Coma Chameleon

I am opening my eyes.

Hard fluorescents, flashes of hovering faces, I shut my eyes again.

The room smells like feces and jello.

My wrists are bound to risers in the bed I'm in.

I fall away.

I wake again. Pen lights in my eyes. Blood pressure cuff. ECG electrodes. The incessant beeping of machines around me. Wires and needle sticks and a mask removed from my face, then replaced, then removed again.

I fall away.

I wake again.

"Welcome back," the doctor says. He's tall. 60-ish. Impossibly tan.