Second waiting-room in as many days, and I don't even like waiting. Lucky I'm not here of my own volition... Then you'd have to wonder... Whereas, what have I done? Admitted I have a problem... And what are the long term effects of exposure to television? You just don't know... Except about six months ago I began having dreams where food would talk to me... Then chase me... Now, I've never spoke to anybody about this, my friend the Doctor has basically tarnished the entire concept of doctors for me... For no good reason I don't trust anybody with a stethescope...
Doctor tends to wear a milk-white dinner suit to everyday events like going to the movies, or sitting around watching TV... I'd never admit this in person, and I've never really discussed it with myself, but I get the vague impression that I'm afraid of the colour white. Don't ask me how or when it happened, or what it feels like... Except a sick anxiety, and you can't locate the source of it... Until a moment like this, when you're sitting in a hospital waiting room, and your body starts talking to you: it says 'Hey...' It says 'I know we've never really talked, but I thought this was as good a time as any... I really don't like the colour white...' And that's it. You have to just go, 'okay.' From now on I shall shun all things white, that'll just be my thing. Body, I shall work with you, and together we shall not be afraid.
Okay, so I'm not at the prison any more. This whole thing happened, where I was transferred. Papers were filed, things were said - some hurtful - you don't want to know about it. The main thing is, here I am. In similarly scary place I don't belong... A public hospital.
Even though I'm a basically fully grown man... Except maybe in a physical and psychological sense... Despite that medical fact, I'm having this child-like experience where everything seems big. But at the same time, its like I'm having that adult experience of looking back at your school assembly hall and thinking you were crazy to think how big it was.
So these huge receptionists take my particulars... And my generals... Data and broad concepts they can use to label me, like "police transfer" and "possibly dangerous"... These ladies with giant moles and giant disappointed-parents syndromes are most interested in the things which least define me: like what religion my parents were (not applicable) or my food allergies (open to suggestions). I do my best to commune with them, despite their utter lack of interest, and decide to let two giant bodybuilders moonlighting as orderlies drag me along the coridor, screaming like a kettle, to my designated bed... Which I sense is much more randomly chosen than they'd have me believe... Once you have a bed, that bed becomes you... Nurses will talk about "bed number 7 needs such and such"... So you'd hope they really consider the options before they choose which bed's yours.
I eye the nurses carefully to test this theory, but I'm almost certain they just plonked me down in the next available bed. I observed no anthropological analysis of the dimensions of the room and how they might best be chosen to fit my particular temperament. They would know what my temperament was, they didn't even give me a personality test. But they can't exactly do things at a share-house bum's pace, or no-one'd get their medicine.
One bed over a man lets a man-made machine do his breathing. They've stuck tubes nearly everywhere they could think to.
Now my bed's doing all the physical labour, so I'm free to just float around... So I sneak into various rooms on a data-retrieval mission, with the view to generate a profile of how standards of living and quality of life differ from room to room. Main thing I'm concerned about once I leave my body and become Bed 4B is the number of rooms on my floor where everyone has a personal tele.
'Oi, whata you doing outa bed?'
'Oh, hi, I was just... coupla errands. This and that.'
'Yeah, well from now on I'll run the errands, cause that's the way I want it. See my badge? It says Colleen. You don't do anything unless Colleen says so. Alright?'
'That seems easy enough.'
'Now get back to bed.'
Colleen wears a red face courtesy of Alcoholism. For this reason she never makes acceptance speeches and lives a thankless life in a thankless job and a thankless marriage. She has wonderful sex, though, so don't feel too bad for her. Her partner must be a matching shade of red.
Anyway, all I could gather before my mission was so rudely cut short is that differences in quality of life seem to be more a product of internal not external factors... I noticed a strange phenomenon: men who know their life expectancies don't watch television... I don't get this... You'd think they'd want to get in as much as they could, but there's no accounting for taste...
%
Like the world needs another hospital. Yeah, let’s just do everything in white – not a hint of imagination. I hate white... Breeding a desire for colourblindness among the inhabitants. If I knew a thing about colour or blindness I’d have to have a word.
Man comes in with a severe allergic reaction to crayfish. Allergic to hard-shell creatures, but got confused cause thought it was a fish. Another man’s gored himself with a whale-hook and his foot’s gone the colour of carrot. Staff are inventing a new word for gangrene in his honour. The whole hospital bops and buzzes along, but I don’t know what I can trust in it. Man comes by dressed like a clown.
'Hello.'
