Another writing boom...
I've actually been feeling very creative lately...which this little boom of short stories is showing very well. I'm very pleased with this one. It is very vague without being too broad. I think it came out well.
This ones also for 2metaldog because she's the one who gave me the song. This is what was spawned from it...hope you like it! Thanks Puppy!
It’s the look that gets you…
You can be having the best day in the entire world, and yet something changes the moment that someone gives you that look. It speaks volumes-the downcast eyes, the slight waver in the voice, the way that they almost hesitate to give you the phone, as though they don’t trust your reaction. It’s the look you get when something has gone seriously wrong, the one that makes you pause in the doorway and pray that it isn’t for you.
I had never expected that phonecall to be for me, never expected to be walking through this hallway, my fingers trailing along the pale green walls, sweat beading on my forehead as though I’d been running a marathon. I was actually surprised at myself, the calm way that I was responding to this whole situation. The doctors had obviously been expecting something else as well from the way that they watched me, my face emotionless and slightly flushed, almost uncaring. Of course it wasn’t true. Inside my body was on fire, my blood rushing through my veins in an almost chaotic way, making me wonder silently if I was going to pass out.
I would have liked to pass out.
Hospitals should smell like those who are in them, the cancerous, barely breathing, newly arrived, crippled and hopeless. And yet they don’t. They smell like disinfectant and perfume. They smell of the people who are sitting in half empty waiting rooms watching CNN on televisions that are set up far too high on the walls and give you cricks in your neck. They reek of stale coffee and dying hopes, of tears that catch on puffy purple circles under sleepless eyes. These sorts of places are everything in the world that you are most afraid of, and yet they are the places that most of us end our existence in. How strange that they should be the least comfortable.
So it’s with no small amount of pain that I finally reach your room, the sounds of that machine beeping at me in a sickeningly monotonous way. I can barely breath as I pause in the doorway, my gaze boring holes through the floor instead of looking up at what I don’t particularly want to see. They didn’t tell me the whole story before I dropped the phone, my fingers numb and useless, but I heard enough…I know what I’m going to see when I look at you. When I was a younger person I would have nightmares of the people I loved most dying in front of me, my eyes blurry with tears, nothing I could do but watch. I never wanted that to become reality…never…
“Yet, here we are,” I whisper to the floor, my hands clenched into fists at my sides. I reach one of those fists up to my eyes, forcing back the tears, keeping them at bay. There will be time to break down later, but for now I have to stay in one piece.
I feel like I’m in some sort of horror movie, that moment where the protagonist looks up and sees their best friend hanging from a tree…and all they can do is scream. I always hated those parts in the movies, averting my gaze until the sounds of the screams had faded away into the back of my mind. But I force my eyes up anyway, slowly, creeping up from the floor, to the wheels of the bed, to the hanging white sheets. Though I’m ashamed, I close my eyes again when I reach your body, feeling my bottom lip tremble, wishing this wasn’t happening, knowing there’s nothing more to be done.
And I open my eyes…
It’s the tubes that I see first, so many of them that it takes my eyes a few seconds to adjust to what I’m seeing. You’re like some kind of Magic Eye puzzle, and I nearly cross my eyes hoping that somehow that will help me see you better. When I finally do see you, I sort of wish I hadn’t, because you were nothing like I remember. You’re still you, you’re still alive, but…I can barely make out your face. So many bruises, so many burns, so much damage marring the perfection of your once beautiful face, making it seem as though you’re someone else. If I wanted to, I could pretend that it wasn’t you at all, that there was someone else lying in that bed with a lung machine pumping their lungs for them, that infernal machine…its constant redundant beeping.
I can honestly say that I hate you in that moment, as my feet move forward as though they had a will of their own, leading me to the side of your hospital bed. Fingers inch along the scratchy fabric of your hospital sheets, and I feel like hitting you, ripping what hair didn’t burn off in the accident from your head. It’s a sensation unlike anything I’ve ever felt before, a hideous burning that starts in my gut and slithers its way through my veins, leaving me empty and full all at the same time. I hate you. I hate you for what you didn’t do.
