The Watch – Part 246:

(Tom’s perspective)

I don’t know how long I’ve been laying here, but I do know it has been long enough for some feeling to come back in my hands and feet, and they sting with pain. They started pulsating as the nerves slowly recovered, and the pain only but increased. At least I can treat this as a good sign, because it means my body is slowly getting better, all I have to do is lie here until the pain goes away, but I doubt I will get that chance. All I can do is help my body recover as best as it can. How I am going to do that, I think I have an idea.

The longer I lay here completely still, the longer it will take for my feet and hands to get better, so that means that the more I move, the more my blood is able to circulate through my body, carrying the nutrients my body needs to get better. That’s the theory anyway. However, the moment I move, the more the pain increases. That’s a bad theory.

I don’t know what I am going to do, if anything, from this point onwards. If I look at the reality and weight my odds, then there is more of a chance that things will go badly for me instead of going right.

I may not be capable of standing up for myself, and the fall back down will be even harder. If I start to fight back, my body may give way immediately, but I do not want to hand myself over again. I do not want to be strung up again and beaten until I break, and I most certainly will not allow myself to give her what she wants. I’ve said so before and I will say it again if it helps: I will not give her the victory; she will not win.

Does she believe she already has? Even though I do have to admit that I know hardly anything about her, I can have some confidence in saying that she does not come across as the type of person who jumps to conclusions.

I reckon she is merely waiting for me to recover until I am ready for another round, and she will continue to do so until I break. If I do attempt to fight back, I will need to know a bit more about her for the last thing I want to do is jump to any conclusions myself and ruin this whole operation, if you can call this an operation. I think it’s more closely representing a ‘thing’ at the moment with no valid title. When I eventually form a plan, I can then give it a valid title, if I ever get around to it, which may be never because I’ll be too busy thinking about what needs to be done and what needs doing, but I think I’m getting a bit too ahead of myself. I need to calm down and focus on recovering, and I won’t do that any time soon if all I’m doing is thinking about this, that and the other and not the more important things, which is getting better.

At least I can say with certainty that my thoughts haven’t been beaten to their absolute limit. They are dulling the pain slightly, but only by a minute amount. I doubt proper painkillers would be able to make this pain go away. Well, actually, painkillers don’t actually kill the pain, they only release a specific paracetamol which locates and blocks the signal from the nerves to the pain, preventing you from feeling it, but the nerves are still tender and pulsating, which means all those people you see in adverts who are playing tennis or running or even picking up their children with ease, could very much be causing themselves even more pain because they are pushing their already injured nerves even more than they can handle, so when the painkillers wear off, their pain will be even more unbearable, leading them to take more pills, and that is the first step towards addiction.

I’m not saying that everyone will fall foul of the pills, but Dr. House can be used as an example for why I don’t like taking painkillers. A decent amount of rest here and there with an appropriate amount of exercise to keep the muscles and nerves from stiffening as they recover is the best medicine. I read that on a science website a couple of years ago, and I’ve stuck to it ever since, and I am not going to give up on it now. I have no choice but to do so, so I had better make the most of the best way and get better as soon as I can.

I do need to move at some point. I will make myself feel so much worse if I stay here. I need to sit up and once I’m up, I will then think of what needs to be done then.

I am proud of myself for not giving in. It does prove that there is so much more about me. I don’t know if that determination was already there, but whatever the reason as to how I found it, I’m glad I did. As strange as it sounds – and I’m probably only saying this to keep my thoughts active –  if there’s one thing I can take away from this, that would be determination, strength and will power. If I look on the bright side, the only way is up from here on. If I put what I’ve learnt to good use, I may be able to stand some chance against Dr. Amanda.

OK, I need to move now. This is probably going to hurt like crazy, but the more I move, the better the pain will ease. Here I go, on a count of three. One. Two. Three.

I slid my legs across the ground, stretching them out, and boy did it hurt. I winched with every inch they moved, but as soon as they came to a stop, the pain did die down a satisfying amount. I will need to roll over if I am to move the other leg. I braced myself for another dose of pain as I breathed in, counted to three and rolled over, and in one slow movement, I stretched out my other leg as well.

I’m now laying on my back. All I need to do now is sit up. This is the part where I may grunt loudly as I force my muscles to move when they don’t want to. I took a couple deep breaths, bracing myself once more. I counted to three like the other two times, and heaved upwards.

TO BE CONTINUED…

Thanks for reading

Antony Hudson

(TonyHadNouns)