The Last Conversation

009

Your eyes itch, and you are told that means your eyes are healing and soon you will see.

Each of the last three days, you got out of bed and walked the perimeter of your room. You alternated placing your left hand and right hand along the wall, depending upon the direction you walked.

You are told exercising in darkness is not ideal but necessary to prevent atrophy and to strengthen your muscles. You were asleep for a very long time, and one should expect physical difficulties upon awakening.

Today there is a treadmill in a corner of your room. You interrupt Dr. Kuhn’s explanation, definition, and the specifications of the particular model in your room to tell her that the first treadmill was invented by a man in nineteenth-century England. Its purpose was to punish and break its prisoners. You quoted a prison guard named James Hardie, who once wrote of the treadmill: “monotonous steadiness, and not its severity, which constitutes its terror.”

You initially interpret Dr. Kuhn’s silence as her being surprised you were so readily able to recall that information. You worry the information is obscure or not something that should be known. What does the knowing imply about your person, your interests prior to your being here?

You ask if she is still there. You are quick to amend the question with an explanation: by “there,” you mean in another room, removed from yours, but still watching and able to communicate when she chooses. Before she responds you attempt a joke, asking if you are a prisoner being exercised on a treadmill. You indicate to Dr. Kuhn that you are joking with laughter.

She does not laugh. She says, “You are not a prisoner.”

You swing your legs off the bed, and your bare feet slap against the floor, which is colder than the air. You are nervous and consider telling her you are feeling pain at a level of three or maybe four out of ten, so that you might not have to exercise on a treadmill, a machine you know was invented for prisoners.

As instructed you walk four steps left, three steps right. Your hands grope for the handrails, which are at waist height. Their padding molds to the contours of your fingers. You squeeze your hands and you do not feel strong and you do not remember ever feeling strong. You step up onto the edge of the treadmill and shuffle your feet forward until she tells you to stop.

She tells you there will be a countdown of five electronic beeps and the last will be the loudest and longest in duration. The belt under your feet will then begin its cycle. The speed of the cycle will be voice-activated on her end and it will react and conform to the rhythm of your gait.

She says, “I do not expect you to be perfect, particularly given the challenges of your condition and environment. I won’t lie: injury is possible, maybe inevitable. I’m sorry, but given how many days you’ve now been awake, the benefits of manual, cardiovascular exercise far outpace what low-pulse electrical muscle stimulation can accomplish.

“You are doing wonderfully, but through no fault of your own you are behind schedule.”

The countdown of beeps begins. They are louder than you imagined they would be. You shiver in the chilled air. The last beep sounds, echoing in the room and in your head. You involuntarily giggle at the excitement and terror. Your stomach stings. Your legs twitch.

You slide backward, and you gasp as the sensation is eerily similar to when you ebbed away into unconsciousness on your first day, the first day you remember waking in this room.

“You are not a prisoner.”

“Walk.”

You lift your right foot, it is so heavy and unsure, and you lurch clumsily forward. Your second and third steps are too long of stride and you miss the moving belt, the heel of one foot crashing into what must be the cover to the treadmill’s engine. You overcorrect, stumble, and fall hard onto one knee, bouncing your chin off the other. Your grip slackens and then falls away from the handrails, and you are rolled backward and thrown onto the floor.

The whir of the machine ceases. You breathe hard and fast. You scramble onto your feet and you hold your aching chin in your hands, and you say, “I’m sorry,” and you are crying.

She does not ask if you are injured. She says your name and says it repeatedly. There is nothing in her voice, no pitch change or hidden cues communicating concern. Your repeated name is a command for attention and focus. She says your name until you slow your breathing and you stop crying.

She tells you that you’re okay even though you don’t feel okay. She instructs you to take three deep breaths and then step back onto the treadmill.

Something inside screams at you to no longer trust Dr. Kuhn and demands you ask why she wants you on the treadmill, why are you still in the dark, why are you here?

You do not question. You do not demand. You do as instructed. Your hands are shaking as they squeeze the handrail. You are told there will be a countdown of five electronic beeps and the last will be the loudest and longest in duration.

“Walk.”

You fall twice more. The second time your face mashes into the handrail, setting off bursts of white stars in the dark.

“Walk.”

You maintain balance and find a comfortable pace and rhythm. You walk and you walk and you enjoy the mechanical rhythm of your body and you let your mind wander and wonder about brown houses and crab apples.

She alerts you that you’ve reached your goal of thirty minutes, and the treadmill powers down. The belt is no longer rolling, but you feel phantom movement beneath your feet. A phantom is something you imagine, something that isn’t there. You wonder if time is a phantom because it feels like you walked for longer than thirty minutes. You wonder if she is lying to you.