Really…would it have been so hard to slow down? Would it have been so difficult to grab that damn seatbelt and click it into place? I know that there will be those who argue that you might still be in this position even if you had done everything right, but I don’t care. My anger is all that’s keeping me from falling to my knees and crying up my internal organs. It is all that’s keeping my feet in place, keeping them from taking me out of this room, out of this hospital. So I hold onto it, keep that anger in a death grip upon my mind, like it was the last string of my life and I was falling into a deep, dark hole.
My thoughts wander for a moment, from the sounds of the hospital, to a happier place, long ago, to what seems like a lifetime ago. Back then we didn’t have a care in the world, other than the next excitement, the next great adventure, or the next heartbreak. I remember your eyes; brilliant green like the grass under our toes as we talked about how we thought our life would end. Your eyes were clear as they stared up at a passing airplane in the sky, the blue of the sky reflecting in their surface, making them seem like some kind of oceanic jewel. You were always unafraid of the final step, unlike me. I never liked to look at the sky; my eyes were focused on the ground, the ants that marched in long lines near my toes. Predictable. Steady. We made promises back then. Do you remember? Promises that were made specifically for this sort of scenario…if anything like this were to ever happen.
Would you hate me if I told you I wish I’d never made that promise?
The sounds of footfalls draw my attention away from my memories and back to the present. Somehow in my distraction, I’ve failed to notice one of the nurses come in, putting a withered hand on my arm that had moved to your battered cheek. Your skin is clammy, cold, almost feeling as though it weren’t really real…it seems so fake to me. I run my fingertip down your plastic face until I hit your chin, barely touching, pulling away when my fingers come away coated with some unidentified liquid.
God, I hope that was spit…please don’t let it be anything else…
The woman says something that I can barely make out, going in one ear and out the other as I continue to stare at you. Apparently I don’t even have the luxury of time, time to sort this whole thing out in my head. You don’t have that much time; you don’t have much of anything other than your fading body and withering mind. They tell me you can’t hear me, that your body is failing, your mind is gone…there’s nothing left of you but this empty shell. The accident destroyed everything. Everything but your soul apparently, trapped within a rotting corpse that only medical science is keeping viable.
Your body gives way to me as I climb upon you, my thighs spreading to either side of the hospital bed as I lean down towards your face. There’s no one around to see me do this, no one around to see my hand moving precariously along the cord of your machines, to grip it tightly in my fingers, cool and unfeeling. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I know that this is one of the most important decisions of my entire life. One that could make or break my entire existence from this moment forward…and so I pause. There is nagging doubt in my mind, whispers of morality breaking through my resolve. Closing my eyes, I try desperately to push them back, rubbing my forehead along your temple and down into your pillow.
I don’t have time for this…
Without thinking, before I can change my mind, my hand reacts, pulling viscously on the wire that was previously attached to the wall. All at once everything seems to come into brilliant focus and time slows down. I can hear my own heart beating in time with the machine that measures yours…they are one for all too brief a moment. Behind my closed eyelids I can see you as you once were, beautiful and young, unmarred by either time or the ravages of an accident that never should have happened. I can feel your skin, slick with sweat and your mouth half-open, the sound of ragged gasps as you struggled to catch your breath. Your heartbeat was so steady against me…I can remember how you felt. Why did you have to turn from me? Why did you have to pretend that it never happened? Was I so repulsive?
Were you so afraid?
The world begins to blur again and I’m back in the present. What was once a steady sound is now beginning to slow, the wretched machine won’t be doing its work anymore. My body seems to have moved without my say-so, as I’ve managed to crawl from the bed down back to the floor. My feet feel like they’ve been glued to the spot, and I can hear the steady pounding of fists on the door behind me. When had I locked the door? When had everything become so insane? I force myself to stare at you as the beeping of the machine becomes slower and slower, my own blood rushing as if to make up for the lag. But it never will. I would take your place if I could…
Finally the beeping stops, now replaced with a steady scream that startles me from your face and draws my attention towards is flush surface. The reality of it is slowly dawning on me, the pounding on the door becoming fiercer…I think they’ve heard the machine. As the door finally slams open, people flooding and parting around me like a stream around a stone in the middle of the water, I smile serenely. This was what you asked of me…I could do no less for you…
And in that final moment, just before I feel my arms wretched behind me, cold steel folding around my wrists, I can swear I see the muscle of your mouth twitch just slightly.
