When the narrator wakes, he is in the factory hospital being treated for the injuries that he sustained in the accident. Although it is unclear what his specific injuries are, he undergoes some sort of shock treatments that cause him great pain and leave him unable to respond when the doctors ask him what his name is. He can't remember his name, and he's disoriented. The whole experience is cloudy like a hallucination. When they release him from the hospital (and his job at the paint factory), his brain feels out of sync with the rest of him. The hospital experience leaves him feeling altered.