The accident:

Havana City, September 2018

I was running late.

 I knew I had promised to return early, but one thing led to another and before I knew it, it was two in the morning. I pulled the high heels off my feet and ran as fast as I could, the still warm pavement tickling the soles of my feet.

I was crossing the street when a car hit me.

At first there was only a deafening noise inside my head, then all of a sudden everything went silent and I was lying on my back in an abnormal position in the middle of the street. Frowning, I tried in vain to make some sense out of what had just happened.

My breathing was ragged. My heart was pounding, my beats were erratic. I couldn't move so I suspected I had a spinal cord injury. My vision blurred, my thoughts became incoherent, I could feel that my dress was getting wetter at the height of my left thigh; I figured I was suffering a major external bleeding.

Bottom line: I was dying.

I cannot say that it is true that when you die you see your life pass before your very eyes, because that was not my experience.

There I was, at death's door, when on either sides of my body a figure stopped to contemplate my last moments of life. One of them was an angel and the other one a demon ... although by that second I was hallucinating, surely.

I suspected they were coming to judge me and decide which of them would take me.

"We found the trace too late. "Lamented the beautiful curly-blond- haired being.

"Damn it!" Snarled the black-haired, implacable-faced specter.

They both spoke in English, with a heavy accent. Five years of studying the language allowed me to understand them, me being Cuban and all…

The first one knelt to my right, took my cold hand in his and felt my wrist checking the pulse there. The other being remained standing to my left, his posture denoting a great tension, he turned his face in this or that direction, vigilant.

"The girl is dying ... one of her ribs pierced her right lung. She is drowning in her own blood" whispered the one u thought to be an angel, his voice sounded heavy with grief.

"Arghhh, Pfffff.'' I stammered.

"Shh. " The blond one consoled me, delicately caressing my forehead. "It will be over soon, calm down."

A fit of coughing seized my chest. A metallic taste flooded my senses.

Blood.

My own blood had risen from my lungs to my throat and was I choking?

My body contracted in a spasm of suffering, my vital organs suddenly stopped one by one, and although I kept my eyes open I could no longer see anything. I was dead.

Three years later:

Yolie:

I had that nightmare again. I woke up so scared that I thought I would die of a heart attack. Truth is, I’d convinced myself that that episode from three years ago would not torment me anymore, but apparently I was wrong. Two months had passed without that old ghost resurrecting. I suppose the bloody sight of the stabbed patient we treated in the ER two nights ago left a deeper impression on me than I realized.

I drag my feet out of bed and head to the bathroom to wash up. As I brush my teeth, I glance at the twenty-six-year-old haggard and disheveled girl, who the mirror throws at me. I splash my face and wash my mouth with the tap water, towel myself dry, and stick my tongue out at my reflection. Returning to the room and grabbing a brush, I try to put the rat nest above my head in order, while I ponder my situation.

On the night of my graduation, three years ago, I was returning at an inhuman hour to my paternal grandmother's house when I was hit by an unknown vehicle. Something similar to that is what the police report describes.

I was in a coma for a week, between life and death. My case was really disconcerting for the intensive care unit doctors who treated me, for some, my life is a true miracle, for others a surprising enigma; Despite having been the victim of a life-threatening accident, I had not suffered any damage to vital organs or had any visible external injuries when admitted to the hospital. My brain simply stayed "off" for seven days, after which I regained consciousness.

Something similar to this is what the medical summarily reports in my medical record.

However, I know what happened that night very well. I sit on the bed, wringing my hands nervously. I am convinced that that night I died. It doesn't matter what the police nor the doctors say; I remember everything perfectly. The exact moment I was hit head-on by a gray car, the initial fear, the feeling of tachycardia, the arrhythmia. The terrifying reality of paralysis, the deadly cold of the femoral hemorrhage. That dyspnea caused by the hemotorax and the subsequent hallucinations triggered by the cerebral hypoxia.

I swallow hard and start to inhale and exhale slowly a score of times trying to stop the panic attack that wants to take over my lungs.

Damn!

The stabbed patient from two nights ago will survive. I wince. If I continue like this I will probably die of respiratory arrest this very morning!