I swear I see you smile…
I'm Out
Orchid
This ones also for 2metaldog because she's the one who gave me the song. This is what was spawned from it...hope you like it! Thanks Puppy!
It’s the look that gets you…
You can be having the best day in the entire world, and yet something changes the moment that someone gives you that look. It speaks volumes-the downcast eyes, the slight waver in the voice, the way that they almost hesitate to give you the phone, as though they don’t trust your reaction. It’s the look you get when something has gone seriously wrong, the one that makes you pause in the doorway and pray that it isn’t for you.
I had never expected that phonecall to be for me, never expected to be walking through this hallway, my fingers trailing along the pale green walls, sweat beading on my forehead as though I’d been running a marathon. I was actually surprised at myself, the calm way that I was responding to this whole situation. The doctors had obviously been expecting something else as well from the way that they watched me, my face emotionless and slightly flushed, almost uncaring. Of course it wasn’t true. Inside my body was on fire, my blood rushing through my veins in an almost chaotic way, making me wonder silently if I was going to pass out.
I would have liked to pass out.
Hospitals should smell like those who are in them, the cancerous, barely breathing, newly arrived, crippled and hopeless. And yet they don’t. They smell like disinfectant and perfume. They smell of the people who are sitting in half empty waiting rooms watching CNN on televisions that are set up far too high on the walls and give you cricks in your neck. They reek of stale coffee and dying hopes, of tears that catch on puffy purple circles under sleepless eyes. These sorts of places are everything in the world that you are most afraid of, and yet they are the places that most of us end our existence in. How strange that they should be the least comfortable.
So it’s with no small amount of pain that I finally reach your room, the sounds of that machine beeping at me in a sickeningly monotonous way. I can barely breath as I pause in the doorway, my gaze boring holes through the floor instead of looking up at what I don’t particularly want to see. They didn’t tell me the whole story before I dropped the phone, my fingers numb and useless, but I heard enough…I know what I’m going to see when I look at you. When I was a younger person I would have nightmares of the people I loved most dying in front of me, my eyes blurry with tears, nothing I could do but watch. I never wanted that to become reality…never…
“Yet, here we are,” I whisper to the floor, my hands clenched into fists at my sides. I reach one of those fists up to my eyes, forcing back the tears, keeping them at bay. There will be time to break down later, but for now I have to stay in one piece.
I feel like I’m in some sort of horror movie, that moment where the protagonist looks up and sees their best friend hanging from a tree…and all they can do is scream. I always hated those parts in the movies, averting my gaze until the sounds of the screams had faded away into the back of my mind. But I force my eyes up anyway, slowly, creeping up from the floor, to the wheels of the bed, to the hanging white sheets. Though I’m ashamed, I close my eyes again when I reach your body, feeling my bottom lip tremble, wishing this wasn’t happening, knowing there’s nothing more to be done.
And I open my eyes…
It’s the tubes that I see first, so many of them that it takes my eyes a few seconds to adjust to what I’m seeing. You’re like some kind of Magic Eye puzzle, and I nearly cross my eyes hoping that somehow that will help me see you better. When I finally do see you, I sort of wish I hadn’t, because you were nothing like I remember. You’re still you, you’re still alive, but…I can barely make out your face. So many bruises, so many burns, so much damage marring the perfection of your once beautiful face, making it seem as though you’re someone else. If I wanted to, I could pretend that it wasn’t you at all, that there was someone else lying in that bed with a lung machine pumping their lungs for them, that infernal machine…its constant redundant beeping.
I can honestly say that I hate you in that moment, as my feet move forward as though they had a will of their own, leading me to the side of your hospital bed. Fingers inch along the scratchy fabric of your hospital sheets, and I feel like hitting you, ripping what hair didn’t burn off in the accident from your head. It’s a sensation unlike anything I’ve ever felt before, a hideous burning that starts in my gut and slithers its way through my veins, leaving me empty and full all at the same time. I hate you. I hate you for what you didn’t do.
