It’s true what everyone says that you can hear people when you’re in a coma. But it’s not conscious at all. I heard Eve plenty of times, but I thought she was there in the dream with me. Sometimes I knew it was a dream. Sometimes I didn’t or I slowly forgot. Sometimes I didn’t even remember the crash. Which is strange now considering how serious it was. PART ONE I was in university for a year and a half, but eventually I didn’t really remember why I was going in the first place. I couldn’t give myself a good reason to stay, so I went on indefinite hiatus. I was working two jobs. Part-time at a record store; not that I was especially skilled musically, but I had enough interest to be of occasional assistance, and part time as a driver for a pizza delivery place. “Shit.” That was all I could think of when I saw the blue minivan. There was no time to think of anything else, or to even react. I was in the middle of my life-flashing-before-my-eyes experience when, as I was swerving in the middle of an intersection, I was hit by another car. I know I was unconscious, but I have a memory of the incident, I am looking down at the accident from a birds-eye view. In a helicopter maybe. I can see the car flip upside down, and I can see a lifeless hand hanging out the window. It doesn’t look like my hand, but it is. There is a strange blueness of the scene, as if I was looking a camera with a blue candy wrapper taped over the lens. As I recall that day was sunny, but in this memory dark clouds hung over the tops of the skyscrapers. Looming. In my coma I heard Eve, my girlfriend a lot. She was there all the time. My parents came often as well. Eve took me by surprise once. “Hey,” she says with a sweet, soft voice. Caring and saturated with love. She is sitting on the bed in a hotel room. “I’ve got the water running in the bath, I’m ready for you,” she giggles enticingly. I approach her and sit beside her on the bed. It is the first time I notice she is naked except for a pair of rain boots. “What are those for?” I ask. “You never know when it could rain” And crimson raindrops, matching her boots, spray across the room. She just sits there, her face expressionless. I put a hand to my forehead and the spurting stops, but the blood pours down my face. “Babe help me! Please help!” I scream. But she remains seated. And there is a pain in my arm and without seeing her lips move I hear her say, “Wake up. Open your eyes. I know you can do it today.” I was back in the hospital. IVs everywhere. Eve’s face was right above my chest. She was squeezing my arm tightly. I shouted “Okay I’m awake! Don’t worry!” But nothing happened. She buried her face into my chest. Seconds pass. Or minutes. Maybe years. Maybe I’ve been dead for a hundred years without knowing it. Maybe I’m just dreaming. I know I’m dreaming. It’s just the waking up that’s the problem. I pass through each dream after dream after dream. At least I know it’s all a dream now. All I need to focus on is waking up. I can’t remember too much of it now. Only bits and pieces. But I remember waking up. I was in the middle of a parking garage. My car is in the middle of the garage. On the far side of the garage is a doctor. “Hey listen. You remember what happened to you last time. It’d be a shame to have to stitch you up again.” I knew better than him though. “I know the risks, doc. If I can just get the car started and drive out of here I think I’ll wake up.” “Seems like a logical guess, but maybe you’ve got it wrong? It seems that, given how the last time you got into one of those, going back in is probably symbolic of you dying. Ever think about that? You might never wake up.” I pondered this for a moment. “It seems the more I think of it the more it makes sense. I have to go back to my reality the way I came into this one.” “How can you drive though, if you don’t have the key?” He said with a crooked smile. “You can use mine baby.” I turned to see Eve with her set of keys. “Go ahead, get in.” I looked at her, pleading, “Can’t you come with me?” She laughed, “No silly, I’m already waiting for you! Make sure you go real fast! You never know what could happen in these cars. Especially in a place like this.” I opened the door to the car. “Suit yourself,” Said the doctor, and with that both him and Eve vanished. I got into the car and sat in the driver’s seat without putting the keys into the ignition. After what seemed like hours, I finally put the key into the ignition. A large metal door opened in the parking lot. The exit. I drove through the large exit, and was on a deserted, sunny street. The quiet was discomforting. I decided I needed to drive around. I needed to find something to trigger an awakening. Then the blue minivan appeared in my rear-view. I immediately panicked. I pushed my foot into the gas pedal with all my might but the car didn’t budge. The blue minivan immediately sped up, coming directly towards me. Not knowing what else to do, I jumped out of the window. Barely in time, because before I even hit the ground the minivan smashed into my car, again. My car flipped over like it had in real life, but this time in slow motion. When it finally crashed onto the concrete of the sidewalk, a limp hand fell out of the window. I walked towards my car, the blue minivan nowhere in sight anymore. Before I got a look at the face of the person in the car, who I couldn’t immediately recognize because of the blood, I felt a floating sensation. I was waking up. Literally. I was floating towards the sun, which wasn’t far off in space, but was just a bright bulb, suspended in this blue sky, maybe fifty metres off the ground. I looked down again. Blood was spilling everywhere, the ground around the car was stained like lips after crushing a pomegranate seed between teeth. Everything was getting blurry, distorted. I kept floating up, higher and higher, and the higher I was, the less of a body I had, until all that was left was a consciousness. Just a mind. I had to fight to keep it from dissolving, and once I had floated above the sky, in a sunless but bright space, where the stars were about as big as a thumbnail, I saw Eve’s eyes. White. Bright white. Hospital room white. And a gentle voice. “Wake up.” I opened my eyes.