Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: PATIENT (11/25/21)
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TITLE: A Once-In-A-Lifetime Staring Role | Previous Challenge Entry
By Linda Lawrence
12/01/21 -
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I remembered that I hadn’t felt well. Very unusual for me. I went to bed early. As early as the children. Seemed like my husband may have joined me.
The next thing I remembered was opening my eyes and wondering why I was lying on the bathroom floor with my feet against the door. I heard my husband’s muffled voice calling my name and the sound of scuffling on the stairway. Was he fighting off a burglar? I managed to stand up, light-heading and somewhat shaky. What next? Before I knew what was happening, my husband burst through the door, panting. He grabbed me and guided, pushed, stumbled, apparently trying to escort me back to the bed. And five neighbors followed him! One, a dear friend, fell on her knees next to me, fervently praying. Such a commotion.
Was I the only one noticing my husband now sheepishly putting on trousers? But all eyes were on me, even my frightened husband’s.
I knew I wasn’t dreaming but I felt like I was on stage in the midst of some drama playing out, finding myself in the role of stared-at Patient—without a script.
Apparently there was no script and no need for me to speak. Listening to the confused chatter of the gathered crowd around me I began piecing together what had just happened.
It appears my husband and I had dozed off, then I awoke, needing to use the bathroom. I must have fainted and landed with a thump that woke Carl. But I landed with my feet against the door and he couldn’t get in. The dear man, who never worried about his own health, panicked because he’d never seen me ill. Without thinking, he ran down the stairs and out into the yard calling for neighbors to come help. The noise I heard on the stairs was him stumbling in his rush to get back to me.
An unnamed fleeting virus had silently played its invisible, but essential role in this one-act drama during a shaky stage of married life.
Awkward and confusing as the evening was, it is a fond and convincing memory of my husband’s unspoken ways of revealing his love for me.
Running outside in his underwear? Laying awake for the rest of the night, his worried eyes staring at me? Those actions spoke far more eloquently than handing me a bouquet of roses.
Memoir
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