A Glitch In To A Guy's Mind - Amber Marshall-Nichols (philippa perry book txt) 📗

motorbikes etc; so I cross. I hear Mercy’s ghastly cackle of a laugh and look up to see Lewis jabbing her sides playfully. My earphones catch my coat button and my iPod topples out of my pocket on to the floor. Bending down, I go to pick them up. I move hesitantly, delicately, as though touching the device will send me hurling me backwards. I sweep them up, and boringly, I don't go zooming anywhere. I untangle earphones in a frenzy of irritation from being delayed yet again, but eventually manage to un-coil them from around my body.I quickly slot the earphones back in and continue to travel along the road to the greener , other side. But then I slip, one foot collides with the other and I fall back landing with a massive thud. I scream in surprise and Lewis rushes over as I rub my throbbing side. That’s when he calls my name “ELIZA!” followed by some bright yellow lights, screeching, and then everything’s black followed with a sensation I couldn’t even describe as pain.
The feeling of unknowing overwhelms me as a I crash in to consciousness. I can’t feel the cool of the pavement on my bare legs anymore, but instead; a softness that tickles with movement.

Chapter Two
My body awakes with the feeling of a liquid of some sort strolling down my body. I assume that when I fell in the road a car splashed a puddle over me or something, and that if I were to open my eyes; I’d see the pavement before me and a shattered Ipod. But I knew something about that idea was wrong. I just didn’t know what. My eyes flickered open and I registered that I wasn’t laid faced down with the concrete before me, I was standing, abruptly straight in the centre of someone’s room. The first thought to enter my head was ‘Who on earth sleeps standing up?’ followed by ‘Where the heck am I?’. I knew I wasn’t in the hospital. There were no dull paintings, heart monitors, beds with drips, windows that looked on to a car park, pale blues that were curtains and sheets. I wasn’t in a hospital gown with scratches and bruises covering my knees and arms and chest. I was intact-how I’d arrived for school that morning. My hair was up in a bun, clip at side, wearing one ring, two bracelets, a long sleeved shirt, a skirt recognised as ‘too short’, two pairs of tights and the inappropriate doc martins for shoes- the only thing I had left which hadn’t lost its sole or was scuffed to pieces. The only difference was, I didn’t feel like I did when I got to school that morning- plain, tired, grouchy. I felt crisp and new and UN REAL. The sensation that water was trickling down my arm overwhelmed me again and I found myself looking around.

