I’m going to try to keep the typos to a minimum, but I hope you can forgive a few. It’s hard to type with only one hand.
I was in a car accident a little over a week ago. I don’t remember how it happened, and from what I’ve seen of the remains of my car, it wasn’t a bad one. At least, it wouldn’t have been if I had been wearing my seatbelt. Stupid, I know, but I just never liked how they felt. I’m really not good with discomfort, or pain. I’ve got some pretty severe tactile issues, and sometimes I just indulge them.
I remember driving, and then I remember waking up three days later in the hospital. My parents were there, as was my girlfriend. It was kinda weird to see them all in the same room, they normally did not get along, my parents didn’t like her. After the obligatory hugs and cries of relief that I was awake, my Mom went to get the doctor, who gave me the low down on what I had missed.
Apparently, my truck had crashed into a tree. Or, I guess, I had crashed my truck into a tree. Near as the police could tell, I must have fallen asleep and swerved off the road. No other cars were involved, thank God, but the tree took the brumt of the damage. Well, the tree and my head. I hadn’t been thrown loose, but being unsecured caused my head to rocket forward as I stopped, and then backwards as the airbag deployed. My headrest was soft, but hitting it at that velocity cased some damage, and I spent three days in a coma.
“You were lucky you weren’t hurt worse, young lady.” The doctor said. “But you might not have been injured at all, had you been wearing a seatbelt.” I coildn’t argue that point.
I spent a few more days in the hospital, mostly just to make sure there wasn’t any lasting or hidden damage. I was anxious to get out of there, hospitals tended to make me nervous. That’s why I didn’t bring up the tingling in my right arm. I figured that they might want to keep me for more tests. Plus, it wasn’t too bad. Just that pins and needles sensation you get when you fall asleep on ot, and even that wasn’t all of the time.
My parents wanted me to come home with them, as did my girlfriend Karen (shut up about that). In the end, I just wanted to be at home in my own bed, so I told my parents that I was going with Karen. They weren’t happy about it, but there wasn’t much that they could do.
When we got home, Karen made me sit down on the couch while she prepared dinner. Normally, I tend to be the one to cook, but she overrode my protests. So I sat and played on my phone while she cobbled together some grilled chicken and veggies. Not exactly five star cuisine, but definitely better than what I’d been eating in the hospital.
Karen finished first, and she went to do the dishes. I’m a slower eater, so I still had a bit of chicken left. I began to notice the tingling start up in my right arm again. Normally, when I have a limb got to sleep, I try to stop moving until it goes away. If I don’t, it’s like turning the sensation up to 11. It really hurts, and I really don’t like that.
But this time, I didn’t stop moving. Or, well, I tried to stop moving. But my hand just kept going. It was holding the fork that I’d been using to eat the last of my chicken. With a sudden jerk, my hand brought the fork up, jabbing one of the tines into the inside corner of my lip. I felt the smooth point of the fork dig in, and immediately tasted the metallic tang of blood. I yelped in pain, and the tingling sensation vanished. I let the fork clatter to the ground. Karen peaked her head into the living room.
“You okay babe?” She asked.
“Uh… yeah.” I said, not sure of what to make of what just happened. “I just… forking accident.” I turned my head and showed her my lip.
She laughed. “The chicken wasn’t that good, Lydia. I think there’s an oral topical in the bathroom from when I got that tooth pulled. You want me to get it?
“No, I can get it. You keep on those dishes.” The fact that she was laughing instead of gasping in horror probably meant that the damage was not too severe. Still, it stung.
Looking at my face in the mirror, I could see that it wasn’t too bad. Our forks aren’t really intended for battle, but I had managed to carve a nice little furrow on the inside of my lip with the tine. I resolved to consult Dr. Google on if head injuries could cause some sort of localized seizures or something.
—-
My dad became a problem over the next few days. I know he meant well, was just concerned, but he was convinced that Karen wasn’t going to be able to take care of me. He kept insisting that she wouldn’t be strong enough to carry me if I fell down. Or that she wouldn’t have the skills to resuscitate me if my head injury looped back into some sort of life threatening injury. Dad was an old army medic, long since retired, but that had to be one part of where the worry came from.
But there was something else there. I think I said earlier that my parents didn’t like Karem. But that’s not exactly true. It’s more like they didn’t like us together. Like, they’d made peace with the idea of me being a lesbian. We’d had enough fights about that when I was 16, and at this point the issue was settled. But I think they dealt with it by thinking of me as a theoretical lesbian, so when I started dating an actual person, they just couldn’t deal. They treated her fine, but they were always icy.
And now this. I kept trying to convince my dad that Karen was taking good care of me, that the hospital had given me a clean bill of health, and that if anything bad happened we both knew how to dial 911. But he was relentless, I’m talking dozens of times a day he would text me or try to call me. And he got mom in on it too. Both of them were blowing up my phone… and I cracked.
I started a group message, and in it I vented all of the frustrations I had with them. Not just the stuff about trying to get me to come over. But the way they treated Karen, and the way they handled it when I came out. Once I was unbolted, I just poured it on, digging up every grievance I could from childhood. It got vicious.
