Back in Time: Amalgamation

I regained consciousness of my surroundings upon the reverberation of the young man’s unrelenting screams for Help! “Kevin, you’re safe, you’re here in my bedroom, easy… Kevin, wake up, you’re safe!” struggling to collect himself, he scanned the surroundings. He shook out the cobwebs from the harrowing abrupt awakening. As he wiped the sleep from his eyes, his voice crackled in search for air. Anxiously, he reflected from his amalgamated state of mind gasping, “I opened… the… door!”

My prepared reply was firm yet compassionate; “Kevin; it’s not your fault.” I recognized he was having a panic attack. The fact that it was a dream had no bearing toward reality. The impact was just as real, he was just as defenseless. In fact, he had a greater vulnerable. He was more defenseless, fore he was fighting the enemy from within. The stage was set. The band was playing. His heart was pounding. “Son, it’s not your fault,” I reassured him.

The recent events of his life had taken its toll. Since his 22^nd birthday in March, his life would attain a self realization which had previously been unbeknownst. Two days after which, the young pregnant couple learned they should be expecting a baby girl to join their family. I had never seen him so full of life, so lucid, so giddy with excitement. The exuberant events of his recent life would last for a tantalizing short week.

Fore in a mere matter of days this wonderful new world would evaporate in misty evanescence. He would fall from the summit into the abyss in one fell swoop. His great expectations would be greeted with the rude awakening of a home invasion and subsequent comatose partner. The consequences rendered him virtually helpless leaving him only to observe the bedrock of that dream slipping away.

I directed my request to his mother, keeping my eye on the boy; “Jen, would you get a nice cold washcloth for me please?” as Kevin worked on catching his breath. I returned my attention back to Kevin; coolly I comforted him advising… “A nice deep breath; that’s it… just breathe. Don’t talk, Breath in the air.” He attempted to incorporate speech with breathing once more in vain. I interjected, “Don’t talk, breathe;” as my wife urgently passed me the washcloth.

“Okay, good, now I need you to lie back with this on your forehead and relax,” I whispered. As I guided him in position, as I situated the cold wet object upon his forehead, his initial response was resistance. I added, “You’re safe son, rest.” He slowly acquiesced sensing he was indeed safe, fore the relived terror was but a nightmare. “You’re having an anxiety attack…” at which point he attempted to interject, “Xanax;” …I countered with an apprehensive tilt of my head as if to question his request, “Let’s get you breathing regular first eh?”

Kevin was at the juncture where the darkness fused with the light… the very light associated with his wellbeing. This created a composite of heightened and highlighted granite like sensitivity; a distorted fusion he perceived to be an indiscernible shadow of gray. That once safe space of serenity had merged into a frenetic frenzy; fraught with fear. He could no longer separate the black from the white. Somehow, in very short order, his life had blended into an imperceptible silhouette of ambiguity. He would have to come to terms within the darkness, he must come to terms without the light of day; fore the enemy had realized… conquest…of his asylum.