Look left. Look right. Wait till an unbiased observor agrees they can see a clown.
'Hello,' he says again.
'Hello,' I say, apprehensively, recording his every move in case I later build a case against him.
'I'm a clown,' he says.
'Oh good,' I say. 'That explains your costume.'
'What have you got little man?'
'If you're here to cheer me up, don't you know that's a rude thing to ask?'
'Not really. I'm new. I'm just here to spread joy among sick kids.'
Feel my face contort.
'I'm not a kid. I'm not even in my teens, I think we've established that.'
Check the tube-man, my only neighbour close enough to help, but totally unconcious.
'You know what I think? I think you shouldn't be here. I think you're here cause you're lazy and unimaginative.'
'That's slander. How dare you...' Prop my body up, shove in his general direction. No contact, mind. I'm somewhat at mercy of outsiders as clown has right of way to nurse's station, where he tells some kind of story involving lots of shadow boxing, which I can see, though he's too far away to hear.
'Why don't you say it to my face... GET A LAWYER!'
Commotion contagious... Bit of shouting produces a lot of fear instantly. I flop back in bed for a rest to save energy for big fight and out the window’s only blue sky, which might indicate we’re a fair few floors up… There’ll be no dramatic escapes involving pointy ends of shoes and ropeless abseiling down external guttering…
Nurses come over, stand around me, there’s a million of em and they’re wearing Halloween masks and breathing fire… Okay, I made that last bit up, but there’s a hospital and a situation and some nurses here think they’ve got to deal with it or I’ll go on being crazy a few more days… Come on, what would it hurt… Look into my (puppy-dog) eyes…
A radius clears around my bed… I appear to have lashed out and gnashed teeth. What possessed me to do this, I’m not quite sure, but here go the claws and fangs again. What genus is the species: well, sir, it appears to be humanoid in nature, but there are some animal features: this tail is rather handy for wagging, and the second set of eyelids sure makes winking weird… This is not indicative of a smooth recovery… Turkey’s just too cold to serve… Need medicine. Now I’m pleading with them...
‘I need my medicine, I’m a private patient, I need to be out of this system. I'm too sensitive... I have a private physician...'
Restraints are brought down at same time as another torture device: hospital food. Starvation and disgust: two contrary motions in stomach. I begin to shriek.
‘No! No! No!’
‘You’re not hungry?’
‘You can’t make me… Don’t force me…’
‘If you don’t wanna eat, don’t eat…’
‘They’re force feeding me…’
‘Och, call psych, we’ve got a transfer for them. Tell them it may be urgent.’
@
Up on the walls there’s posters of great men who’ve given their lives to advising deaf people about what music to listen to. Since I left my apartment I’ve seen a million faces… Some fat, some pale, some the colour of the one food they eat like it’s the secret to their happiness – when I was in high school I had routine foods, and I only would know it was time to switch to a new recess food when my piss started smelling of it – like corn, cause we had these corn rolls… There was just no other way to tell, but it was beginning to take over my life. Soon as you smelt that, though, you had no problem switching to another routine food. Whoa, sidetrack… I’ve walked by a million people since I left my apartment a few weeks ago, and most of them were eating themselves to death. I… Its like my eyes have x-ray vision now, and I can see into their stomachs… See the food they’re eating… And… And I can see, like, their other organs too, and they’re all slimy and festy, and they’re rotting, see, they’re decomposing… Its like I’m some kind of prophet. The Prophet, that’s me, and its also a Lebanese restaurant near where I now live that symbolises my childhood, which was not Lebanese in any other sense. It used to be a road-trip away, the kind where you go to sleep with your head lolling on your seatbelt and wake up in your driveway. If you’re going that distance for dinner, it means everything else in your life tends to get deprived of attention. Parents wanted me to be a nutritionist – promote non-evil eating habits. They were religious about certain things, not fussed about others. I think they were so obsessed by it because they were big fatties, huge fatties, and they didn’t have the self-control to teach me to eat right, so I’m a big fatty too. Sorry if I didn’t mention it. Secret’s out now. Put the book down, folks, he’s a fatty. Fatty in the room. Ummmmmm… I think the thing I’m about to say is… Something wonderful… Something hot and spicy, a curry of some sort… With nachos on the side… And none of that sour cream rubbish to wuss out with. Take the heat, fucken feel the pain!
