Crimson Butterflies

Prologue

"Do you feel like you could potentially be a danger to yourself Esme ? "The nurse asks me with a lisp. Shifting her eyes awkwardly to her clipboard, eager to get a response. The clipboard is wooden, light brown like cardboard or tea with too much milk in it. I repeat her question over and over again in my mind. The words swirl and congeal into a mess within my mind. I dissect them until they are meaningless. Surprising myself I let out a sharp burst of laughter. An abstract noise to match the abstract sludge in my brain. I wonder if the nurse knows that her words are dissolving themselves until they too are a part of that sludge. The feeling that I am getting lost in a sea of that sludge myself is all to present to me, but I don't care enough to even try to dredge myself from the current.

"Esme? Esme? Esmerelda? Did you hear my question? "The nurse trills from far away. Well, her voice sounds far away at first but as I am ripped from the sludge of my own thoughts it begins to get nearer again.

" Oh ... yeah "My words come out of my mouth flatly. Absentminded. Honestly, I wouldn't have even been able to repeat her own question back to her, I hadn't been listening to her.

The nurses' brow creases at my answer, she bites her already dry peeled lip. Averting her gaze to her clipboard again. Then she looks back at me strangely, like I am a dead bug cold and exposed on the grey of a concrete floor.

"And?" She prompts me. Her tone of voice is not angry or clipped at all, just apprehensive.

"Of course, "I say as the answer to a question that I didn't even hear. One that I am going to pretend that I did. She gives me a curt nod. Then she takes her pen, a standard one with blue ink and scratches a few words onto the paper attached to her clipboard. She writes in an indistinct way so that I cannot catch what any of those words are.

" I need to go and confer with my colleague "The nurse says standing up stiffly. I stare at her blankly as she walks across the room. Once she gets to the other side of the hospital room, she turns back to look at me.

" Leave the door open "she says. Then leaves the room. The door she is referring to is a typical chunky white hospital door, the ones that are specially built for fire safety procedures. I nod mechanically at what she says, I know I should be paying more attention to her and her words, but I don't.

As soon as the nurse disappears from the room I stand up. Taking a deep breath in and stretching. The room smells how hospitals typically do, like rubber gloves and disinfectant. Moving from my position makes me cold. The floor is cold against my feet. Even in spite of the socks that I am wearing. Instead of focusing on the even hollower than hollow feeling that the cold gives me I focus on my socks instead. My socks are grey. A middle tier shade of grey that makes my pale skin look even paler than it usually does. Giving my ankles an almost translucent, sickly glow.

I begin to pace around my hospital room. In front of the large white mechanical hospital bed. Everything inside the hospital seems so monochrome and monotone. As tears spring to my eyes I begin to walk quicker. Dragging my hand harshly through my long dirty blonde hair I give it a sharp tug. A subliminal burning sensation worms its way through my entire system, making a train track from the back of my mind to the pit of my stomach and twisting into my throat. Pressure builds in my head; air forces my lungs to perpetually contract.

A loud clicking sound from the hallway outside of my hospital room sends a spark of worry through me. For a second I think someone is about to enter my room, that they are about to see me breaking down. Luckily nobody comes. The near miss brings me to consciousness. I decide to take the risk of going into the little bathroom on the left side of my hospital room. The bathroom doesn't smell like a normal bathroom. It smells clean, as industrial as the rest of the hospital. Going over to the miniature porcelain sink I turn the tap cold tap on. Splashing my tear stained cheeks with near freezing water is both a relief and a survival tactic. As I stand up straight from bending over the sink, I catch a glimpse of myself in the rectangular hospital mirror. At first, I flinch away from my reflection as if it will reveal some sort of earth-shattering truth but then I realise that now is the perfect time to look at myself. To ground myself. Ground myself and reflect.

My normally blue eyes have been rendered a turquoise green from my tears. They are red around the outside and my lashes are clumped. My eyes are sad. But there is a strangely calm look on my face. I begin to monologue to myself, using words and phrases that I have heard everyone from doctors to teachers to therapists use. All in an attempt to reassure myself, but instead all I do is make myself feel silly and immature. This realisation makes my face twist into an angry scowl.

Storming back into the main portion of the hospital room I slump down onto the bed in one big, silly, useless, immature heap. The desire to simultaneously sleep for years and never sleep again fills me, confounding me. Lifting myself out of the heap I am in, I grumpily sit up. There is a clock on the far wall of the room that I stare at. Staring at the clock is useless as I can't for the life of me even begin to understand how analogue clocks work. The fact that I cannot tell the time embarrasses me. It is lucky for me that I was born in a time where digital clocks exist, where they are mainstream.

Disillusioned, I throw myself onto my back. Looking up at the ceiling I turn my attention to that. I begin to count the multiple white, silver foil lined panels that I see in front of me. But soon the numbers start to drift away from me because of how tired I am. And I begin to count the same panel again and again and again. A never-ending cycle. Then I start the entire process from the beginning. When that doesn't work, I get frustrated. My solution to this is to say the numbers out loud so that they can't get lost in a sea of sleepiness so easily.

" One "One white hospital ceiling panel.

" Two , three, four .... " .

The nurse walks back into the room when I am about 23 white hospital ceiling panels in. She doesn't come alone; my father is with her. The nurse looks uneasy, and my father looks about as unhappy as I feel. Forcing myself into a sitting position I wait for either of the two horsemen to speak. The nurse speaks first.

" Your father and I have had a long discussion "She says with a long pause. The urge to tell her 'Yes, I know you have had a long discussion, you have been gone forever 'creeps at the back of me but I resist it. Biting my tongue both literally and metaphorically I nod .

" And after discussion with both him and my colleagues it has been decided that you are in a fit place to be able to go home today "She continues. Nobody speaks for a long time. It becomes evident to me that they want me to say something.

" Oh "I say, my voice sounding weirdly tinny to my own ears. For some reason, unbeknownst to me, this revelation is disappointing in a way that makes my bones feel like they are crumbling inside of my body. Before I can say anything else, though I doubt I would have been able to find the proper words, the nurse begins to speak again.

" My colleague and I have drawn up a safety plan. And I have printed off a list of different coping strategies "She says. Her hands are cold against mine as she hands me two things. At one glance I can tell that one is a list of helplines and that the other is a leaflet about drinking tea and taking warm baths.

Has it ever occurred to her that maybe I actually want to enjoy my life, not just cope with it?

For some reason I expect there to be more to the process of leaving the hospital. But no. My father and I just walk out of the hospital room. His hand heavy and warm on my shoulder guiding me out. It is not long before we reach the front desk of the hospital. And after about two words from my father and five steps from both of us we are at the hospital doors of the accident and emergency department. With a breath I am transported into the viscous and bitter cold of the outside. On the news they have been saying that it is the start of the coldest winter that the south of England has seen in the past decade.

"Where are you parked? "I ask my father. My voice is hollow, and my chest is even hollower. All my father does is look at me despondently. We walk in silence. Theoretically towards the car. My feet crunch against the gritting salt that was put on the ground in a desperate bid to protect it from the frigid and icy weather.

We reach the car. It is smaller than I remembered it to be.

Ripping off my white but blood-stained hospital wrist band I let it flutter to the ground out of sight. My father swings the passenger door open, and I get into the car. Once I am in, I can't be bothered to put my seatbelt on. In this moment being in a car crash isn't something that crosses my mind. My father gets into the driver's side, glances at my beltless state of being, sighs, and then begins to drive wordlessly. He drives us far far away from the general hospital.