The propofol hit my vein with a swelling pain that pulled my eyes to the back of my right hand, my concentration on the blooming fire that took me under to a waiting room of slow flowing silence and dove walls…immobile…incoherent thoughts…and then laughter pulled me towards a yellow haloed white light…bound in my anesthesia…a gurney rushed breeze and the laughter echoing a corridor, off walls or off my mind?… …laughter, the unceasing laughter, and the nurse’s question pulling me from the dark of my eyelids…Who’s with you?… …the laughter, days later, still haunts the back of my thoughts… …laughter not my own…

E.A. O'Connell. August 19, 2020