Jack's Diary - The Long Wait - Day 62

            It’s a helpless feeling. To know that you have a problem that no one can help with. It’s even worse when everyone you see walks about without a care, not even giving your pain a passing glance. I’ve prided myself on the ability to protect myself from harm and to protect others when the time came. The argument could be made that I can do a lot with just one arm. Well I’m sorry to look at the glass half empty, but there’s a lot I can’t do with one arm. Two-handed weapons will be out of the question, I’ll have one less arm to fight with in fist fights, building any new equipment will take 10 times as long if it’s even possible, and I’m at a great disadvantage to enemies, soulless or human. You could even argue that Julie has the same problem; it’s not true. Julie can move her arm; she just doesn’t have a hand with it. She could attach a hook to it, or use it to cook a shotgun or hold something down. She knows she doesn’t have a hand anymore because it’s not there, but my arm will hang in front of me as a constant reminder of its uselessness, my uselessness. Maybe I’m just being a whiner about this. People lose their lives everyday, but I’ve lost as well. I’ve lost a home, a family, friends, a good base, the chance to reunite a father and daughter. I don’t want to lose my arm too.

            No one bothered to wake me up (I guess Mike told them not to, maybe). Nothing had changed. The only reason I knew I had a left arm was because I saw it, not because I felt it. There wasn’t any pain at the moment and I hoped to keep it that way. It seemed like it only occurs when I exert myself (if that’s true, then I’m near worthless now).

            Coming out of my tent, I saw that everyone was busy packing the cars, organizing everything to make sure it along with everyone can fit in the cars again. There was casual conversation between those nearby each other. The words that happen to float in my direction crashed against my eyes and ignored my ears. My senses weren’t right today. I could see Julie, the odd one out of the bunch, searching frantically, going from person to person, asking the same question until she reached me, “Where’s Mike?”

            “How am I supposed to know?”

            Her expression changed so quickly from concerned to angry to amused.

            “Oh, that’s right. You slept in today. I guess I’d need extra sleep too if I went nuts like you did yesterday,” she said with a snarky, taunting attitude.

            “That’s none of your concern. Now leave me alone.”

            “You have to help me find Mike!”

            “I don’t have to do anything. And Mike’s probably around here.”

            “I looked everywhere.”

            “Then maybe he went off to get supplies.”

            “With who?”

            “Julie, leave me alone! What do you want me to do?”

            “Go find him!”

            “Why don’t you go find him?”

            “I can’t go by myself.”

            “Well, I can’t go. Period!”

            She gave me a displeased look and asked a nearby kid to go with her to find Mike. Kid said that he wasn’t going without a gun or without someone else other than a one-handed girl.

            “Julie. He could’ve gone in any direction. You’re probably not going to find him with just two people searching.”

            “Then you have to come with us!”

            Now I was starting to get concerned. Mike didn’t tell anyone where he was going or why. Had it been one of the kids that did this, we wouldn’t have noticed and left them behind. I didn’t go through all the trouble of saving Mike to have him get killed. I started asking others to help, only for them to make stupid excuses until Julie and I were both yelling at people to help. And like in a movie, that’s when Mike showed up; at the height of the drama.

            "Going all alone again?!" I shouted.

            He had the gall to talk to me with much of the same tone as Julie did. I knew very well I wouldn’t be in the mood for laughing or living for that matter especially not after him going off on his own. How I wished at that moment I had a shocker collar to wrap around his neck. That was, until I saw the soulless dragging the tanks in our direction. It was one of the most brilliant, awesome, and funniest things I’d seen (though at the time, all I could muster was a laugh). It always gave me a few ideas of my own. Mike killed the soulless, told the others to load the cars while Julie yelled at him, complaining and asking why he always went out alone. It wasn’t news to me. I just said, “That’s Mike for you.”

            Mike talked to me before we left about what happened yesterday. I’m not going to write it down again. It was basically the same thing I said yesterday, but with a calmer tone (a non-panicking tone). He said there was a doctor I could see back at base. It made me wonder for a moment, just for a moment, that maybe the doctor could help. Then the doubts seeped in like a stain on a towel. Mike even joked I’d be the farmer I always wanted. Not with one arm. I’d be of better use as fertilizer for that job.

            Not long after, we all got into the cars and off we went. The drive was nothing to tell, considering all I did was try and sleep through it while one of the younger kids would turn around when he got bored and poke me. He may have poked me a thousand times in my left arm. I would’ve never known. Sometimes, I caught glimpses out the window of the places we passed: deserted architecture, abandoned cars, hideous soulless, nature encroaching on what was once ours, and the long road ahead. For split moments, I swear I could beautiful fields, beautiful things that I can’t recall. Perhaps I was just dreaming. It’s a lot more likely.