&
Sorry. Got a little carried away. I’m here waiting in the waiting room (where else?) getting carried away by my hunger… I’m hit twice with a double-barrel loaded with hunger and shit – a combination as disturbing as sex and shit. Hunger and sex, no problem. As for any other combinations… Though I may not personally take part, I’ve heard they go quite well.
Hunger and shit just feels sickly. Your bowels are saying: I don’t care what else you’ve got on your plate, we’re going to the toilet. I don’t care if the doctor’s calling you any second… FIND A FUCKING TOILET OR YOU’LL DIE! So off I pop. For a plop. Sorry again. Shall perhaps regret that, but too late we’re moving on. Oh look it’s a toilet and we’re there. You’re there too. We’re all here. It’s a team effort. Everything seems to go well… But there’s a certain aroma… Not altogether unpleasant… Perhaps second-hand food of some kind… Nachos, perhaps… There’s just no human way of finding out. God… We’d need to call God in. If he was here, he could go: look guys, you’ve heard that saying ‘god only knows’ well, for christ’s sake use your imagination!
And we’d all go: shit, God just swore. Well I wouldn’t cause I’m too polite.
God would go: oh, sorry, I kind of spend so much time alone… Just the three of me…
This guy’s a fucking nut... one of you’d say, cause again that doesn’t sound like me, I’m a nice guy. But seriously folks – God has multiple personality disorder. Look at his novel – he’s power mad, he’s a sociopath: he killed EVERYONE and showed NO REMORSE. ‘Even if they were like evil, who the fuck is he to be playing god?’ Who said that, some philosopher among you. Perhaps a biblical reference. We’ll never know because none of us is as well-read as me – Ha ha ha!! Revenge of the biblical allusion… A new adventure starring: Abuncha Grapes and Towera Babel. Hmm… Sounds too foreign…
If there was a cat and a nutritionist, which one of them would be better read… I say the cat… Just look at his face. He knows…
&
Now here’s an environment I can appreciate. Earthy, literary… Smell of book signings and lecture series. Not a hint of disinfectant and no sign of scrubs. Staff here wear coats with patches for elbows… Perhaps at last I’m home, cept they kept me waiting till I tried to chew my elbow just to pass the time. Shrink’s room is booky but you can still tell we’re in a hospital: most blank spaces are still white. Shrink’s got big glasses and a baseball cap… Looks like he’s just been told his half-life.
‘Is there anything you want to talk about?’
‘Well, there’s about a million and two things I can think of to start with…’
‘Okay, great, let’s begin with that.’
‘With what – one or a million?’
‘Whichever you’d like.’
‘Okay, but I don’t know if you’re gonna like it…’
'It doesn't matter if I like it,' Shrink says in a weathered-smooth voice.
I shrug, lose interest in the whole thing. 'Meh. I guess I have weird memory things happening, and the machine that helps you gauge reality... That thing's probably broken, but its a little early to tell. I've also been growing apart from my body, and I think we're looking at a trial separation...'
Doctor is frowning pretty seriously.
'There's more. Um... I've been having food-mares.'
'What's a food-mare?'
'Okay, so you know how when you're hungry you dream about food. Well... I'm starving. And paranoid. And I've been having some fucked-up dreams...'
'I'm not really a dream specialist, if you wanted to discuss that, I have a colleague I should contact...'
Which means I'm looking at another pointless transfer.
'No no no, that's okay. Let's talk about something you do know about... How bout the weather? Did you know its raining food?'
'I did. I've been following the story in the news. Isn’t that a weird thing…’
‘Great piles of food appearing for no reason… It has to be biblical. I’m sure it’s the Creator finally writing his follow-up to the Bible. This is Genesis II.’
‘I'm sure it'll turn out to be something utterly unmysterious, as tends to happen... But it’s an unusual time to be in a psych ward, that’s for sure… A couple of times I’ve been in the middle of what I thought was an important belief-challenge and a patient’s gotten me to look out the window and there its been… Bananas.’
‘All the regular loonies must love it.’
‘Oh yes, it stirs them right up… Everyone’s got a prediction about what it means, and all of them include the end of the world.’
The subject of my personal physician comes up, because Shrink mentions something about kidnapping and gross abuse of a medical license…
‘Maybe you can help me with this… Maybe you could tell me of his reknown in the community, the articles he’s written, awards he’s won… I’d settle if you had an old buddy from Johns Hopkins who he went to school with…’
‘What’s his name?’
Knocks the wind out.
‘His name.’
‘Is that a bad question?’
‘Kind of.’
