The vase of flowers..

(The Lady of Shallot..Byron’s muse).

The vase of flowers.

It must have been one hell of an accident, because I evidently was kept in an induced coma for one and a half weeks..and then had to endure the confines of a hospital ward in recovery from a number of internal injuries and broken bones for another three months!..and now, six months later, after being let go home, I have only just started to reflect on the multitude layers of happenings while I was in that rather inconvenient episode of my life…to date.

Perhaps it would be best, considering the still precarious state of my health both physical and mental..(I did suffer severe concussion and head injury from the accident)..if I go back to the moment preceding that accident.

A warm summer day in December..I was returning from a regular dip in the sea there at Brighton..I am a single man of middle years, independent and financially secure in that I had my own house (paying off), secure employment as a ticketed electrician and had what I would call a positive outlook on life and the people in my life..in short, I was in that state of mind where a low whistling of a favourite tune playing out on the radio was about the only thing attracting my attention at that moment, so when the traffic light went from red to green just as I was braking to stop, and being the first car off the line, I just gently continued to accelerate the car into the junction……I recall no situation of alarm, screeching of brakes or any other sign of danger…all I remember is slight flash of reflected sunlight that I must presume now was off the windshield of the approaching car, and THAT, is about where my consciousness of all things post green light ends. Sufficient to relate that having been informed of the circumstances of the accident, to wit that basically I was the innocent victim of a woman speeding in her car running the red light just at the moment of my crossing, shattering her life and nearly succeeding on doing the same to myself…I waved away any further details of the accident..such details would only defer my ability to concentrate on healing my broken body..the primary consideration of my current situation.

Now, I have to concentrate intensely to recall my sense of what I felt..what I felt as against what I have been told about that time when I was in the induced coma..for while it can be claimed that in such a state, the patient is out cold and there is little visible reaction of the senses happening to that person other than what is being recorded on the various monitors and instruments next to the bed, I can assure you that there were moments..small, intricacies of moments while in that coma when I could feel..I say; “feel”, for I obviously could not see, but of course I must have been able to at least hear and sense any movement in that private room at the hospital, for there were times I became aware of movement in the darkness that enveloped me in those days of numbness and desolation…and..and..I’m not so sure of this area where I shall now describe to you..for it is one of doubt and strangeness..but there were moments when beside the feeling of movement in that darkness, I could..smell..or at least sense I could smell the faint delightful scent of flowers..particularly, what I have lately become familiar with in my attempt to find out just what was that scented flower that kept haunting me from those times…it was Jasmine…and that scent was accompanied in my subconscious memory with the slight touch of a hand and whispered words..words that sounded like; ”tan tat sin loy”…words I have now been made aware of that are a spoken Vietnamese language meaning “I am very sorry”..(Thành thật xin lỗi)..I can remember those words, for they were whispered to my ear every day that I was in that coma and sometimes in some nights soon after when I was still in recovery..I can recall the words, because they were accompanied by that fine wafting scent of Jasmine coming from what I now am certain was a vase..a slender, red vase on the cabinet beside my bed..but there were times when I did think that I must have dreamed of the entire thing..

I said earlier in this conversation that I am a ticketed electrician…that word “ticketed” is important in that it tells you that I have been trained and approved to work with the power networks of the state to fix and connect people’s houses or industries to that network..it is a complex and dangerous business requiring a steady hand and calm attitude…you need to thoroughly concentrate on the job at hand when connecting those live wires to a switchboard…if you are silly, lacking in attention or reckless, the result could be catastrophic for both yourself and the structures around you..mind you, that is not to say that some sparkies ARE clumsy and reckless and I for one would approve of them being strapped mercilessly to their wired-up switchboards and the switch being thrown! But what I just wrote will tell you that I am not given to gross imagination or flights of fantasy..in my lived life, as in my employment, I approach situations with calm reasoning and logical application..so what I have related to you in regards to my sense of sound, feeling and smell while in that comatose state, I firmly believe and back with solid thought and reasoning.

