The nurse looked sad when she punctured my skin with the needle. I didn't ask what it was inside of it, though I could only assume it was some tranquilizer because of the euphoria. It made me smile, giggle, even feel orgasmic. I felt weightless -- floating and looking at the harsh but brilliant ceiling lights of the hospital. The drug caused me to feel out of my body; that the stretcher might have been my wings, that the lights were the clouds of heaven, that the people around me wore scrubs like Renaissance-style togas adorned by angels. A man who didn't introduce himself put an oxygen mask over my mouth. He told me to breathe, breathe, breathe in deeper. The more the ether-like drug filled my lungs, the closer I was to sleep.