            I planned on writing this journal entry on the way back to base, but I never got the chance: with the kid poking me, the tired feeling (depression is more accurate), and there being no place to write, I just decided to wait until we got back. It was a long wait; the longest I’ve ever stayed in one spot in all my life. Day and night passed my conscious eyes without my even noticing it. There was no one in my car to talk with that I knew. Ann was going to sit by me, but the car got filled up before she could get a seat. I really needed someone to talk to, or talk at (someone who wasn’t poking me. I told the kid if he poked me again, I’d break his finger. He poked me again. I didn’t break his finger).

            I wasn’t expecting a celebration upon our arrival back at base. They took their time opening up the gates, but what a welcoming; people cheering us like we were just elected President or had won a gold medal. I didn’t stick around. When the doctors started checking out the kids, I went with them and waited in the waiting area until all the more “serious” injuries were handled (apparently a guy that can’t feel his arm isn’t an emergency). Even Victor got to go in before me to get his old wounds checked out, to make sure they were healing all right. This scenario brought back old memories, yet at the same time, fond memories of when I was a kid. You waited out in a room with a bunch of chairs and magazines until someone called to you like you were a dog. There would be play areas for kids to sit in, small corners away from the adults where they could play with toys, color, or just run around. It was awkward going to a strange place and waiting for something to happen. The play area made the time memorable because I associate the awkwardness with the fun and the fun with awkwardness. As I got older, there were no play areas for older kids. There was nothing to do, but just become boring like everyone else sitting in the room, waiting for someone to call them to action. This waiting room is the same; no toys, no décor, not even any magazines to read. Still, the kids smiled every once and a while like I did once. One after another each one left. The silence grew to an uncomfortable level. The waiting room had changed; it’s gotten worse. Now you can’t even be an adult; you have to be dead to wait in such a place. Waiting is patience, but only waiting, just sitting somewhere and doing nothing, is a waste because you don’t get that time back, no matter how much you want it. No matter how precious it was to you. No matter how much you try and move on from it.

            In the mist of all the fluctuating nostalgia, the doctor came out and invited me back. He wasn’t young and he wasn’t very old; he was old enough to call me “son” though. I was about to tell him the problem when he plainly said, “So, you can’t feel your left arm at all.”

            “How’d you know?” I said with confusion.

            “The older guy who walked in here told me. What was his name?.... ummmmm…. Victor, I think.”

            Victor must of overheard Mike and I talking. I sat on the bench and the doctor took a look at my arm.

            “It looks completely healthy, except for that large incision. What happened?”

            “I crashed through a window and one of the glass shards got me.”

            The doctor smiled brightly.

            “Well, aren’t you durable? I’d probably slice my throat open doing that,” he said with a tone of amazement and jest, “who did the sewing?”

            “A woman we met on our travels. Why do you ask?”

            He looked at it a little longer. “Just curious. This is one of the best stitching jobs I’ve ever seen. The stitches all appear to be the same exact length and width apart. It’s perfect. Is she a professional?”

            “I don’t know. She says she can’t remember her past.”

            He laughed, “Yah. I’ve heard that one before. Well, anyways. I’ve never heard of a case where a gash on the arm would make it useless. Were you injured anywhere else?”

            “Only my leg. I got shot. Also, I kept getting these intense periods of pain coming from my arm.”

            “But you told me you couldn’t feel it.”

            “I could feel it just fine when the pain kicks in.”

            He took my vitals and looked at everything from my heart to my scrotum without finding anything that could indicate a deeper problem. “As much as I hate to do this, I’m going to cut open your stitches and take look to see if everything’s alright.”

            Within a minute, my left arm felt like it was coming apart. The doctor kept making shocked sounds as he examined the inside tissue. He grabbed a pair of tweezers, put them into my arm, and came back with some kind of weird game thing. There was more than one in there.

            “What in the world is that?”

            “Looks like a plant or herb of some kind. Whatever it is, it doesn’t belong in your arm.”

            He took out the rest of the green things and cleaned the inside of my arm with a sterilizer and then finished with water before stitching it back up. I still couldn’t feel a thing in my arm. He fixed up the wound on my leg as well before I went to leave.

            “Other than what I just pulled out of it, there’s nothing wrong with your arm so I don’t have an answer for you other than to wait for a few mouths. Perhaps the muscle will heal and you’ll be able to use it again.”

            Before I left, I asked, “how would that stuff had gotten into my arm?”

            He looked at me with one of the most serious looks I’ve seen him with since we met and he says, “I have no idea.” I thanked him and left. Although it doesn't really matter since it didn't help, why were those things in my arm? Maybe there was a fern or something growing in the window I smashed through. Maybe they grew in my arm (scary). Maybe Ann thought they were plants that were used as a soothing agent and added them in. Like I said though, it doesn't matter. Mike, Julie, Victor, Matt, Jess and Ann were scattered over the base doing what they wanted. With as much as I wanted to come back here, I just decided to go to bed, that is, after writing this entry. To tell the truth, I don’t think I can wait months. By then, I may have cut off my arm in disgust.

- Jack’s Diary