The solution to those sensations I describe above, continued to haunt me as I worked through my convalescence. I was around six or so months into that recovery time when a scan on my badly injured ancle showed a bone alignment that necessitated another operation under a general anaesthetic to correct what could become a debilitating ankle in the future. This required my being admitted to the very same hospital that served me in my accident recovery..and, by fortune, the very same ward where I stayed..but this time in a shared room rather than the single of my last stay.

I would have preferred a single room for myself, but my private health cover will only tolerate so much and seeing as the last six months had stretched the friendship about as far as the corporation would tolerate and the fact that it was only an overnight or at the worst a couple of days stay, I was prepared to suffer the intrusion of other patients snoring and farting or whatever as long as the privacy curtains were drawn around my cubicle.

It was into this cubicle that I was wheeled after the operation whilst still under the influence of the anaesthetic, so I was not aware of my surroundings..but I was still in a state of subconscious sensitivity..and it was while in this state that I once again sensed and smelt the scent of Jasmine..and also at this moment became aware of a whisper in my ear of the words I recalled hearing at that much earlier time of sleep..”tan tat sin loy”…I believe it was this combination that woke me wide-eyed suddenly from the effects of the anaesthetic, just in time to see a form slipping out between the join of the curtain around my cubicle…it was the form of a woman clad in long, loose trousers, with a kind of split-sided smock over them…I recall that because the smock opened at the sides as she moved through the curtain to show the pants under.

I tried to say “wait”…but my mouth had not yet become functional as had my eyes and so the only sound that came out was a sort of gurgled “oh!”..and the shape was gone..but the scent of jasmine remained and a turning of my head revealed a slender vase placed on the bedside cabinet with two or three stems of jasmine in it…it was a red vase with a slender, long neck and there was white, Chinese script printed vertically up the vase.. this sudden intrusion that woke me from my induced sleep, was too much for my tired body and so I rested back on the pillow and fell once more into a deep sleep.

The practical functions of the nursing staff upon my awakening from the operation gave me chance to observe my surroundings…the curtains had been pulled back to allow the nurses to attend myself and it was with relief that I found myself as the only patient bar one other sleeping in the far corner bed in the room..The attending doctor checked the chart and asked sufficient questions to satisfy himself that all was well as could be with his patient and then left me to the care of the staff..that work done, it was not long before a relief of silence fell upon the room…the other occupant must have been in no fit state to stir regularly, so I had the chance to relax and contemplate that recent vision that had momentarily swept from my space.

But try as I might, I could find no explanation for either the vase that I now recalled was very similar to the one that used to appear at various times when I was in that state of recovery on my first visit to this ward, nor the sensation of the whispered words in my ear.. nor, as I recall the vanishing woman in the unusual clothes that slipped between the curtain and away from the ward.

It was while I was in this state of cogitating those very thoughts, when a woman pushing a trolley loaded with magazines and books trundled into the ward..She was not a nurse and she was not a relative nor was she certainly a patient…she informed me that she was a volunteer of the “Friends of the hospital” who do small acts of assistance to patients to relieve the feelings of boredom and isolation felt on the wards..a thing that the nursing staff have no time to do…I thanked her for a couple of sailing magazines and it was then I noticed she was wearing similar clothing to my recent spectre visitor..I asked her about her clothing..

“Oh..this is our everyday workwear,” She replied. “ it is called an ao dai.”

“What nationality is that?” I asked.

“Vietnamese.” She replied.

“Were you in here earlier, then?” I pursued.

“Oh no..I have just come on shift”. She said..

“Is there another Vietnamese woman here then, before you?” I queried.

“No..I am the only Vietnamese woman on the ward”..she paused, seeing my wrinkled brow and then continued..”there was another Vietnamese woman..a young woman I took over from, who used to do the same job I do..but she died some time ago and that’s how I came to be here.”