‘I don’t know if I can help you if you can’t give me a name…’
‘I can’t name names… Its not in my nature…’
Furiously flip through mental roll-o-dex of identities… Mind: wander back to a situation when he’s entered a room… Any room… Tends to announce his name like reporter... Okay 'Doctor Perkins Murkin Murky Murray...' Rubbish, it could be anything… Work brain…
‘You know, maybe forget it.’
Finally, take him through my three-day bender which began with medicine and ended with a river-based escape from the mountain lair of cop impersonators. Think I just won a medal for the least likely story he’s ever heard.
‘If you’re right, what happened to me in those three days… Cause all my clothes still stink of river water… And I’ve got scars from pineapple spines.’
Lift up my shirt and show him polka-dotted punctures.
I go on, ‘I’d say they got their torture weapons from a food spill… But I’ve never gotten close enough to check, but are the food in those spills… Mutated? Do they look over-large to you?’
‘Closest I’ve been to them is ten stories up…’
Stand. ‘I think you’ll agree the weirdness is out there, not in here,’ point to chest.
Shrink looks lost, which provokes a worrying bout of sympathy in me. ‘Don’t worry. Things’ll get back to normal.’
‘Mmm…’
Ask the doctor if he could spare me a nutritionist or two. Doctor realigns himself with flourish, concealing a crotch adjustment executed by a single finger. Suspicious crumbs on his zipper – no crumb ever escaped my notice.
‘Why do you want to know that?’
Initiate protection program.
‘Just curious. My parents wanted me to be a nutritionist, whereas I preferred not to.’ Still standing there over him. The atmosphere is awkward and hesitant.
‘There is a nutrition department up on the seventh floor.’
‘Mmm.’ Interested noise.
‘Is that interesting to you?’
‘Could you not tell from that noise I just made?’
‘Noises can mean different things.’
‘I don't know anything but I never ask anybody what a noise means... And I’m not a quack shrink.’
‘I sense you've a real hostility towards the medical sciences.’
‘Sciences… is that what you call them? When’s anyone ever gotten better from taking a pill? The problem’s still there. You need to find it and dig it up and poison the roots.’
‘That’s an interesting view, and I’d like to take you up on a few points if I may. I think its important to clarify – if you know your medical history…’
‘Here we go. Ancient witchdoctors and waiting rooms – no thankyou, I’ve got a nutritionist to see. And I bet she won’t keep me waiting.’
‘Is it important she’s a female nutritionist?’
‘I suppose I prefer that to a "she" being male...'
'Can you not answer me seriously?'
'I don't want to.'
'Xaviour, I think we should talk some more about your doctor friend. Is he the kind of friend only you can see?'
Stare at him like he's an utter fucking moron.
'He's my next-door neighbour. Sometimes I wish I couldn't see him.'
Throws arms on his lap in exhasperation. 'Well I don't know what to believe... You're telling me you have mental problems, the police are telling me you're a murderer and I don't know what I can tell them...'
Watchamawhat now? Now I have to sit down.
'Is that what this is about?'
Quack's stunned, sullen.
'This is not that rubbish about the Doctor again is it?'
'There is a certain feeling I'm getting from the police that they think he's dead, and that you've killed him.'
'That is interesting.' What can I say? 'Do they have a body, or are these just stubbornly ill-founded accusations?'
'I'm not at liberty to discuss that...'
'If you're at liberty to make accusations, you can find the fucking liberty to defend them.'
'I don't know where this hostility's coming from...'
'How bout from fafaf'ing being accused of killing my best friend, my only doctor, a man I've lived next to for... A while, and... More importantly, a man who's alive.'
'He's alive?'
'My doctor? He's more or less alive. Depends how you judge these things. Some would say he's a parasite.'
'But you say he's your best friend.'
'As I say, that's what some would say. Not me. I can't stand him, but I'd never say that about him... Parasite. Not in mixed company, at least.'
'Xaviour, I want to impress on you how serious these charges are. The police... Its a question of bureaucracy. Once the machine gets going, it can be difficult to stop... You may want to phone a friend, you may want to go on a road trip. Whatever you do, if I were you, I would find this man and keep him alive, because if you're right, and he's died since you saw him last, you could be in an immense amount of trouble, cause I'm looking at their case against you here... And, between you and me, you've been in too many places that look wrong on paper... I'm going to report that you went missing. I'm going to do it in such a way that I don't get fired - which there's only a few of... Its the kind of thing they don't tell you in training.'