After fighting the irrational fear that takes hold of me every time I am forced to remember the accident, I put on my glasses and dress to go to work. I rarely have breakfast, and my lunches almost always consist of pizza and a soda.

Today the flow of patients in the medical office seems to be eternal, between prescribing medications, giving emotional support and writing the always required reports, I have not even had time to listen to my own thoughts. There are times when I feel like someone is watching me, I'm probably paranoid, though.

I return home with a sense of accomplished duty and an empty stomach.

My evening routine is always the same. I take a bath, fix something to eat, read a chapter or two of some e-book, and then swiftly fall like a ton of bricks.

I would like to lie and say that my life is wonderful, fulfilling, exotic ... but no. I'm a bit antisocial, with enough food and a battery in my cell phone, I think I could last a whole month locked up in my house. Since my grandmother died, the same night I suffered my accident, three years ago, I have no family, no one to dictate my comings or goings , no one cares about me ...

I'm nervous tonight. Despite the long day of treating seek people I faced, I find myself strangely elated. So much so, that it's already two in the morning and I'm still awake. Fed up with insomnia and my own cowardice, I take a sleeping pill, half an hour later I nod off and finally close my eyes.

***

I have a secret. I've never told anyone, but I have a mysterious lover. He visits me in dreams one or two nights a week. My rational mind tells me that perhaps due to the trauma of my accident I conjured him up in those agonizing minutes as a means of finding some comfort in the face of my imminent death: and I am convinced that my reasonings are true. My lover is beautiful, like an angel. His skin is so white that it seems to be made of snow, his eyes are difficult to describe, I would say that, they are of changing colors, sometimes they are so blue that they rival with the clearest sky, his hair is a kinky bush of golden curls, and his lips are always as red as cherries.

The first time I dreamed of him was one night a month after awakening from the coma. His lips kissed my neck and his nose sniffed around my ear. He placed tiny kisses on the edge of my chin and instead of kissing my lips he licked them cheekily. I knew I was dreaming right then ; I have never been the type of girl that men find attractive, I weigh five pounds above what I should, I am nearsighted, so I am forced to wear glasses permanently, my hair is always tousled, my nose is too flat, my skin too dark...anyway. I'm a "man-repeller".

But my secret lover doesn't care about my physical appearance in the least. Oh, he's so sweet sometimes that just thinking about him melts my heart. Tonight he has started to touch me by caressing my feet. I had no idea that that part of my anatomy was an erogenous zone. He has already placed a couple of kisses on my knee and has licked up my thigh. After completely ignoring my center, he has stuck his tongue in my navel over my nightgown, from there he continues moving towards my chest, brushing my skin with the tip of his nose.

"You smell so good tonight. "

He whispers in my ear and I bite my lower lip to keep from moaning.

God, I know this is a dream, a figment of my imagination caused by my frustrated libido, but oh, he's so sexy!

He places both hands on my breasts and torments my nipples with his thumbs. Mhm. He finds my mouth and kisses me biting my lips as if he were hungry and I was the most delicious thing he's ever tasted in his life. He kisses my nose, my eyes, my temples ...and I smile.

"Wait for me little one. Very soon I will come for you."

I sigh in my dreams, even though his words don't sound like a promise but a threat.

***

The following week passed so slowly, it seems like every day is Monday. Fortunately, my weekly duty proceeds without major setbacks than two patients with presumptive dengue disease.

By Saturday, I go out for a while in the afternoon and sit on the malecón habanero to watch as the waves crash. I have had a cheese sandwich for lunch here and a mango juice there, walked for a while through Old Havana and then I took two buses to return home.

I am walking down the sidewalk, a block from where I live, entertained in my own thoughts, when out of nowhere a van appears, squeaking its tires and avoiding hitting me by a mere inch.

There's no time to scream, to run, or to hide. I'm grabbed by the waist and thrown into the van. A handkerchief soaked in some strange liquid covers my nose and mouth. I struggle, trying to kick and scratch, attempting to pull the suffocating odor off my face. The last thing I see before falling unconscious is the dark eyes of the demon from my nightmares.