This room, the room I was stuck in; had red walls. Four of them, as you’d expect. There were no windows, no lights, but it wasn’t at all dark. On the wall hung pictures, but the weird thing about them was that, when far away the images looked crystal clear, but as you’re far away, you can’t see what they are. When up close, the image becomes distorted and hurts your eyes to look at, as though you’re being punished for staring. There was a black leather sofa leaned against the black wall too, and typically, faced a television. But this wasn’t just a television, it was a 120” television with no wires to connect it, no plugs to which you could connect it to- no buttons, no standby lights, all there was, was a black square with a note reading ‘Just find the remote.’ In, what appeared, a teenage boy’s handwriting. I’d begun to crawl around the floor in search for the remote, when I noticed the wet sensation had stopped. Instead I was suddenly hot, then cool, then warm again, then a bit nippy. It began to irritate me and made me more determined to find this bleeding remote.
I found it eventually and it seemed the process of looking had taken several days, though in here, I suppose, How would I know? The remote was, in fact, behind one of the photographs on the wall. This particular photo was printed to a canvas and as the remote was so tiny, it sat on the ledge, it’s single button, facing up, and you know what? The button was red. What do people say about red buttons? DO NOT PUSH. So, obviously I did. The room filled with a buzzing which pained my head and my hands swept to my ears to drill out the sound as my eyes closed in pain. I heard a shriek from the TV and my eyes drew back to the screen where all I could see was a coffee cup laying on a table, its contents overflowing over the edge, and someone’s hands trying to collect the spillage through the dabbing of napkins. Of all things to put on TV, why would someone want to watch a boy failing to clean up coffee? The boy eventually gave up, shoving everything on the table away from him in frustration. I soon noticed that what I was seeing was from his point of view...
The boy, Mr Unknown, began to walk away from the mess, quickly and I could tell by his posture; shoulders hunched forwards, the way each step seemed like too much effort that he’d probably been here a long time. The cafe wasn’t your usual cafe. There weren’t advertisements, images of ludicrous deserts on the walls, little alcoves where you could chat with your friends. It was all very boring, and crisp and clean. I suspected it was a hospital cafe, and I soon found my thoughts were correct. Having wandered in to the corridor towards a lift, the boy had now stopped and appeared to be staring at the elevator button as though he were demanding for it to arrive. When the elevator finally came, he was hesitant to get in, like his entrance would be the last place he were to roam, like he’d be trapped if he were to venture inside. It wasn’t until the elevator doors rolled open, revealing a mirror opposite and HIS reflection that I knew who he was.
“Lewis,” My mother’s voice rushed just as I registered his image in the mirror. “What are you still doing here?”
“The same reason you are here, to wait for her,” Wait for me? I was in his head for god sakes! I didn’t know how to get out of there!
“Haven’t you waited long enough?” My mother’s tone matched her face. Tired, Weak, I wondered what the cause of her frailness was.
“I’m not leaving until she comes back to us, until she wakes up, I was there at the accident, until she wakes up, I won’t be able to do anything knowing I didn’t save her,” Lewis’ words began to fade as I remembered what he now recalled. The television in front of me had split to show two images. One was the scene of the accident, showing me standing by the path looking left and right for traffic. The other showed my mother’s crippled face as Lewis’ spoke of what happened to me just as the scene played out on the other half of the screen. I watch the screen, trying to remember what happened. The ipod spilling from my hands, the bend to pick it up, the trip which sends me on to the ground again and the stumble to my feet, I remember all that. It’s only remembering after then which leads me to look at the screen before me. I see myself coming more in to focus, obviously as Lewis gets closer to me in order to help me regain balance; then I see both our attentions drift to a car heading my way. Inside, a couple are arguing. They’re both so involved in their dispute that they’re not looking for teenagers swaying on the road so they carry on driving. I see the car hit me, I see my body fall heavily backwards and my skull crash against the pavement, more than a trickle of blood immediately flowing from it as Lewis’ calls my name, and I hear the tires of the car squeak through attempt to stop after my body has bounced off. The picture blurs and leaves me breathing heavily, I can’t bear to listen to Lewis’ and my mother’s conversation anymore so I press the red button again, switching off. I move backwards towards the sofa and collapse on to it. The leather is as cold as I am and if feels good. I wrap myself in to a ball and just stay there a while, accepting the fact that I am, potentially, in a coma but at the same time, wishing I’d dreamt this all up, and were, just unconscious in the middle of Sea view Avenue. My hand itches towards the remote again, and still lying gloomily in my ball, I turn channel Lewis back on.
“Just go home darling; you’ve been here all night,” came my mother’s voice again, sincere towards the boy.
“I can’t. I just can’t. Yeah, I’ve been here all night, but I didn’t come the first day. I watched her be shoved on a stretcher and taken away in an ambulance then just went home and sat in my room. I should’ve got in the ambulance with her and stayed the very first day. So, I can’t leave her now, not again, I owe it to her”
“There’s nothing you could have done. No way could you have stopped the car hitting her. No difference would have been made if you’d of sat and held her hand in the ambulance, and you staying here for the sake of it won’t help her now, you’ll only tire yourself. Haven’t you got an exam on Monday Lewis?”
“Well, Yeah” He grunted. We both had exams. Big Exams. English and Maths, and these were last entry. So there were my qualifications down the toilet even if I did wake up.
“Ought you not to be revising?”
“Not important,” But his thoughts told me otherwise, appearing around me in bubbles.
“Lewis!”
“YOU WANT ME TO REVISE!” He screamed at my mother. “How on earth will I concentrate on poetry and sums with the thought of her dying right in the back of my mind?”
“I never knew you were so close,” My mother whispered putting one hand squarely on Lewis’ shoulder.
“Not at first glance we weren’t. But we used to be. I’d give anything to be that close again now.” BUT I AM CLOSE TO YOU! My head screeched. I”M INSIDE YOUR HEAD! THAT”S HOW CLOSE WE ARE! “Well,” She didn’t know what to say to him, so for a moment the two just stood there in silence, breathing heavily, and looked as though they were mourning for me within themselves. Finally my mother spoke again.
“I was then leaving, I’ve got to pick up John and Charlie, so, if you want to go in and see her, I’ll wait and give you a ride home,”
“Thanks Mrs Howards, I appreciate it,” My mother bowed her head and stepped aside and Lewis’ ghostly shimmer of a silhouette floated towards the reception desk of Barkley ward.
“Is it okay for me to see Eliza Howards?” A lump caught in his throat as he spoke my name and I shivered as too heard it spoken for the first time since being here- in this situation.
“Oh- I’m sorry sweetie, she’s just with a doctor at the moment,”
“But she was only checked on an hour ago,”