For someone who is meant to be under observation for a head injury they aren’t doing much observing. Perhaps it was just a name they gave it, observation. It sounded official, had a ring to it, made you want to come again, like good service at a terrible restaurant, or a drink after sex. Come again to hospital for observation. To be looked at. Watched over. Observed. I’d come again.
I would like to see more of that nurse. Karen I think her name was. She was nice. Brought me that jelly. It had an interesting consistency. The same as Mexican style chocolate mousse from Taco Bill. I’m still convinced that on the half-price nights they switch the chocolate for sand.
Karen had a sweet ring in her voice. It was a ring that could make you fall in love with her after a long day at work, or hours of vomiting bile, beer and chicken nuggets. Almost anyone can give you a reason for loving them.
I wonder if I pull all the cords out if anyone will notice. I doubt it. Try to stand. Ok.
It’s not so easy to stand. My legs aren’t talking to my head. Though it’s probably the other way around. The head talks to the legs… Hey, where do you think you’re going? Nowhere, nowhere head. Nowhere without you. That’s right, you’re not going anywhere. Now, stay here. Let me look at those sexy toes. Yeah, yeah, come on - yeah, that’s right!! Give us a look at those sexy, grey, buckled toes.
Ok. So my head has a foot fetish. Not my head, but my brain. My brain. Man, hospitals can send you round the trail. Track. Round the bend. They can send you a bit mad, I reckon.
I wonder if J is going to come back. Take me home with him. I wonder if he’ll let me stay there for a while. Like the old days. The days that have grown old now. Tired and old and senile.
The days in between those days and these days have made those days grow even older, more distant. Faraway.
The days that held times, moments. Like the first time the three of us shared icecream, went to the movies or played naked Twister. Or, rather, the first night I came home high, took off my pants, and forced them watch me do a poorly choreographed dance to Freestyler. Penis swinging.
I’d been asleep for almost 12 hours. Karen must have checked on me while I was sleeping. Luckily I hadn’t urinated in my bed. Not yet. I couldn’t use those pans they give you anyhow. The cold metal stung my genitals and the splash back was unforgiving, I think I copped it in the eye once. Just ring the bell.
I ring the bell.
“Where’s Karen?”
“She does the early. I’m Jennifer. You can call me Jenn.”
A thick Scottish accent, no ring.
“Jane, I am about to piss my pants. Well, you and I both know I am not wearing pants. I am about to piss my gown and these polyester rags holding me in place. Do you mind helping me go to the toilet, Jane? I am not asking you to come in and hold it. Just, I don’t know, help me out and maybe let me lean on you. I didn’t mean it, as in my penis. Well, I did. But I didn’t mean for you to hold it. Sorry.”
“Of course.”
“I will pretend I am drunk. With the leaning thing. Easier for both of us. Everything becomes easier when I pretend to be drunk. Even driving.”
She nods.
When I get inside the semi-circle toilet area it’s obvious.
I could smell she’d been there. I could smell her urine, and her perfume and even a hint of her fart. I had become an expert of these smells when she lived with us. Jeremy had picked up on it one day. “You’re always in there after her”, he had said. I was. I’d lock the door and scan the room like a truffle pig, hunting smells.
She’d been in there. Sarah had been in there and now the blood was running from my bowels and I felt sick and nervous and full of desire.
“Are you ok in there?” Nurse Jane called from outside the door.
“I think I lost something.”
“I’m sorry?”
“I think I lost something. It’s making me sick. But happy. It’s fine, Jane. Wrapping it all up now.”
I finished and wiped away what was left of the thing I’d had to swallow some time earlier.
