A large bald man with dark hair on the sides entered the room wearing a white jacket. “I just heard the good news. Our patient’s awake and arguing with the nurses,” he said.

The nurse checking my IV said, “Doctor Conway, Travis has lots of questions for you.”

“Sure, so how are you feeling Travis? You’ve been in a coma for the last two weeks,” he said looking at his clipboard.  

“Where’s Dr Chen and how’d I get here?” I said.

“Calm down Travis. I don’t know this Dr Chen you’re talking about, but you’ve got stay calm. You’ve had some serious injuries. At the scene of the accident the paramedics said you kept repeating the words, “Anima Ex Machina” over and over. Does that mean anything to you?” he said.

“I don’t know. Last thing I remember, I was sitting in Dr Chen’s office under hypnosis and then I woke up here. What happened to me?” I lied, I did remember what happened in the woods, but I didn’t want to tell them that.

The doctor looked in my eyes with a penlight. “You were brought in here unconscious Tuesday night, just two weeks ago. You were involved in an automobile accident. Some drunk driver ran a red light and hit the driver’s side of your truck.”

“What? I don’t remember any accident. I don’t even remember driving,” I said all confused.

“Okay, I want you to follow the light with your eyes. Travis, you’re very lucky to be alive. You had a severe concussion and we thought you’d suffered some brain damage. You also broke your left leg and experienced internal bleeding in which we had to remove your spleen. The twenty year old driver of the other vehicle died at the scene.”

I rubbed my head, “Oh man! I don’t remember any of that. So did anyone tell Suzanne, or Mr Watts?” I asked.

“Are these people family of yours?” the doctor asked.

“No, Suzanne Davis and her kids are living with me and Mr and Mrs Watts are my next door neighbors. They’re probably worried about me.”

If you give us a phone number we can call them.”

“Sure my number is 859-xxx-xxxx. I’m surprised they haven’t been contacted.”

He gave the number to a nurse as she dialed. I looked towards the window and noticed lots of tall buildings outside. “So doc, where is this place? Is this some hospital in Lexington?”

He looked at me strangely, “Lexington? No Travis, this is The University of Chicago Trauma Center. Where’d you think you were?”

I felt very confused. “How in the hell did I get to Chicago? For the past year I’ve been living on a farm in Nicholas County Kentucky and on March the 12th I had an appointment with Dr. Chen in Lexington Kentucky. That was the last thing I remember. I have no idea how I got here or why I’m here.”

“That’s strange indeed,” The doctor said. “You had an Illinois driver’s license in your pocket and it has your address as 1053 East 47th street apartment 9. Is that where you live?”

“Yeah, but I lived there a year ago,” I said squinting and shaking my head. You must have found my old driver’s license. Doc, I’m really confused. I don’t know how I got back here.”

“Just try to relax, it might come back to you in time. You’ve had a bad concussion and we didn’t think you’d wake up.”

The nurse came back in the room looking confused. “That number you gave me is not listed to anyone by the name of Suzanne or Travis,” she said.

“So has anyone been by to see me?”I said.

“Yes, you did have a visitor, a man named Dave Kitec,” she said.

“Yes, I know him. He worked with me last year.”

“I can call him if you want. He left a number to contact him in case you woke up.”

“Thanks, please.”

I fell back to sleep and then later I was awakened by my friend Dave and his girlfriend Linda. She sat a vase of pink mums on the table.

“Travis. It’s so good to see that you’re awake. The doctor told us he wasn’t sure if you’d ever wake up and said you’d probably suffered some brain injury. Are you okay? How do you feel?” he said.

“Actually I don’t feel that bad, but I do have a headache. I’m so confused. I don’t remember how I got here.”

“Dude, it must have happened right after you met me in the bar,” said Dave.

“The bar? The last time I met you in a bar was just over a year ago right after Scott got hired.”

Dave scratched his head and said, “Wow! you did hit your head bad.  That happened just two weeks ago,” he said.

“The last thing I remember was being in Dr Chen’s office in Lexington Kentucky and then I woke up here.”

“When was the last time you were in Kentucky?” he said.

“Where do you think I’ve been living for the past year? Didn’t you get the letter?”

“Letter? What letter? Travis, you’ve been here in the hospital for the past two weeks and before that you’ve been working with me at Blue Ribbon Condiments.”

I shook my head no. I was more confused, angry and sad at the same time. “Okay…what year is it?” I said.

“Dave looked worried and said, “Well, it’s 2001. What year did you think it was?”  

I sat up in bed and rocked back and forth. “Is this a joke? Oh my God! I seriously thought I’d been living in Kentucky for the past year on my uncle’s farm. I thought it was March of 2002,” I said.

“Whoa! that’s so strange. I’ve heard of bizarre things happening to people in a coma, but this is way different,” he said.

“So you’re like some kind of time traveler?” said Linda all excited.

We chatted for a while longer. Dave asked if I had any family he could call. I told him that my dad was living in Phoenix, but I hadn’t talked to him in years. Dave talked me into calling him, but his address and telephone number were somewhere in my apartment. I gave Dave my keys and he and Linda drove to my apartment to find his telephone number. They said they would be back tomorrow to visit.

After they left, it occurred to me that a year ago, I must have had things in my apartment to indicate that I might be gay. I thought of the posters in my bedroom, the gay porn tapes on the VCR, the letters from old boyfriends. Damn, I thought. I should have come out to Dave a while back. This is going to be embarrassing, I thought. Was my life on the farm just a dream? Ben, Suzanne, the kids, Buddy, the farm was just some part of my imagination? I suppose it was too good and too surreal to be true. I sat and cried for what I thought I’d lost.  

