Pride- the first

When I woke up on a dreary Tuesday morning in May, the last thing I expected was to die. Maybe I would actually get out of my room, get some fresh air for the first time in months, but the last thing I ever expected was to die.

"...Well Miss, things like this are complicated..."

"...Your son is very ill, it may be best not to enroll him in public school..."

"...he may be unable to go outside ever again if he gets through this..."

They didn't think I could hear them, but of course I could. I had been there the whole time. I could think and hear, I just couldn't move... or speak... or control any of my bodily functions. I had been comatose for about a week, but I knew what was going on. Doctors telling my poor mother that she'd be rid of her burden, that she wouldn't have to be a single mother anymore, she just had to say yes to pulling the plug. She took too long to say yes though and eventually I woke up.

"Hello? #%*#$, can you hear us?" I winced, what the hell was he trying to say? "#%*#$, you were in a terrible accident. Can you speak?" The doctor talked to close and too loud.

"I can hear you, just stop saying nonsense!" I looked at the old, fat, white bearded man... he looked like a mix between a stereotypical wizard and Santa Clause, his beard was trimmed and thin, while his cheeks and nose were bright red as if smeared in a cherry pie before he started speaking to me. "Son, what's your name?" I looked at him and chuckled "It's #%*#$."

That was about ten years ago, I was diagnosed with APD, auditory processing disorder. It basically meant their were certain sounds that I could never understand or process. One of them being my name. I've long sense forgotten it, as I have no real use for it. After I was hit by a car, crossing the street outside my house, I have had immune system problems, my bones break easily, and half the time I stay locked in my room to avoid my mother yelling nonsense at me that I know has to be my name. But that doesn't matter... none of it really matters.

My father was just some stranger, at least that's what my mother told me. Got her pregnant and then fell off the face of the earth. Classic deadbeat dad and alcoholic single mother story really, but it never meant much of anything to me.

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What changed that Tuesday for me was an email, an invitation to go out at night. Now I didn't have friends, I never went out, and I most certainly didn't get mysterious emails. So for some reason I thought, "sure... why not, might as well run away for at least a few hours"

So I passed the day away hearing my name being called from downstairs "#%*#$" over and over again... the same incomprehensible noise. The doctors had always been baffled that it was only my name I couldn't understand anymore, but accepted it none the less because it was the easy thing to do.

So with a messed up brain, a horrible immune system, and bones that break like twigs I snuck out that night, full of stupidity and interest...