Metamorphosed

I could hear hushed voices around me and remember feeling excruciating pain on every inch of my body. My lungs almost exploded inside my chest and I remember letting out a cry, or maybe a whimper that escaped my parched lips. My eyelids felt heavy and as if they were glued shut, the darkness scared me. When I opened them, the light pierced through and all I saw was white. The touch jolted me in an instant and a voice that said “Rose”, sent me into momentary panic and disarray. “Welcome back!”, said the calm voice and I remember the owner of that voice gently placing a pair of shades on me to help me with the bright light. I could focus better. The lady said she was a doctor. Never seen a female doctor in my life time.

The UFOs over D.C. was the last crazy thing I heard before I signed the documents agreeing to be cryogenically frozen. The fact that I am in 2019 is next! A bad marriage and need for funds drove me to this sacrifice in the name of science. The program was not approved then by the US Government and it wasn’t until 1962, or so I hear from my doctors. They don’t even have me on record as the first person frozen! No family, meant my body remained abandoned here in the facility owing to legal troubles and poor management. I don’t know what pained more in the days that followed, my body or my mind. I wasn’t briefed on anything, just let go after a week of physical rehabilitation. They told me they do not have funding for covering further medical expenses and I was asked to leave.

The reception area looked different from when I walked in here the first time. I saw computers and laptops being used by my doctors and was amazed by those and they seem to have one of those at the reception too. Then there are other things like the hairstyles and attire. They all looked so different and interesting. I think I might have stared at the receptionist too long as she looked irritated. “Door is that way”, she said curtly. I opened the glass door and stepped out. I closed it again and stepped back and looked nervously at the receptionist. The look on her face made me reach for the door again.

The overcast skies made it a dull day outside and better on my eyes. There were people of every color, some in coats, some in shorts thronging the streets of New York City that day. So many women were out and about, looking important. Men and women in all different shades. Change is good, or so I thought.

A smartly dressed man caught my eye. He seemed to be in conversation with nobody. He looked at me and said something staring at me top to toe. I smiled and wanted to tell him how crazy I was feeling. He pushed me away and pointed at a white object on his ear. I was a little hurt and blinded by it maybe that I didn’t see where I was headed. The honk of the car whose headlights stopped inches from my thighs, gave my until recently frozen heart a fright, that it almost popped out of my throat. Growing up I adored cars and seeing one so gleamy I was lost for a bit I think, when another horn made me double up. The driver seemed agitated as I tried to tell him why I was amazed at how his car looked. He shouted some profanities I haven’t heard before. I crossed the road fast and turned back to look at the building I have occupied for these past sixty-six years. It was very different from what I remember it to be. The old name board has been replaced by giant TV screens. The last time I saw a screen that big was in a movie theater. They were all in color, I remembered back in the day they were so rare.

I stopped a young man and asked him what the rectangular thing in his hand was that he was scratching on and he gave me the weirdest look and said that’s his phone. Before I was frozen, rotary phones were a thing. They seem to have found a way to make it work without a chord! I didn’t quite get how scratching at it worked though.

The clouds broke apart, thunder rung out. Rain! I sang my favorite song “Singin’ in the rain”, also was the last movie I saw before deciding to be frozen. I was feeling proud that I memorized the song , so I flapped my hands out and tried to take a few steps from the song. A little girl smiled at me as I waved at her. She was sweet and her Mom smiled at my dancing. I felt happy and so I danced even more. I twirled like the ballet dancers in the Rockettes company all while singing loud, disregarding the pain in my knees. I didn’t see the man with the coffee cup. I spilled it all over him and he was angered. “Mad woman!”, He screamed. I tried giving him the cup but he didn’t care. The cup said Starbucks and the shape of the cup was nothing like I have ever seen before. It smelled of vanilla bean and it made me hungry. I could read “Starbucks” on a screen not far away. There was a huge line of people standing outside the shop unfazed by rain, just like me and I wondered what they were waiting for. “So what do we get here at StAAAARbucks”, I asked the lady in front of me, smiling hoping to strike a conversation.

She answered without taking eyes off her phone, “Coffee, what else does everyone come here for!”.

“Is it that special?”, I enquired smiling while peeking to see the phone, for I wanted to know what was so interesting that everyone was looking at their’s so intently.

“It’s just easy”, said the lady moving away, blocking the screen from my view, without even looking at my face even once.

The TV on the wall spoke about some shooting at school and how the numbers are appalling this year. The lady asked looking at me finally, “What? You haven’t seen that? it's in the news these days, every other day for years.” I tried to tell her where I was coming from and how everything looked different to me. She must have thought I am crazy and looked away.

I wondered why no-one was interested in holding a conversation with a stranger anymore, or is it that I have become one to the world now? Maybe change isn’t so good after all.

I realized standing there that all I had now was money and myself. A listening ear was not something I could buy. The frost bitten, shriveled skin on my hands and face were giving way to new healthy skin. Heal I shall from inside-out. Maybe one day I shall write about my life and people shall read it off those screens they seem to like so much.

“I shall be heard, I promise”, said me, to myself.