A Spaceman

Chapter 25--Card Underjuice

The moment I saw the man with no lips I knew that I had a long night ahead of me.

Now, when I planned to drink bleach and spend a very unpleasant night in the IDMT, I did not plan on being given barbiturates. In theory, all they should've done was give me some water or milk to drink (I requested milk. I was given water), pump my stomach if I was still unwell (I was), and then watch me all night, give me fluids maybe ----here's a wild idea---a good meal and let me have a tablet to read so I can rest and rebuild my tissue and not go into shock after the ostensibly traumatic night I've had.

But after they pump my stomach and leave me in the room with an IV bag, they tie me to the bed.

Now that's pretty unnecessary since they have no way of knowing I drank the stuff of my own accord and was well aware it wasn't enough to kill me, so I don't understand what the orderlies reasoning is until I see the lipless man. He's nippleless as well but I can't see that. Obviously. The fact that he doesn't have the tips of his finger is hidden by a pair of hospital gloves.

My throat is burning still or I would have sworn in anger. I do not, not need to be drugged. What if the psychopath starts questioning me and he finds out the truth? No, no, no this cannot be happening I thought he was out of the way why are they still letting this man practice medicine?

"Just the juice, m'boy," he mumbles, he can't speak as clearly now. I struggle as he replaces my IV bag with a new one. The liquid in it is foggy. "Relax, just a little juice for you. get you well on your way."

"I'll make a deal with you," I say, as I feel the cold bubble under my skin. there's enough in that bag to kill a man twice my size, if my memory of basic medicine and dosages serves me which it ought to the drug hasn't hit me quite yet.

"Just relax, enjoy the juice now---and tell us everything," he says, sitting down on the bed and staring at me intently. "How'd you get here, m'boy?"

"NO----" I close my eyes and when I open them back up I'm not lying here. I'm not I this bed, I'm not in this room. I'm not in my body. I'm floating through my mind. this is better than sleep, except nothing is hidden, whatever I see or feel might say. I might be saying this I don't know. it's very cold.

"Stop it, I don't want to go back here," I say, I'm standing in a hospital waiting room. my mum is in the office with one of my brothers, getting his arm sewed up. He was stupid enough to go and get drunk and pass out on the floor of our room. so I gnawed on his arm while he slept and now they had no way of proving I'd done it. I'd managed to work a lot of skin off before he woke up screaming and I'd had to retreat to my bed, innocently spitting out blood into my hand. The beauty of it was that they couldn't figure out what had happened Titus couldn't have done it oh not not little sweet Titus who got woken up by his horrible big brother.

"What is with him?" my other brother, whose name I deleted from my memory because it is irrelevant to my life, said, watching as I sat in my sister's lap, reading the tablet that they had in the waiting room for kids to play with. I'd gotten out of the program and found a book on the internet and was happily reading.

"He's tired," my sister said, stroking my hair, "He's only little, and you woke up him up coming in like that."

"Trevor's arm wasn't like that when we got in, I swear, I know mum doesn't believe me. I'll bet he was chewing on it, he's not right," my brother who wasn't Trevor said, pointing at me.

"Don't be stupid, he was asleep," she said.

"He wasn't I'll warrant you, I'll bet he crawled out of bed and chewed on him, he's like some sort of wild animal, you know he is. He always has been. I've looked it up, he's got all the traits of sociopathic disorder," he said. I didn't glare at him, he wasn't worth it and I wanted them to think I wasn't paying attention.