as it lifts, it slides slightly backward, rubbing against the ground. I recognized Nurse Jane from the sound of her footsteps even earlier than from her voice.

She is a very considerate person. Before meeting me for the first time, she did her homework and found the correct pronunciation of my name by looking at the pinyin. Unlike many other medical staff, she always pronounces it wrong the first time. She wanted to confirm the pronunciation with me as a habit, but when she realized that I could not speak, she showed an embarrassed and apologetic expression.

Perhaps the injury made me extremely sensitive; I always felt that those eyes also carried the pity and sympathy that I hated.

For two months, I was strictly confined to my hospital bed. I lost my perception of many things: the passage of time, the changing seasons, my vision beyond the narrow field of vision locked by the cervical brace, and the sensation of most of my body—perhaps I'll never get it back. But the human body adapts and compensates so quickly that I found my hearing had become even more acute.

If only the recovery speed were this fast.

Jane turned and came to the bedside. Seeing that I was awake, she said in a light tone, "Oh, have you been awake for a long time?"

I winked at her once.

To answer a question, one blink equals affirmation, two blinks equals negation. If given two options, one blink equals the former, two blinks equals the latter. In the two months I've had to rely on this tube in my neck to breathe, I've long since become accustomed to this way of communication in the ICU.

"Did you sleep well? Or was the nerve pain severe last night, which is why you didn't sleep well?"

In fact, I don't know how long I slept. Every time I woke up from intense pain that felt like an electric shock, a knife cut, or lying in a sea of ​​fire, I would look at the digital clock that was specially hung on the opposite wall for me. The numbers were always almost the same as the last time I remembered seeing it. I also don't remember when I fell asleep again in a state of exhaustion and dull pain that felt numb and swollen all over my body.

Each time I woke up, the sky outside the window was a little brighter, until I could no longer fall back asleep, so I can hardly be said to have slept well.

Seeing me blink twice more, her deep brown eyes, behind her thick, raven-feather-like eyelashes, softened even more, becoming as gentle as water. "Oh, I'm so sorry."

She has eyes that look very much like A-Qing's.

Jane checked the parameters of all the instruments, and they seemed to be working well. She asked me in a lighthearted tone, "If you feel good, how about we put on the speaking valve and try it out?"

Of course, that's great. Yesterday, the pulmonologist and speech therapist spent a long time examining me. They concluded that my lungs are not yet strong enough to work independently without the ventilator, but I can wear a one-way ventilation speaking valve for short periods when I'm awake. They also taught me how to practice speaking in sync with the ventilator's rhythm.

The process of getting the speaking valve implanted was certainly not pleasant. No matter how gentle Jane was, the part inserted into the trachea would inevitably wobble slightly, making me gag again. Jane kept apologizing. She was a very gentle and considerate person. I couldn't tell her it was okay. After eight weeks, I finally regained the ability to speak. I could endure anything for that.

If only my hands could also begin to awaken from their slumber and be able to move a little.

"Are you feeling alright?"

My throat felt tight, and I felt a slight tightness in my chest, but it was bearable. After waiting for a burst of air to pass through the tube, I spoke, "It's alright," my voice barely louder than a mosquito's hum, truly hoarse and unpleasant to hear.

Jane was very happy for me. "Look, we're making progress every day, aren't we?"

I find it hard to be as optimistic as her. Over the past eight weeks, every time the spinal cord injury specialist came to assess me, they asked the same questions. Unable to find the answers on my phone, I could only guess that these were medically important areas, and whether I could feel or move them was probably the key to determining the final location and severity of the nerve damage.

But I can't give a single definite answer.

"I need to examine your right leg. It might hurt a lot, so please tell me if it does, okay?"

Despite her warnings, when that sudden, lightning-like pain traveled up my spine and into my brain, everything went completely black. My consciousness seemed to have wandered to some unknown edge, and all I could hear was the sound of my heart pounding in my chest and the sharp alarm bells of the monitoring equipment suddenly going off.

Jane's voice seemed to come from a very far place. She was very anxious and came over to pat my face, "Lynn, Lynn? Can you still hear me?"

My vision slowly returned, and I saw Jane standing very close to me, holding a tissue to wipe the cold sweat that had suddenly broken out on my forehead. I vaguely thought:

She really does have eyes that look a lot like A-Qing's.

Those eyes were filled with worry: "I'll tell your medical team about this and see how we can help you relieve the pain. If touching your stump triggers such intense pain, accompanied by autonomic hyperreflexia, it could be due to a neuroma growing at the end. However, this is a very common medical condition after amputation. I'm sorry to make you so uncomfortable, but we'll take good care of you. Don't worry, okay?"

