Johnny Got His Gun 5

Joe was sitting in his hospital bed trying to do a bunch of things and he was getting frustrated. He started doing multiplication problems but once he reached the triple digits he couldn't do them anymore. Then he tried to name all of the planets, and he couldn't do it. He continued to recite many different things, but could never finish any of them. This was really frustrating for him, because his mind was the only thing he had left, and he couldn't even do anything with it because when he wasn't hurt, he didn't pay enough attention. He then figured out that if he could figure out time, he could be connected with everyone again. " If you can keep track of time you can get a hold of yourself and keep yourself in the world but if you lose it why then you are lost too." Obviously, he felt as though time was extremely important because it kept you connected to a world, and if you lost time, then you would know know when and where you are either. His first idea for figuring out time was simply to count the minutes between nurses visits, and then once he got to 24 hours, and he knew how many times the nurse came within those 24 hours, he would figure out how long a day was using nurses visits as his unit. This didn't work because it is basically impossible for someone who is completely healthy to stay awake for 24 hours without loosing count of the seconds, and converting them to minutes. If it was impossible for a healthy person to do this, how in the world was someone as messed up as Joe be able to do it. Then, he figured out a different way that he felt would work better. He figured the only sense he has is the sense of touch, so why not play up that. He decided he would try and figure out when it was sunrise by when his cheek felt a change in temperature. Before doing this, he had to make some assumptions about how many times a day the nurse would come and how often and when she did basic things like give him a bath and change his sheets. These assumptions helped him get on the right track, and finally he could tell when sunrise was, and when a new day started. This made his time fly, because he had something to do with it.