I couldn’t sleep. No matter how hard I tried. I sat up in bed and looked around the room. Feelings like broken, sharp shards of glass, flew at me from all directions. I turned my head and looked at the shiny white basin in the corner. The drip, drip, drip of water, the repetitive motion and sound, pulling on something so deep inside me. A partial fragment of a whiff of a maybe-memory started to come back.
Blood, someone covered in blood.
The image hit me again, and again, and again. I turned my head to the other side and stared at the empty chair. It looked like it was waiting for someone to sit in it.Who?Another almost-memory fluttered into my brain, still out of my grasp, but this time so visceral, so real, that it made my skin crawl. I was cold. I pulled the blanket towards myself; the feeling of the hard-pressed cotton dragging over my skin was not comforting.
I looked at the window, and even though it was dark outside I could see he was there. My dove friend.
“Hey!” I sat up in bed and flicked the light on.
One tap!
He was talking to me again!
“I’m glad you’re back.” I looked around my room. Another plate of food seemed to have appeared and I pulled the lid off.
“You hungry?” I asked.
One tap!
I picked up the sandwich and climbed out of bed slowly, putting my drip bag onto the pole once more. I took a step towards the window and he didn’t look like was going to fly off. I walked closer.
“I’m just going to open this and give this to you, okay?” I asked, and almost jumped up and down with happiness when he tapped three times, as if excited to meet me.
I reached for the window and pulled, but it didn’t move. I pulled again, and again, and when I pulled even harder and it still didn’t move, I stumbled backwards, shaking my head.
“It doesn’t open. It doesn’t open, it doesn’t . . .” I stuttered over the words and grabbed onto the table to steady myself. I was trapped here, in a room with windows that didn’t open and, on the other side of me, a terrifying corridor . . .
“Shit!” I dug my fingers into the table as I felt the floor spin. I needed air. Real air. Not this recycled room air. I felt trapped. Caged. A memory of a zoo and a sad black-and-white panda sitting behind steel bars hit me all at once, making me want to cry. I reached for the window and pulled one last time, hoping that by some miracle it would open. It didn’t.
The toothbrush! I reached for it and rushed to the window. How did I know how to do this?How did I know that if you slipped the back of a toothbrush into the mechanism at the top and pushed it to the left, a latch lifted and it opened?How did I know that the modern toothbrush was first mass produced in England in the 1700s but was invented in China in the 1400s?
But I didn’t care that I somehow knew this, all I cared about was getting air. I thrust my entire face out and inhaled deeply. The fresh air rushed into my lungs, and I felt like I could breathe again. I closed my eyes and gulped it in until the floor stopped spinning and the panic evaporated. And when I opened my eyes again, my dove friend was right there, looking at me.
“Hi!” I smiled at him. He cocked his head to the side and, I swear, he opened his beak and smiled back at me. And not since holding Noah’s hand, had I felt so good.
“It’s nice to meet you, properly.” I leaned in and he took a few steps towards me. He was so close now that I could reach out and touch him. Should I?
“Can I touch you?” I asked, and when he took another step forward I stretched my hand out and he opened his beak even more, and I was sure he was going to give me a soft, happy-sounding coo, only he didn’t because, suddenly, he was on my face.
“Oh my God,” I wailed as his wings beat against my face and his beak pecked my head. “Why are you doing this? Did I do something to offend you?”
But gone was one tap for yes and two for no, now it was one thousand face-piercing taps per second for psychopath. I tried to pull him off me, but his feet were now firmly planted in my hair. I stumbled backwards, grabbing at my head.
“Get off! Get off!” I tripped over the table and tumbled to the floor, taking the steel drip bag with me. I tried to get up, but his flapping wings blinded me. I pulled myself onto my knees and crawled across the floor, finally making it to my feet. I felt a warm, wet, gooey sensation on my face as he let go and flew out of the open window. I stared after him as the wetness dripped down my forehead, ran along the bridge of my nose, and stopped just before my lips. I rushed to the window and stuck my head through it.
“Screw YOU!” I screamed into the night, as the dove flapped away from me after literally shitting on our friendship.
“I hate you!” I yelled and then burst into tears when he disappeared and I could no longer see him. I needed to get away from this place! I needed to be out of this room so badly. If I didn’t get out, I was sure I was going to die. I rushed to the basin and washed the crap off my face and then I reached for the drip and quickly, expertly, pulled the sticky plaster aside and then eased the needle out of my hand. I picked up my bag of neatly folded clothes, the ones I’d come here in, and something fell out.
What the hell was this?
Through my tears I saw a large keyring lying on the floor. I examined it. A single key hung from it, but the keyring was huge, made up of various items I didn’t remember. A squishy ball of sorts with a fake smiley face on, another ball made of colored elastics, a long string of orange beads and some weird, heavy metallic thing that spun. I put it down on the chair and ripped my gown off and put my clothes on. The urge to leave this hospital was so strong that the passage outside no longer terrified me! I grabbed the strange keyring and then, without a second thought, ran out the door and into the corridor.
Radiology.
Oncology.
Ward B,
