Inertia

If there’s anything or anyone I trust in this life, it’s me. My recollections of the events that took place. I was there, not them.

  In the immortal words of Tony Montana, “Who do I trust? I trust me.”

  Myself alone! Not some idiot in a lab coat and pocket protector with his five hundred dollar Xanex. I don’t know what they’re trying to do to me but I’m not going to let them.

  How did Houdini do it? I thrash inside the crusty denim overcoat. It smells like salty moth balls.

  I don’t know exactly when, but something pricked me. I woke up twisted inside this thing with my arms crossed and pulled behind my back. The only thing inside my new room, besides me and the four soft walls, is a mattress with no frame.

  I am not crazy!

  Everything else—that is the real nonsense, not me.

  How is everyone so easily convinced? Why do they blindly accept the information given to them? Doesn’t anyone think for themselves anymore?

  If a straightjacket is what I get for wanting to find the truth then so be it. They can lock me up, but they can’t make me believe.

  It’s impossible that every waking second I spent since the accident is a lie. It’s got to be the meds they gave me. My head is spinning.

  Ticking down a mental checklist, I start with the basest things I know to be undoubtedly true. Facts no side effects of medication can change: my name is Gerald Jasen Springer, the third. My mother never loved me. I am thirty-two years-old and unemployed. Abi hates me, Ahmed fired me. I slept in my car the night before my job interview. I was on the bus, listening to music. I felt the crazy man barrel over me as he chased the trucks’ impact. The people wrenched from their seats into the air. I heard their screams. The scene plays out in my head as I recite the words to myself.

  I know it happened, there is no doubt.

  Why am I the only one who seems to know about it? Why am I the only one who’s not burned beyond recognition, being identified by dental records? Is it possible I was thrown far enough from the wreck that I managed to avoid death or serious injury? Why doesn’t anyone believe me? Considering the possibilities and the strange circumstances I’ve stumbled into leads to one defining question:

  Who says I’m not? Maybe I do have a massive head injury and the pain is seeping into my consciousness.

  This prospect incites more encouragement than any other possibility. It could explain my lack of clarity and the headaches. Everything feels like a dream, so maybe it is.

  What if I’m in a coma?

  I could be at death’s door right now!

  I’ve heard stories about people who lived through them. They were lucid the entire time, but couldn’t connect their mind to their bodies. My experience, very clearly, is not lucid. I have no control over anything. That’s nothing new. My whole life has been a series of one disaster leading to the next, so why should I expect my subconscious dream or possible projected reality to be any different?

  In the brief instances when I can open my eyes, all I see are padded walls and hospital scrubs.

  “Lobotomize me!” is what I try to yell, but it sounds like mush.

  I spit at the technicians who’ve come back to medicate me. They say if I stop kicking, they’ll stop drugging me but it’s a lie. The order for sedation has been given and they will follow the doctor’s orders.

  “You’re puppets!”

  Comatose . . . that has to be it, the alternative is too ridiculous.

  Everyone knows Back To The Future was fiction. F-I-C-T-I-O-N.

  There are no time machines.

  There aren’t even DeLoreans anymore!

  Losing Track