Chapter Eighteen
Title: My Regards
Mitchell doesn’t visit me.
And Annie is flicking around the hospital like a broken filament bulb.
She’s anxious, flitting between me and… I assume Mitchell. I don’t have the energy to ask, let alone try and find out. She’s actually flickering; the light keeps going out behind her eyes. She’s tired, never mind the fact she’s a ghost.
I try to tell her to leave me, but when she does it is clear to tell that she’s not resting.
And Mitchell still hasn’t visited me.
It isn’t a surprise really, from how he was acting before.
Annie will be looking after him, properly, I should hope.
I feel useless lying in this bed, my mind is now, finally, awake. Which is making the ache and pain of the relapse stronger.
Better in mind, worse in body.
And I only have days left till the event. And I’ll need strength to survive that. Mitchell told me that, when we first met, that I needed to be strong for the… time of the month. If I wasn’t I’d have relapses and… yeah, well, that worked well.
But still, I trust him.
So he’ll have a perfectly reasonable explanation for him not coming to see me.
And not even Annie’s talking to me. She’s speaking, without making it with point or relevance, and always turning the conversation away from Mitchell. It’s almost starting to worry me.
It’s boring in hospital. Even though I work in one, I’ve never realised the monotony that exists when you’re the one in the bed.
Annie brings me books.
We still don’t even know if she can be seen.
Maybe some books just walked themselves into my room?
Hopefully she can be seen.
I think she can.
That doctor walked straight into her, not through her, but into her.
She can be seen.
He apologised as well.
And Annie had smiled.
Those books she’d given me were… nice. I’d read them all before, however they wouldn’t have been what I would have picked myself. Knowing Annie she would have grabbed the first books that she found.
Looking at the titles you can see that, they’re alphabetical, so she grabbed them off the shelf.
My own fault I suppose.
But alphabetical order makes sense.
There’s a knocking at the door. I can see that it’s Annie outside. The glass is partially blocking her view, but her monochrome outfit is clear to the eye.
I don’t need my glasses.
She enters, walking straight though the door. She looks are surprised as I do at that.
“Oops?”
But the smile doesn’t reach her eyes.
Again.
The door opens from behind her.
Mitchell walks into the room.
And I break into a grin that I’m sure has the ability to rip my face off. Elation.
Which is ridiculous. It’s only been three days.
Mitchell’s smiling back. Ever so tightly.
Tight lipped smile. Eyes hidden by the sunglasses, that I thought he’d managed to loose.
But he’s smiling.
Maybe Annie is more perceptive than she acts; because she smiles at the two of us, rubs Mitchell’s shoulder and then flickers out of view.
“George?”
Mitchell’s voice cracks, as if he’s been crying or screaming. His voice is horse.
And my smile begins to fade.
He’s talking at me, not to me, just like Annie had been.
And he still doesn’t take the sunglasses off.
But I can see though them, just, and his eyes are coal black.
Mitchell doesn’t visit me.
And Annie is flicking around the hospital like a broken filament bulb.
She’s anxious, flitting between me and… I assume Mitchell. I don’t have the energy to ask, let alone try and find out. She’s actually flickering; the light keeps going out behind her eyes. She’s tired, never mind the fact she’s a ghost.
I try to tell her to leave me, but when she does it is clear to tell that she’s not resting.
And Mitchell still hasn’t visited me.
It isn’t a surprise really, from how he was acting before.
Annie will be looking after him, properly, I should hope.
I feel useless lying in this bed, my mind is now, finally, awake. Which is making the ache and pain of the relapse stronger.
Better in mind, worse in body.
And I only have days left till the event. And I’ll need strength to survive that. Mitchell told me that, when we first met, that I needed to be strong for the… time of the month. If I wasn’t I’d have relapses and… yeah, well, that worked well.
But still, I trust him.
So he’ll have a perfectly reasonable explanation for him not coming to see me.
And not even Annie’s talking to me. She’s speaking, without making it with point or relevance, and always turning the conversation away from Mitchell. It’s almost starting to worry me.
It’s boring in hospital. Even though I work in one, I’ve never realised the monotony that exists when you’re the one in the bed.
Annie brings me books.
We still don’t even know if she can be seen.
Maybe some books just walked themselves into my room?
Hopefully she can be seen.
I think she can.
That doctor walked straight into her, not through her, but into her.
She can be seen.
He apologised as well.
And Annie had smiled.
Those books she’d given me were… nice. I’d read them all before, however they wouldn’t have been what I would have picked myself. Knowing Annie she would have grabbed the first books that she found.
Looking at the titles you can see that, they’re alphabetical, so she grabbed them off the shelf.
My own fault I suppose.
But alphabetical order makes sense.
There’s a knocking at the door. I can see that it’s Annie outside. The glass is partially blocking her view, but her monochrome outfit is clear to the eye.
I don’t need my glasses.
She enters, walking straight though the door. She looks are surprised as I do at that.
“Oops?”
But the smile doesn’t reach her eyes.
Again.
The door opens from behind her.
Mitchell walks into the room.
And I break into a grin that I’m sure has the ability to rip my face off. Elation.
Which is ridiculous. It’s only been three days.
Mitchell’s smiling back. Ever so tightly.
Tight lipped smile. Eyes hidden by the sunglasses, that I thought he’d managed to loose.
But he’s smiling.
Maybe Annie is more perceptive than she acts; because she smiles at the two of us, rubs Mitchell’s shoulder and then flickers out of view.
“George?”
Mitchell’s voice cracks, as if he’s been crying or screaming. His voice is horse.
And my smile begins to fade.
He’s talking at me, not to me, just like Annie had been.
And he still doesn’t take the sunglasses off.
But I can see though them, just, and his eyes are coal black.