Really…would it have been so hard to slow down? Would it have been so difficult to grab that damn seatbelt and click it into place? I know that there will be those who argue that you might still be in this position even if you had done everything right, but I don’t care. My anger is all that’s keeping me from falling to my knees and crying up my internal organs. It is all that’s keeping my feet in place, keeping them from taking me out of this room, out of this hospital. So I hold onto it, keep that anger in a death grip upon my mind, like it was the last string of my life and I was falling into a deep, dark hole.
My thoughts wander for a moment, from the sounds of the hospital, to a happier place, long ago, to what seems like a lifetime ago. Back then we didn’t have a care in the world, other than the next excitement, the next great adventure, or the next heartbreak. I remember your eyes; brilliant green like the grass under our toes as we talked about how we thought our life would end. Your eyes were clear as they stared up at a passing airplane in the sky, the blue of the sky reflecting in their surface, making them seem like some kind of oceanic jewel. You were always unafraid of the final step, unlike me. I never liked to look at the sky; my eyes were focused on the ground, the ants that marched in long lines near my toes. Predictable. Steady. We made promises back then. Do you remember? Promises that were made specifically for this sort of scenario…if anything like this were to ever happen.
Would you hate me if I told you I wish I’d never made that promise?
The sounds of footfalls draw my attention away from my memories and back to the present. Somehow in my distraction, I’ve failed to notice one of the nurses come in, putting a withered hand on my arm that had moved to your battered cheek. Your skin is clammy, cold, almost feeling as though it weren’t really real…it seems so fake to me. I run my fingertip down your plastic face until I hit your chin, barely touching, pulling away when my fingers come away coated with some unidentified liquid.
God, I hope that was spit…please don’t let it be anything else…
The woman says something that I can barely make out, going in one ear and out the other as I continue to stare at you. Apparently I don’t even have the luxury of time, time to sort this whole thing out in my head. You don’t have that much time; you don’t have much of anything other than your fading body and withering mind. They tell me you can’t hear me, that your body is failing, your mind is gone…there’s nothing left of you but this empty shell. The accident destroyed everything. Everything but your soul apparently, trapped within a rotting corpse that only medical science is keeping viable.
Your body gives way to me as I climb upon you, my thighs spreading to either side of the hospital bed as I lean down towards your face. There’s no one around to see me do this, no one around to see my hand moving precariously along the cord of your machines, to grip it tightly in my fingers, cool and unfeeling. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I know that this is one of the most important decisions of my entire life. One that could make or break my entire existence from this moment forward…and so I pause. There is nagging doubt in my mind, whispers of morality breaking through my resolve. Closing my eyes, I try desperately to push them back, rubbing my forehead along your temple and down into your pillow.
I don’t have time for this…
Without thinking, before I can change my mind, my hand reacts, pulling viscously on the wire that was previously attached to the wall. All at once everything seems to come into brilliant focus and time slows down. I can hear my own heart beating in time with the machine that measures yours…they are one for all too brief a moment. Behind my closed eyelids I can see you as you once were, beautiful and young, unmarred by either time or the ravages of an accident that never should have happened. I can feel your skin, slick with sweat and your mouth half-open, the sound of ragged gasps as you struggled to catch your breath. Your heartbeat was so steady against me…I can remember how you felt. Why did you have to turn from me? Why did you have to pretend that it never happened? Was I so repulsive?
Were you so afraid?
The world begins to blur again and I’m back in the present. What was once a steady sound is now beginning to slow, the wretched machine won’t be doing its work anymore. My body seems to have moved without my say-so, as I’ve managed to crawl from the bed down back to the floor. My feet feel like they’ve been glued to the spot, and I can hear the steady pounding of fists on the door behind me. When had I locked the door? When had everything become so insane? I force myself to stare at you as the beeping of the machine becomes slower and slower, my own blood rushing as if to make up for the lag. But it never will. I would take your place if I could…
Finally the beeping stops, now replaced with a steady scream that startles me from your face and draws my attention towards is flush surface. The reality of it is slowly dawning on me, the pounding on the door becoming fiercer…I think they’ve heard the machine. As the door finally slams open, people flooding and parting around me like a stream around a stone in the middle of the water, I smile serenely. This was what you asked of me…I could do no less for you…
And in that final moment, just before I feel my arms wretched behind me, cold steel folding around my wrists, I can swear I see the muscle of your mouth twitch just slightly.
I swear I see you smile…
I'm Out
Orchid