I didn’t want to sound too inquisitive to this very polite lady, but there was another thing I wanted to ask..

“This vase..what does the writing on it mean?” I asked.

“Oh!” she exclaimed in a surprised manner “that is Mai-Lee’s vase..what is that doing here?…I’m sorry, I was supposed to return it to her grandmother along with the rest of her belongings..I’ll take it away”

“No..leave it, please..the jasmine has a very nice scent…but what does the Chinese writing say?”

“It’s not actually Chinese, it’s classical Vietnamese and it says, in translation..“Be true”..”

Now I was curious.

“The other woman you replaced…you said she died..what of, If I may ask?”

“Mai-Lee…it was a car accident..nearly a year ago now..it seems she was hurrying to get home after staying here late as she was asked to stay on to translate what a distressed patient was trying to tell the doctor..and in her hurry to get home, she drove through a red light…”

A sensation of shiver came over me upon hearing of this news..I couldn’t be certain, but somehow a sort of native intuition drew me to instinctively realise that the sounds and senses that I had experienced back in my comatose state and just recently with the slipping out of my cubicle of that shape gave me cause to consider that here was the solution to my confusion and dilemma..and this opportune appearance of the trolley volunteer was my chance to clear those mysteries up..

“Can you tell me, please” I asked the woman “what do the words..and excuse me if I don’t pronounce them correctly..but what do the words..”tan tat sin loy” mean?”…the woman asked me to repeat the phrase several times as she considered my crude repeat of those whispers that I heard..then her face brightened as she figured out the meaning..

“Oh..it is an apology…it means to say “I am so very sorry”…”

I sank back on the bed in a state of sad surprise…sad, for the girl’s loss of her life and surprised that it would appear the same girl’s spiritual presence had visited me to whisper that apology in my ear and to place the jasmine in the vase next to my bed..I dismissed the trolley lady and fell into a trance-like mood as I considered the improbability..to my practical mind…of the repeated vision and sense of a deceased woman visiting my bedside with flowers and whispers…it just did not compute with my personality..but at the same time, I could not dismiss the reality of what I heard and what I felt..I would have to consider some solution to this puzzle..

A month later…:

I still cannot rationally accept the idea of myself being visited by the spectre of a deceased person, no matter how delightful or sad the situation of the visit…but nor could I swerve from accepting the real sensations of what I felt upon my recovery from that accident..so I have come to the conclusion that I have to accept, like those words spoken by Hamlet, that..: “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy,”…and leave it at that…it is a personal dilemma that I will carry in my luggage for the rest of my life, and bore many people in my old age on the retelling of the mystery..as to the unfortunate Mai-Lee…I took that vase when I left the ward at the hospital…and with some diligent searching of funeral and cemetery records, found where the grave of Mai-Lee was and I went to visit her there.

It was a rainy day, but that just added another depth to the quietness of the cemetery, I was fortunate that she was a Catholic Vietnamese, so she was buried and not cremated…her headstone was a polished black slab with her name and birth place scripted upon it in both Vietnamese and English language, so I could read it…there was a small round visor to one side of the headstone with a picture of her underneath…she was a very pretty girl of around twenty years old..it seems she volunteered at the hospital so as to improve her English, as she was in training to become a registered nurse…It was so sad to see such youthful hope cut short..I felt a sadness for her.. but in the final act of her spiritual life on this earth, her gentle attendance to me in my precarious state..the scent, the touch, the sound of her whispered apology, I am sure were a primary cause for helping me rise from the despair of critical injury..an injury of just a damn unfortunate moment of a lack of concentration on Mai-Lee’s part..I hold no animosity..indeed, I am thankful of her spiritual kindness.

I took the slender red vase I recovered from the hospital, placed some jasmine flowers in the vase and placed it upon the washed black marble…I then kneeled close the headstone and bent to kiss the picture there under the glass visor..

“You have been true, Mai-Lee…very true..thank you.”

I leant upon the walking stick and I walked away.