The next day Dave showed up at the hospital. He greeted me at the door and walked in. Linda wasn’t with him this time. Dave smiled and sat down in the chair next to my bed.

He leaned over and said, “I found your dad’s address and telephone number. It took a while searching through all your paperwork and personal stuff.” He leaned a bit closer and whispered, “Travis, I found a few other things. I..I saw some posters and tapes…”

I felt dizzy and nauseous.

“Travis, its okay. I don’t mind.”

“I, I wanted to tell you, but I just didn’t know how.” I mumbled.

“Travis, you’re my friend. I don’t care if you’re gay or not. Linda was a little shocked though.”

I felt very embarrassed and held my head down and started to smile.

“Dude it was so funny. Linda held up one of the tapes and asked me what a butt pirate was. When I looked at the cover and saw the picture of naked gay pirates I laughed. She said she wanted to watch it.”

“Oh my god, I forgot all about that tape,” I said.

“Don’t worry Travis. Linda’s okay with it also. Though she might try and set you up with some of her gay friends at work.  Anyway, I told the guys at work that you had come out of the coma. Craig was actually being nice and said you still have your job once you get better. I think Craig finally realized how good a worker you were once you were gone. Scott turned out to be really lazy. We all had to pick up the pace once you were gone and Scott just couldn’t keep up.”

“Wow! they want me back huh?”

“That is what he said. And I want you back. I don’t have anyone to talk to there.”

A couple of days later my dad flew in from Phoenix. I finally called him up and told him about my accident and he seemed sad and eager to see me. I was sitting up in bed when my dad entered the room. He was much older than I remembered and a lot thinner. At six foot tall, he couldn’t have weighed more than 160 lbs. He’d gone almost completely grey from the dark brown hair I remember him having. He also wore dark black plastic glasses which made him look more like Pappaw. There was a worried, hesitant look on his face as he entered the room, but then a slight smile crept across his face as he approached my bed.

“How are you doing, Son?”

I shook my head and said, “Good as I can be for someone who  was in in a coma for two weeks.” He sat down on the chair beside my bed. “Wow Dad it’s good to see you. I’m surprised that you’d fly all this way to see me after all those things we said to each other.”

He looked at me with sad eyes. “I think I’m getting way too old to hold a grudge. I ain’t got much family left these days.”

“Hmmm, so you okay now with what we were fighting about all those years?” I said cocking my head to look closer in his eyes.

“It’s still hard for me to accept such things. I was raised to believe that stuff like that was an abomination before god, but you’re my only son and I suppose we all fall short of god’s grace. If god can forgive, then I should be able to myself.”  

“I never meant to hurt you guys. I fought with it all these years. It ain’t something I can change Dad. You know… I joined the army thinking they could change me, but it just helped confirm it to me. And you know Uncle Andy, he just stopped me from living a lie and bringing others into a lie… So what happened to Uncle Andy, Dad? How come no one told me when he died?”

Dad looked at me confused. “What made you think that Andy’s dead? Who told you that?”

“Well I got this letter in the mail from a lawyer. Didn’t he die last November on his farm?”

“Travis are you okay? Andy hasn’t lived on a farm since he joined the navy. As far as I know, he’s still living somewhere in San Francisco.”  

I was really shocked. “I’m sorry, somehow I had lots of strange dreams while I was in a coma. I guess I had dreamed all that. When was the last time you talked to Uncle Andy?”

“Well, he gave me a quick call last Christmas. Said he was doing fine. He always asks about you.”

“Oh yeah? What have you told him about me?”

He sighed and said, “I told him I didn’t know.

“Dad, I think it is cool that you’re still keeping in touch with him after what happened.”

“What do you mean? Why would I not talk to my own brother?”

Now I really felt confused. “Well you know, how he talked me out of getting married and the fact that Andy’s gay.”

My dad’s eyes got big. He looked confused and said, “Who said Andy was gay? He’s never been married, but he’s had lots of girlfriends. We were only mad at Andy that one time because he talked you out of marrying that girl. Did Andy tell you he was gay?”

“I’m sorry, no Andy never told me, I guess it was just part of that dream I had while I was in a coma. I guess I’m confused about a lot of things since I woke up.” I could tell that my dad was upset. “Hey, let’s change the subject. What have you been up to all these years? What’s it like living in Phoenix?” I could tell that he seemed relieved to be talking about anything but homosexuality. His eyes brightened up as he told me about taking up golf and how much he loved the southwest. I just let him talk and nodded as he went into detail about his new found hobby. As he talked, I thought more about uncle Andy.   

The next day, Dad wheeled me down the hallway towards the vending machines. As we passed by the rooms, I happened to look in one of them and thought I recognized one of the patients. There was one older woman that looked vaguely familiar, yet I couldn’t remember where I would have seen her. On the way back I had my dad stop near the door. I peered into the room and saw her lying in bed. A nurse was cleaning the room around her and she didn’t move.

“I think I know that woman from somewhere, but I can’t place her. Dad can you look at the name on the clipboard when the nurse isn’t looking. My curiosity is getting the best of me.”  

Dad wheeled me back to my room and he took a walk back down the hall and a few minutes later he came back.

“The woman’s name is Cassandra Mattox. Do you recognize the name?”

“The name sounds familiar, and she looks familiar, I just don’t remember where it was I met her. I’ve lived here for a while. I suppose I could’ve seen her in a grocery store or restaurant, I just don’t remember where. Maybe it will come to me.”