Possession Read Online Free

familiar. I leaned closer, my eyes
lingering on a very wide forearm attached to a surprisingly fit bicep. Shouldn’t
he be all wasted away after a year as a mental vegetable?
    The feeling of being watched suddenly washed over
me. I looked over my shoulder to find that the orderly had turned his attention
away from me. Casually I lowered my hand, reached over, and pinched Dean’s arm
as hard as I could.
    Nothing. Whatever world he was in, my actions
didn’t seem to penetrate it.
    The old woman’s rantings seemed more and more
crazy now. How could this comatose guy be the reason I was here? I couldn’t
deny that there was something about him that felt…intimate. Had I hooked up
with this guy? No, not possible. Rachel said he’d been in this asylum and
comatose for a year.
    Still, something about him almost surfaced in my memory…but the thought floated away before I
could make sense of it. Frustrated, I slumped back against my chair.
    A nurse walked up to me. “It’s dinnertime. I’m
here to help you to the cafeteria.”
    Another nurse came up behind Dean and they
proceeded to wheel us across the room and out the big metal doors. They pushed
us down a maze of white hallways littered with doors, some of them ajar. I
looked into the open ones as we passed by. I saw patient quarters, furnished
offices, and clinical-looking rooms. The more I saw of this place, the more
helpless I felt—how would I ever be able to find my way around well
enough to navigate on my own? Maybe the floor plan was buried somewhere in my
missing memories.
    But something about the place discouraged me from wanting
to wander. Whether it was the smell of stale disinfectant covering a background
odor of musty rot, or the darkness that seemed to lurk around every corner, I
found myself shuddering at the thought of exploring by myself. I breathed a
sigh of relief when we finally went through a pair of swinging doors and
entered a cafeteria filled with people.
    Metal picnic tables arranged in neat rows lined
the room. At the front, two women behind a glass-topped counter dished out
food. Patients were standing in line, red plastic trays in their hands.
    The nurse wheeled me to the end of a table and
pushed my chair forward until I was snug against it.
    “Tonight it’s macaroni and cheese,” she said,
patting my shoulder a couple times before she left me, walked over to the front
of the line, and grabbed a tray. A few minutes later she came back, the tray
piled high with food.
    “I’ll be back for you in a half hour.” She moved
away so quickly I didn’t have a chance to say thank you.
    I looked down at the tray. This time there were
utensils, although they were plastic. I picked up the fork and started eating.
As I ate, I looked around the room. Dean’s nurse wheeled his chair to a table
close by, but she didn’t leave—instead she sat next to him, slowly
lifting food up to his mouth. I watched in fascination as he opened his mouth
and she shoved the food inside. Dean closed his mouth as if on cue and started
to chew. How was it possible that this guy—who didn’t seem to know what
was going on around him—knew that there was food in front of him and he
should chew?
    Every time the nurse lifted up a spoonful of
macaroni and cheese, Dean dutifully opened his mouth and took it in. He chewed
and swallowed and the whole process started over again. If he could eat, there
had to be some sort of awareness inside him, somewhere deep. Both of us were
stuck: he inside his body, and me inside this place. I hoped to get out of here
as soon as possible, but how long would Dean be trapped? Would his
consciousness ever surface? I wondered what it would take for the doctors to
reach him, or if it was even possible.
    I took in the rest of the room and watched my
fellow patients consume their dinners. Forty or so patients sat scattered
around the cafeteria—a few were dressed in white hospital gowns like me,
but most wore sweatpants and T-shirts. The crowd