[New Assignment]

1. The Coma. Write from the point of view of a person in a coma. This is a permanent condition; the patient will not come out of the coma but still understands the outer world. The catch: voices of loved ones are familiar, even intimately familiar, but the comatose person cannot attach names to the voices. The coma patient has lost this capacity. 500 words.




reminds me of Emily Dickinson.
Maybe I can rewrite one of her work into the form of stories: "The Last Night that She Lived" or "I heard a Fly buzz-when I died"

Mary Jane, an old lady is now in the state of coma. Her grand daughter Rachel takes care of her, reads her Jane Austen's novels. However, at the end of the day, Mary Jane dies; wondering the owner of the voice reading the novel. 

Write from the point of view of a person in a coma. This is a permanent condition; the patient will not come out of the coma but still understands the outer world. The catch: voices of loved ones are familiar, even intimately familiar, but the comatose person cannot attach names to the voices. The coma patient has lost this capacity. 500 words.

            I think I’m lost. I cannot recognize where I am. I see nothing and spend my whole day sitting or walking in the absolute dark. Sometimes, I run: than soon exhausted, I again sit down on the dark floor and spend some meaningless time. I cannot recognize what time or day is it. It has been some several days since I lost the sense of time.

I think I want to get back to my normal life. Or I think I don’t want to do so. It has been some time since I forgot my own thoughts. The only contact remaining, to the ‘usual’ world, the space and time once I had belonged to, is sound. I hear some sounds of people moving around—especially ladies’ skirts, when they sweep the floor—some voices, and some flies buzz. One of the voices is repetitively heard. I think I know its owner. Considering her voice, she is a young lady who talks in a really soft manner. She calls me Mary Jane. I think I have heard of her voice. It sounds quite familiar. I hear her having conversation with others, sometimes talking to me, or reading to me.

            She reads me some novels. Considering their topic, plots and styles, they are all written by the same writer. Sometimes she gives me her own comments on some parts. Some severe, some sweet; but her overall comments are bitter, usually having a sad ending. It always happens like this. Once she reads a sentence, “There are few people whom I really love, and still fewer of whom I think well.” Then she stops there, for a second, then adds her own emotion to that: “Mary Jane, I think this can be applied to me. I don’t really have many people who I love. I didn’t think of them frequently, either…but you were one of the few that I have loved, and I will love you forever. Unless we cannot talk and hug each other as we once did.”

            I think I am important to her. Maybe a kinship or something, but how can’t I remember her name? I know nothing about her, just her kind attitude. I hope someday I recognize who she is.

            I heard a fly buzz when she is away from me. I think it wanders around in the room. It buzzes. It buzzes and buzzes and buzzes and buzzes. I think its sound get far and far away from me. I think it goes far and far from me. I think—, I think—