Downward

Italian

Falling, falling...
The flight is disorderly.  I struggle, but can't find anything to grasp, and I fall...
There is no light; I see nothing, or perhaps something has blinded me.
There is no sound; I hear nothing, or perhaps something has deafened me.

I don't know what I left behind, and don't know where I'll end up.
Downward, head first.
My eyes open, searching for a signal. There is none: only dark and the precipice.
In my contortions, the flight now finds me face down,  further, always further downward.

The sensation that I am going to crash is strong.  I imagine my body in slow motion, one piece at a time making contact with the ground. First my elbow, then my wrist, and the shoulder. Then the head, followed by my pelvis. Finally, legs.
The noise of the bones breaking: a cruel crackling that I hear loud inside me.
Then, the taste of blood in my mouth. Hot rivers which flow from my nose and ears...
A sense of dizziness  fills my head... the eyelidslower... abandonment...

I  shake myself! I am still here, and I'm still falling, or at least this is what I believe...

There is a great sense of solitude. I tighten my fists until they hurt; I have  to prove to myself that I'm still alive, that I exist.
With my fists tightened until they shake, I open my mouth and begin to scream.
Yes! I can hear my own voice. And feel the pain in my hands tortured by my contracted nerves.

I am a tense and screaming figure, falling dizzily in the darkest black.

Or, better,  in obscurity. Perhaps there is a vague reverberation of light, a slight, diffused, blurry glimmer in the distance... a horizon which is slightly less dark.

A clear line becomes silhouetted in the distance, from left to right. Intense, ever more intense.
Then it becomes larger and rises into a ray of light invading my vision and blinding me.

A sound I recognize  comes closer and fills my ears... it is my voice and I am screaming.



My forehead is sweaty. I am waiting until my eyes become accustomed to the light, which, after all, is not so bright.  In fact, it is just a diffused blue-ish gleam.

My voice's echo disappears... I turn my head... I am laying down and the bed is that of the transplant unit. The gleam is only the night light. I am alone.

The sheets are pushed away  and tubes stick out of my chest, then, after a brief  journey, they arrive at a trestle on the left.

I was dreaming, it seems, dreaming of falling and this is not surprising, considering what is happening to me. The reality of that dream is striking.
Once more I can feel that dismay and the terrible loneliness.

It's time to get out of bed. My bladder is urgent again. What hour is it?
Three-fifteen in the morning. Only forty minutes have passed since the last time.

I throw my legs down, and find myself balancing, seated on the edge of the bed.
Touching my bare feet on the ground, I search for my slippers and at the same time detach the needle from the pump feeding it, which is operating with a battery.

I get up, and with a tired step drag myself towards the bathroom.  I have to use vinyl gloves... ah, here's the box of them.

Hurrying, because the pressure on my bladder is ever more urgent.
Finally, I take the container and can free myself from that pressure.

Two hundred. I have to remember that.
Forgetting the measurement has already happened...

Flush. Take the gloves off. I wash my hands and... there is my face in the mirror.
I have no hair. My eyes are dark and sunken and my expression is gray and tired.
My shoulders are small and boney. I wonder if I'll ever be the same as  before.

I wash my hands, push the trestle next to the bed, then I put the feed back in place.

On a small table I find a piece of paper and a pen, and I write the new quantity at the end of a long column... 200.
Finally, I return to bed, taking care that the tubes don't become folded.

Turning towards the pillow, as always I repeat to myself out loud: “I can do it. I can do it. I can do it!”

Then I close my eyes. Always there,  I feel like a soldier standing at attention, waiting for who knows what event to happen.
The bone marrow transplant has already been done.
In fact, all I have to do now is wait and hope.
I have to drag myself ahead in the minutes, in the hours, the days...
I must. I must...



… and I collapsed.  I felt into a deep and desperate sleep.
A necessary, indispensable sleep. Even knowing that in half an hour I had to get up and repeat the entire process again.

Occasionally I have this dream.
Starting with the dream within a dream: that free falling flight, from the unknown to the unknown.

If I have to find sense in it all, I believe that it comes from the fact that fear is part of life. It's impossible to exclude it.
But however it might surround us, there always will be the moment in which we stand up and do what must be done.
How tired or afraid we are doesn't matter all.

Never being afraid isn't courage. It is unconsciousness.
Courage is going ahead, despite the fear.