Luckily, Dante’s brain hadn’t suffered any physical damage in spite of the long period under anesthesia. Once he got over the first onset of meningoencephalitis, a week after his arrival in the hospital, the doctors ordered the removal of the breathing tube that connected him to the ventilator and started reducing the level of sedatives being administered. Dante thus found himself swimming through an extremely boring version of heaven, without fluffy clouds or colors. It took forever before the unbroken fields of white started filling up with silhouettes that fluttered in silence. In time, the shapes started to acquire depth and sound. They turned into shadows that danced around him in an endless succession of grumblings and squeaks and buzzes. They were words, but Dante couldn’t understand them: he’d lost all knowledge of language, along with all physical sensations. He didn’t even know that his eyes were open.
That is why, on the tenth day, it was in fact his first physical sensation—thirst—that brought with it the first fully meaningful word.
Water.
The word pulsated, floating overhead. Dante felt icy drops falling on him, little tiny pinpricks.
Rain.
He could taste their flavor in his mouth, as metallic as
Blood.
It almost felt as if his head were filling up, swelling up like a bag of concepts and stimuli that once again made him feel like a
Human being.
Seen from outside, his eyelids were only quivering faintly, but inside, he was turning
Somersaults
of sheer
Joy.
And now the silhouettes were slowing down; he could make out details. A green flash that gave him something like an
Electric shock.
That silhouette in fact became his point of reference. It appeared on the far side of the unscalable mountain formed by the
Bedsheets.
The other silhouettes approached and churned away, but the one with the green flashes was always there. Time slowed down further, as if the words that filled his head were serving as a counterweight. The landscape became definable, the world took on warmth and color.
Odor.
The odor set his brain on fire. Every molecule brought with it sensations and memories of what had been. The silhouette became three-dimensional. It was a woman sitting in an old armchair with a book that was crumbling in her hands. She wore a sweater made of undyed wool and a pair of jeans; her bare feet were perched up on the bed.
When the woman looked up, training her green eyes upon him, Dante remembered her name.