FAVE ON THE ORIGINAL WORK PLEASE...








Cheek, palm, forehead, bit by bit I curl up (though standing) into the window. I watch my hand, when I take it away I leave an imprint, like a stain. Then it’s gone and I do it again, press, hold, release.

The glass has a cold smooth texture to the touch but to the eye I see a scratch, a tiny crack. Small imperfections marring an otherwise perfect surface.

I can’t bring myself to look at him. I hear a beep, another, a string of beeps like a trail. Follow it to the end and eventually it’ll be gone. Beep, beep, beep. Press, hold, release.

That’s funny. I didn’t know there were water features in hospitals. This one seems to be malfunctioning. On and then off, an erratic trickling. A movement catches my eye and I see there is a woman standing behind me, a red haired woman in green scrubs. She is holding a clipboard and her mouth is moving, but I can’t hear her because the water is so loud, so I turn away and press myself to the glass again.

There is an earthquake, a slight one. Then a larger one, one after another, shudder after shudder after shudder and after a while I notice the glass is a little slippery, snail trails run down from my cheek onto the window. Soon I don’t know where I begin or end and I feel like the glass has been here my whole life.

There is pressure on my shoulder, press, hold, release again. And the water is at it once more. Something grabs my arm and whirls me around.

Tornado.

And a volcanic explosion because there are people everywhere and there are murmurs and machines and oh so much white. The hand is still on my arm. The doctor in front of me is black and balding and has a funny little salt-and-pepper moustache. The water is gone and instead I hear “do you want to say goodbye?”

No!

“Yes”

No!

“Come with me then”

And he pulls, but then he stops pulling and runs off with a small avalanche of other people. Then he is behind the glass, and I find myself ambling slowly back to the window, watching the doctors but never the bed.

Such concentration, eyebrows and fingers working like a well practised orchestra. Frowning, words flowing forth like water.

Then all of a sudden there is one long, continuous beep.

And I breathe out, and release.