"If you think it's okay, then let's continue."

My body is in such a troublesome state right now; I can't do anything for myself and have to rely entirely on nurses or medical equipment for everything. She had a lot of work to do before the doctor came for her routine check-up. I was too exhausted to speak, and just nodded slightly with my eyes closed.

Jane was eager to do something for me, perhaps thinking that letting me listen to my favorite music would alleviate some of my physical pain: "Ah, I've been so busy that I forgot to wish you a happy holiday. Today is Christmas Eve, do you have any Christmas songs you'd like to hear?"

Christmas Eve. It's Christmas Eve again.

I asked her to pick up my phone for me, told her the unlock password, and opened an app that I hadn't opened in a long time. Thank goodness, after all these years, the app was still there.

Lynn couldn't read Chinese, so she could only follow my instructions and click through the buttons. She listened to unfamiliar foreign languages ​​playing from the Bluetooth speaker, without any melody. "Oh, you want to listen to an audiobook, right?"

After telling me, she helped me turn to my side, her hands moving continuously as she continued to talk to me: "What kind of story is this?"

The sound, which I hadn't dared to listen to for a long time, flowed out of the speaker like a gentle stream in a valley:

"...If I wanted to dream, the world would be a vast grassland, mountains in the distance, blue sky atop, streams flowing beneath our feet, birds in the trees, a tranquil stillness like sleep, with no people around, only you and me jumping, flying, and playing hide-and-seek together. Would you allow me to...?"

"...Because you forbid me from having dreams, I dare not dream them. I am not a poet, otherwise I would certainly dream some lovely dreams, for your sake. I cannot write the most beautiful lyric poem in the world for you, and this will be my lifelong regret..."

I told Jane that this was not a novel, but a collection of letters written by a Chinese translator to his wife. He was the most prolific translator of Shakespeare, and I really liked his translations.

A few years ago, I suffered from insomnia for a period of time, and someone read this collection of letters to me, made it into an e-book, and gave it to me as a Christmas gift.

Jane was deeply moved and exclaimed, "This is truly a sweet Christmas gift!"

"...I want to watch the rain from the thatched pavilion, watch the ants by the artificial hill, watch the butterflies court, watch the spiders spin their webs, watch the water, the boats, the clouds, the waterfall, and watch Gu Wanlin sleeping sweetly..."

Jane was busy behind me. I didn't know exactly what she was doing, only the rustling sounds and the tearing of tape. But her ears were very sharp; she picked up the only three words she recognized from the cacophony of foreign languages:

"Lynn, I heard your name, didn't I?"

The letter was written by someone else, but someone inserted a lot of personal opinions into it while reading it aloud.

Back then, I pretended to be angry in the library and threw a crumpled piece of draft paper at Aqing, saying, "What's wrong with you? You've studied Chinese literature for so many years, how come you have to plagiarize someone else's love letter?"

Ah Qing smiled and raised her hands in surrender. "Alright, alright, actually I wrote some myself, but I don't have Zhu Shenghao's literary talent, and I can't compare to him. I'm afraid you'll laugh at me. Why don't I start practicing now? Maybe I'll make great progress when I've written a hundred letters. Then I'll read what I wrote to you."

I didn't receive a hundred love letters. When we broke up, I didn't dare ask Aqing whether she had written any or how many she had saved.

Has she now developed the skill to write love letters? Does she tell the guy she dates, who sends her bouquets and takes her to botanical gardens and aquariums, that she will write him a hundred letters?

Seeing that I nodded slightly in agreement, Jane's voice came from behind me again, "Then this person must be very considerate."

she is.

"Her voice was very gentle. Although I couldn't understand what she was reading, listening to her read made me feel as if she were here with us."

I think so too.

"Do you miss her a lot?"

Yes. That's why I want her voice to accompany me.

“Lynn, let’s work together. Your condition has stabilized a lot now. You can be transferred from the ICU to a regular ward next week, and then you can be transferred to the rehabilitation center soon after.”

I closed my eyes and listened to the sounds Jane made, trying to recreate in my mind what she was doing: putting on gloves, lifting the hospital gown covering me, tearing off the Velcro fasteners securing the diaper, lifting my numb lower body, and then throwing the used tissue into the trash can.

Jane turned me over again. She was very professional, and her face showed no displeasure. She continued to talk about my future life in a light tone: "At that time, you will have more visitors, and you can go out and go out for a walk and see the people you want to see."

I have no future to look forward to.

I will never see her again.

I tilted my head, using my hair to cover the damp stains on the pillow, and smiled at Jane, "Thank you."

Then I stared intently into her eyes; at least for now, those eyes were still with me.

"Merry Christmas."