I go pretty quiet. Alright… upsy-daisy.
'Hey, wait a minute!'
Shrink enclosure quickly becomes a corridor with shiny floors and neon lighting, which becomes a small inlet with a desk and flashing lights. Almost safe when, from the right, a white-coat sweeping the area, digging a trench to lay mines in. Duck under the desk… wait for it… wait for it… They come in soft-soled shoes so you never hear them till the needle’s in you. This one’s a ripper. Clever bastard. I’m frozen to the floor, waiting, when he wheels a trolley by and sees me. Fucker’s found me.
‘What are you doing out of bed?’
‘A whole bunch of things.’
‘Do the nurses know you’re there?’
‘Oh, it’s just a thing we’ve got worked out… Between us. A kinda peace treaty.’
‘I know just what you mean – alright, I’ll leave you to it.’
Stupid fuck. Alright, back to two-legs. Its what separates us from the rest of the food chain, or, as I call them, food. Its a shit to have something actually important to do, means you can't faff around without feeling guilty, and I love faffing around. Shit to goodness ratio my system is extreme considering recent adventures; I need to see my Doctor about it. As I'm almost out of the facility a small lady in a white coat corners me and pulls me into her office. Lips puckered, spinal curviture like a bird perching, skin looks like it might come free if you touched too roughly. Her badge believes her name is GRAY, so that’s what I believe.
'Gray?'
‘Actually no. I've lost my badge.'
A jolt of electricity goes from her brain to mine… Perhaps as a form of punishment, and I look down at her badge, weak with hunger…
Now who do I believe: badge or person? Big pizza, nachos?
‘I don’t think I can confide in you if I don’t trust me.’
‘If you don’t trust who?’
‘What did I say?’
‘You said you.’
‘Right, if I can’t trust you, how can I confide in you.’
She looks down at her book, ignoring me.
‘Of course… What was I thinking… Please doctor, I need your help…’
Lean forward, she thinks I'm about to grab her. She flinches and pulls skirt over bony legs, but it just goes: nope, and retracts. I watch it, suddenly scared it’ll lift up her skin and I’ll be confronted with what she looks like inside. Become distracted by a runner, strand of ancient train seating, come free. Slip forefingers in, feel what brain tells me must be inside… Knife, chewing-gum ball, particle accelerator… Just about to touch tip of it when…
‘I’m not a doctor, I’m a nutrition student.’
‘I’ve been suffering from unusual changes in the fabric of my world… I’ve lost the concept of inside out… The way the world was when I left it… I can’t tell 'is' from 'was'… Or anything much else… Am I making sense?’
‘Not really…’
‘Is this not something you’ve heard of before?’
‘I don’t know... Have you seen someone about this?' The way people say this they're always referring to mental health professionals.
‘Nonsense. Buncha quacks. I need you.'
‘I’m really not qualified to be talking to you… About… anything! I haven’t even finished my degree…’ Listen to her, in case she says something that might affect my status in her cabin and the world it currently takes part in... But I’m not certain of anything’s constancy… ‘And even when I do finish… Its nutrition… How to eat right…’
‘Ah, the stuff of life…’
‘Well, I often think I haven’t learned anything I'll use…’
‘Oh, come on, you’re just being modest… I’ll bet you could tell me anything you’ve learnt and I’d be really impressed.’
‘Hardly…’
‘Go on… Bet you a dollar I’ll be impressed.’
She sighs. When she raises her arm to touch her forehead her joints creak.
‘Alright. I guess the main thing I know is there are five food groups…’
‘Wow!’
‘Shut up…’
‘You’re really good… Do you think you could help me now?’
‘Listen, I feel like I shouldn’t say anything, but actually you do seem a little malnourished… And…’
‘Oh thankyou doctor! I knew it, I just knew there’d be a simple solution and then everything’d go away…’
‘Hang on… Let me finish… The thing is, most people look a little green at the moment…’
No-one move or breathe even. We’re at the threshold of genius, witnessing a sacred prophecy…
‘Tell me how you came to this vision – I want to know everything, where you were, what you were wearing…’
‘Its been in the news…’
‘Shut the fuck up!’
‘No, its been on the news the last few nights…’
‘See, I knew I’d miss out on everything if I went without television… Everything’s gone wrong since I’ve been without it… I bet everything’d be fine again if I just went home…’
‘Yeah…’
‘And I'll just knock on the Doc's door and hand him over the police, and then everything will be wonderful again.'
‘Uh... Yeah. What?'
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