You wake up in a hospital bed: casted leg slung up in traction, awash in morphine, and woozy from the anesthesia. Parents bedside, fear and relief in their eyes. Two friends jumped into their car when they got the news, arrived in the middle of the night; another bullies his way into the ward after three long hours on the road. “Are you family?” “I’m his brother,” he grunts, and he’s not lying. Your wife is in another hospital, two hours away. Nothing makes sense.

You drift in and out of consciousness. You’re taken off for another surgery but left on a stretcher in the hall for over an hour before being wheeled back to your room. The surgery has been postponed.

You don’t react well to the painkillers. You start seeing things. A white cat visits you at night, floating around your bed like a tiny nurse shark in and around a reef. The nurses disappear for large stretches, won’t come when you push the call button. Your feet are jammed into the baseboard, forcing you to relive the aftermath of the accident. It’s driving you crazy. You imagine a conspiracy. Your mother finally raises hell with the head nurse and your too-small bed gets fixed. The doctors come around and reluctantly explain. You have become lost in the standard spiraling hell of hospitals.

In a sad version of Munchausen’s syndrome, you fall in love with each new nurse who takes a shift on your floor. One brings you ginger ale and sugar cookies in the middle of the night, knowing you can’t sleep.

Another brings you extra pudding. You punch at the painkiller button like they do in the television shows. A day passes, another.

Your brother comes in from the coast, stays a few days, heads back home. Your aunt arrives from New York. A modern dancer, she advises you, “The way out is through.” A little too metaphysical for your state of mind. Eventually, the doctors release you from the hospital. One doc assures you that you will be reunited with your wife at a rehab center in your area. That now your son can visit you every day. You’ll be there for at least a month, maybe more. You’re wheeled out into the parking lot, which feels like being released from prison. Life reboots, blank screen.