It was really cathartic, to get all of that anger out. It made me feel better, and as I read through the text, I thought that just writing it was enough. I could remember the stuff that mattered, and dump all of the childish and hurtful score settling. They had been trying, at least in some arenas, and I felt like I owed this to them in a face to face setting. I was getting ready to delete it when the tingling started. The thumb of my right hand pressed firmly down on the little envelop icon. The message sent.
My parents stopped reaching out.
—-
I tried to call my parents a couple of times, but they didn’t pick up. And my car was wrecked, so I couldn’t go over there to set things right. I could have asked Karen to take me, and she probably would. But I didn’t want to put her through whatever waited for me when I got to their place.
Plus, I had other things to worry about. The tingling sensation in my right hand and arm were becoming a lot more frequent. On the evening of the blowout with my parents I was taking a shower, and when my hand cranked the hot water up, scalding me. Or the next night, when I was fast asleep I awoke to a blinding pain as I felt the fingernail of my right index finger rake across my cornea. I managed flinch my head away, but that eye has been blurry and swollen since.
I decided to do that check with Dr. Google, and it seems like I’m not the first person to go through something like this. I found a Wikipedia article about something called “Alien Hand Syndrome”. It’s this thing where sometimes, after major brain injuries, a limb just goes haywire. It feels like, to the person, someone or something else is controlling the hand. I started to regret leaving the hospital without mentioning the tingling sensations. Maybe my head injuries were worse than I thought?
“Hey Karen?” I said. She was laying next to me in bed, reading a book.
“Yeah, Lyd?” She asked, not looking up.
“I think, in the morning, maybe we should go back to the hospital.”She stuck her thumb in the book, and turned to face me. “Yeah? Head hurting?”
I started to tell her about the article I was reading, and to let her know what had been going on the past few day, when my arm erupted in the sensation. My arm flung up from under the covers, and slapped Karen in the face. I felt the impact cut through the pins and needles of my arm. Her head smacked against the headboard from the force, and she rolled out of bed. She tottered to her feet, her eyes woozy, wounded, and angry.
“What the fuck, Lydia?” She said, tears starting to well.
“I… Oh god, Karen! I didn’t mean to do that. I’m so sorry.” I started towards her, but she flinched back. Afraid. Afraid of me.
“You just… just slapped me by accident?” She said with a brittle, disbelieving laugh. She was reaching down to pick up her pants from where they lay on the floor.
“No!” I tried desperately think of a way to explain. I saw my phone sitting on the bed, the article still up on it. I grabbed for it with my left hand. But my right was faster, it shot out and picked up the phone. With unreal speed and strength it hurled it directly at Karen’s face. She dodged, but it hit the wall so hard it dented the drywall. Karen took one frightened look at me, pulled on her pants, and ran.
I tried to follow, but as I started to get close, I felt the beginnings of the vibrating feeling in my right arm. I looked and saw a dozen small objects within reach that could become hurled missiles. I threw myself back, crashing into the vanity that we used to store our make up. It dug into the small of my back, but at least I was away from things my hand could pelt at Karen. I heard the front door slam, and shortly thereafter her car starting up.
I managed to pull myself up, relying heavily on my left arm. I spotted my phone on the floor near where it had impacted the wall, and I thought I might be able to call Karen and explain. But the screen was shattered beyond repair. I looked around the room, and saw that she didn’t matter. Her phone lay, forgotten, on her bedside table. That probably the only reason she hasn’t already called the cops.
—-
And that brings us to now. I finished reading the the Alien Hand Syndrome article. I used Karen’s phone. I… I don’t know if that’s what’s going on, to be honest. The article said that most of the time those movements are fairly benign. Annoying, like closing a cabinet that you just opened or putting out your cigarette. But nothing this violent or cruel. This feels different. I do think one thing applies though. The article says that there’s no cure.
But… that’s not exactly right. It’s not a cure, but a hand can’t act on its own if it’s not connected to anything, right? I’m sitting on it right now. It’s been tingling non-stop since shortly after Karen left. Trying to get out from under me. Or trying to get to the knife I’ve got sitting on my left side. I’m just trying to work up the nerve.
I’m writing this in the hopes that if you don’t hear from me with an update. If I die from blood loss, maybe one of you will be kind enough to explain what happened to my loved ones? Please tell them I’m sorry.
—-
She couldn’t do it.
She probably should have known that. She never liked pain. She mentioned that, right?
She tried, but the firsst cut was just too much to handle. She flinched away from the pain, dropping the knife. She flinched and let up the pressure on her hand, just a bit. Just enough.
Hey, did you all know that there is a way to cut the human spinal cord in just such a way that only a single limb remains operational? It’s rare, the spine usually isn’t injured that way out in the world, and even hardcore serial killers don’t have a reason to leave their victims with a single working limb. So only a few known cases have ever occurred. But if you know exactly where to cut, you can sever the right nerves quite easily.
That’s kind of a fun fact, right? Here’s another one. Not all forms of paralysis come with numbness. In those case, the person is able to feel, but they’re like a marionette with the strings cut. Helpless, but they can feel all sorts of things. Pressure. Cold. Heat.
And pain, of course.