The moon’s skin was tightly stretched over its gaunt face, she seemed starved without the nightly secrets behind the purged, shut rooms. Through transparent curtains dull light leaked into the sterile air of the hospital. A figure in white softly glided next to me and replaced a plastic bag that connected to me most intimately through a needle in my wrist. Attached to their chest was a name pin with ‘Amitiel’. Fresh cocktail of everything vital slipped into my slow bloodstream and snapped into action, licking through inside my veins.
I couldn’t tell whether Amitiel was a girl or a boy, but something about the softness with which I was handled hinted about the femininity of my nurse. I knew not where I was, how long I’ve spent here, and most mercilessly somewhere within me I was trying to hold on to the vague notion of who I am. I found no voice within me to ask questions.
In a sudden whoosh Amitiel leaned in to me and gently spoke, “ You have been with us for three days, multiple lacerations to the abdominal area, weakened lungs and your throat is still unable to function properly” Her short blonde hair grazed my nose. Lavender and musk, a tint of something strong as well. Blue eyes emphatically slid over the needle in my wrist “also, your heart seems to be at a steady failing rate”. Only now I registered soft beeping next to me from the machine that was hooked directly to my heart.“But you’re still holding on strong”. Yeah, way to cheer up a patient. I noticed electric white vines around Amitiel’s irises, and felt that her last sentence held a different meaning. Sinisterly reprimanding. She waited, expecting something or other from me.
“All that…from one…shot?”. My own voice scared me. Strained and raspy, inhuman. Amitiel stepped away to look at me fully with a furrowed brow and pursed lips, analyzing. Now in the austere light of the moon I could make out a strong jawline, an Adam’s apple, comprehend that Amitiel’s voice had a rough edge to it. If it’s not a girl, that leaves us with a boy possibility. Genius. Anyway, who has put so much lead into my eyelids? It seems impossible to keep them from dropping. I sighed at the delicious concoction traveling in my blood as it somehow relaxed me, and just about decided to give in and stop trying to put things in the order when Amitiel spoke .
“We are unsure what has caused such rapid deterioration in your body, in fact, we need your assistance, can you recall back to the last few moments with” he seemed to weigh his decision “Marley, to perhaps aid us in your recovery process”.
So official, yet all I manage is an unladylike grunt of agreement. I course my mind for the Little Time Amitiel wanted me to recall in the spectrum of the Big Time of my life, once I find it I completely dive in and drown, and become one with the Little Time because that it is the most defining of me compared to the Big Time I’m experiencing right now, unaware of my own identity. I relive the Little Time again, as that is the most recent and genuine record of who I may still be at the moment in the Big Time.
“Scoot”, he says and tosses me a cool can of coke. As he heaves himself on the bench next to me I feel the wood might give way and break under the heavy mass of meat with a designated name of Marley. I may sound like a total bitch but he’s a total pain in the arse most of the time. I feel hot waves of pure red rolling from him in thick bangles and I know he’s angry. It’s a warm spring day and sunlight works its magic on me because I actually feel concerned about the scrunched up fat and greasy face of my neighbor.
“Marley…” I begin
“Don’t” surfaces somewhere between his slurping the sweet bubbles bundled in nooks on the top of his can.
“I can tell it didn’t go well, you can talk to me if you want”
“Well I don’t want to.”
Conceited jerk. At this point I just want to smash my coke bottle into his head of tangled brown hair.
“Look, Marley, I’ve waited for four hours on this bench” I pick the right words because the red seems to intensify “rooting for you in that goddamn place, so you better spill the beans”. I don’t add “because I’m the only one who’d care to listen” but the tension is already there between the little space we share on the bench.
Silence. More profanity comes to my mind but I bite it down and chew it over with thoughts of Marley in agony. Ah, blissful mind.
My coke bottle seems to be perspiring as a moist sheen covers it so I attempt to open it. Attempt. Watch me as I fail miserably, there’s something about these cans that disarms my absolute brilliance.
Chubby fingers take the can from me, a sound of it opening is like a sigh of satisfaction and a cool fume breaks out from the toxic saccharine substance.
“Thanks, Marley”. I start to sip and the bubbles sizzle coldly and sweetly on my tongue. It’s quite and nice out here, distant laughter and pulsing life from the sun glaze the greenness around with a new sort of vitality, the kind that makes you happy to be alive.
I’m startled to feel the sudden shift of the red waves emanating from Marley to saturated blue tendrils gently curling from around him. Eerily calm. I lean casually against the bench, squint and surreptitiously size him up. This bastard is up to something that’s going to stink.
Mental whip slash for profanity against this harmless giant. He’d had a hard day, large drops of sweat slick up his bulky frame, and here I am totally degrading him in my own mind. I try to delusion myself that I don’t feel slightly disgusted with him, oh how hard it is to be good!
“Marley…” but I’m cut off.
“I’m so fucking tired of everything!” He spits out. Wow, talk about me trying to maintain manners in conversation. He chucks his empty can somewhere and rockets up on his feet, he is not just obese, he is also very tall and such a sudden action makes me feel panicky.
Blue turns into acidic purple and I can’t remember what that color stood for but it crawls into my throat through my flesh and throbs inside it, expanding and bulging. I’m on my feet as well, ready for action. With prominent poignancy he almost leaps a few meters away from me, he’s clumsy and flails around his arms with no purpose. Attracts attention. He starts to scream jibberish and I wonder for what crime God is punishing me for with such embarrassment. I start to get smooth words out but suddenly he whips out a small gun and by the wild look in his eyes I see it’s no joke. Harmless my ass.
He aims at no one particularly and then with a trembling hand settles the eye of the gun on me.
“Another step and I’ll shoot you down!”. I catch myself taking tentative steps towards him, and stop. He won’t shoot, he’s a wimp and just too nice.
Abruptly men in white, clean clothes appear and rush past me. Marley keeps screaming that I’m not real and should leave him alone. They seize him and try to take away the gun. Where did these people in white come from?
“Go away! Be gone!” he croaks and the gun yells out a bullet at me. The sensation is ethereal, no pain really. More people in white hurry to wrangle the gun from Marley’s grasp, they seem to pass by and through me now. Soft hands catch me as I fall, my eyes fixed on Marley. He’s become limp and pliable, so they just hook his arms around their shoulders and haul him past me. Around us a small circle of frightened, worn out faces huddled in tatty blankets looks on attentively, but they show no surprise. There’s a lot of light now, clinical, white and antiseptic; I barely register that Marley fainted before my mind completely becomes the light itself.
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