Hospital

He woke to find the surprisingly intense bliss which he previously felt escape him. The wonderful emptiness vacating through his mouth, being replaced by air, by life. The room slowly fades into focus, creating a peculiar perspective, and panic electrocutes his body. Realisation strikes him and he becomes aware of who he is, where he is and how he had landed there, on the bathroom floor. Fear and shame flood his mind, the happiness and simplicity which he had experience for a moment seemed a distant memory. Although life threatening, he longed for that feeling to encase him again, where the outside world could not interfere. His body tingled with a weird sensation as he began to writhe, it was as if every cell in his body was being reawakened. How long had he been dormant, lying there in the most unholy of places?

The memory of getting up to reach for some toilet paper was all his mind gave him. He was aware that this was a serious matter and that a member of staff was needed to be informed urgently, but self-dignity persuaded him to clean himself up before addressing this critical issue.  Enough strength was summoned to bring him to the feet before a high pitched noise rang in his ears and the darkness enveloped him once again.

More aware of the proceeding events now, the trauma wears off  fast, and this time he must finish what he started before turning that door handle and making the necessary scene. Convulsions ripple through his body as he wipes and washes his hands, like a marionette controlled by an amateur master. Not knowing the severity of what had happened was the worst feeling, the dread of the unknown. As he approached the door  to finally escape, he looks back and an small twinge of pride entered him, he had retained hygiene in the face of severe trauma. He leans in search and immediately calls to the nearest of nurses ‘excuse me, I think I just passed out a couple of times in there’ is the calmest of voices, but it is very shaky and changes pitch half way through. The nurse asks for assistance, strolls to his aid and insists he sit on the toilet seat and bring his head forward. Eyes turning inward he falls into himself for the last time.

The harsh light is absorbed by the eye first, then the forming shadows in its wake become salient. The number of staff surrounding him had increased rapidly since his last re-integration into the nightmarish world of reality. This amount of people made him claustrophobic, and there faces sent a message of magnificent worry to the patients brain and the fear tightened its grip around his neck, producing short and sharp breaths. When rationality reappeared he decided to cooperate with the practitioners and poured himself into the bed which two orderlies had appeared with, and the confusion and fear slowly melted away into the sheets.

Hospitals are usually very slow places, queues for this and forms for that. So to be moved from one department to another with such agility told him that something new had happened to him over night which the doctors did not anticipate. Ceiling tile after ceiling tiles flitted in and out of his line of sight, frustratingly similar to the day before but with more urgency and priority.