My senses awakened as quickly as they had ended.
Days had gone, days I'll never get back, and I awakened at last to the sound of beeping.
My eyes fluttered open and my back instantly supported itself as I sat up in a tangle of mint colored sheets in a cold white hospital that smelled like hand sanitizer.
The smell clogged my throat and I coughed. I felt tired.
Beep, beep.
I moved slightly, and a paper gown that I hadn't been aware of crinkled. Sudden self-consciousness swelled when I realized a stranger had seen me without any clothes on.
Shame on you, I thought. That's the first thing you think about?
I ripped a band that held needles in place out of my arm, like they do in the movies. Although I can tell you now that it is far more painful than they show in the movies.
I watched little blood drop surface on my arm, and wiped them on the thin sheets.
My feet swung off the edge of the hospital bed and my bare feet skimmed the cold concrete floor, then after a moment's hesitation, touched down.
I helplessly wandered the empty hallway.
I fiddled with a plastic wristband that had been impermissibly attached to my wrist, just one hole too tight.
The occasional nurse with a clipboard could be seen down the hallway, and I busied myself at a water station or studied a little framed painting on the wall as to not be seen as suspicious.
Then came the thoughts that made my stomach drop. Where were my parents? My brothers? Where was Haiku? Are they at home? Are they somewhere in this never-ending clean white building? Where am I? Where is here?
I turned another corner and the sight of a lady in a pink scrubs sitting at a wooden front-office sort of desk sent me skidding down the hall in the opposite direction. I heard a voice behind me calling to another voice that called to another voice that called to me. A man in a powder blue mask and white lab coat followed me briskly down the stretch and caught my arm.
I called out, but my screams fell upon deaf ears as we marched forward into sterilized infinity.
YOU ARE READING
If We'd All
AdventureThey say the only thing to fear is fear itself. Great. Wasn't before. Thank you very much. People complain. A lot. But those of us with imaginations find it hard to understand WHY, this, among other thing, is so. The thing we yearn for most is an ad...
