When I opened my eyes, the light was burning in my eyes. I had to summon all my strength to relax and lift my eyelids even a little. The light stabbed into my eyeball like a burning sword. I didn't know what was happening, where I was, I wasn't aware of my history, I merely was. I felt the pain of the light, I felt the fog in my mind. It felt something like a tiredness, a weariness. Like when you wake up in the morning and briefly look the world in the face, but you would rather sleep a little longer. This time, however, the gentle slide into the unconscious world felt more definitive, a little more monstrous and final.
I was slow to get used to the light. At first I couldn't make out any contours, but the more often I forced myself to keep my eyes open, the longer the period in which light stabbed into my eyeball became. I saw a lot of white, a lot of light and a few outlines. At first I perceived billowing curtains. Windows embedded in white-painted walls. A chair and a table that looked so mass-produced that they could have been in a furniture store or a youth hostel. Then I saw the end of my bed, on which I was lying, embedded in a white sheet. I noticed a clipboard attached to the foot of the bed. The room I was lying in was impersonal and sterile. I let my eyes wander around and couldn't see anything else that was in any way personal, except for a bush of lilac on the table, which radiated some life even though it was cut off and dying. Was this a sign? I tried to turn my head to look further at my surroundings, but I was fixed with a neck brace that kept my head, and therefore my field of vision, rigid. Slowly, I became aware of a sharp pain rising up my body. I looked at my right hand, which was lying outside the blanket, and tried to lift it with all my remaining strength, but it wouldn't move. It eluded my will. As my strength faded, I slipped back into unconsciousness.