When I regained consciousness, I felt different than before. I had the feeling of flowing back into a shell, like air pouring into a balloon. Except that the air was my mind and the shell was my body. Every time I woke up, my body became more alien to me. I was afraid to make another attempt to move my limbs. Afraid of being disappointed and feeling that panic again. So I preferred to keep the illusion that I could move if I wanted to.
I glanced around the room and found it unchanged. There was no substance to perceive a change in time. I felt apathetic. As hope faded and time stood still, the energy also drained from my body. I wondered what else I could hope for.
My gaze wandered to my hand, which was still lying there as motionless as before. The light brushed gently across the skin and illuminated the fading scar that ran across the back of my hand. It was a relic of being in too much of a hurry. I wanted to catch a train and was already late. At the same time, I wanted to leave my room tidy and quickly washed up a cup. In my haste, the cup broke in the sink and the shards sliced the back of my hand. I missed my train and stayed, just like the scar that accompanied me from that day on and was a constant reminder not to rush things too much.
I saw this scar, I saw my hand and my body. The slightly bulging belly that I could never train off because I loved chocolate, my feet that appeared at the end of the comforter and the contours of my legs. All of this was familiar to me, it was my body after all. And yet this familiar shell that had always surrounded me was suddenly alien to me. What had always been available was inaccessible. So close and yet so far away. I was struck by a new fear. The outside world seemed alien and threatening. Even my own body was so foreign to me that I wanted to shake it off, get rid of the heavy ballast. But I was anchored in this strangeness. Like a grain of sand in an hourglass. I didn't belong in this sterile environment and yet I was there, exposed to the look of everyone else.