A Place You Know

Around the badly painted unusually darkish white walls is a zig zag motif of multi-coloured carefully cut out letters. Looking across from the letters a number of drawings of well-known cartoon characters can be found: these are very carefully cut out and laminated with obvious capability : the sharp pronounced shape of the rectangular lights can be seen reflecting off the edges of such cut outs. All such cut outs are coloured accurately- all save one- the cut out of batman appears to be coloured in red- this is where we are reminded this is a children’s ward. A crimson red that appears lighter due to the heavy lighting of the room catches the eye painfully- colouring batman red is the first sign of sadism if I knew the child responsible for this I would tell him what’s what and ensure his parents knew exactly what dangerous game he was playing.

 The bright orange iPod is rested on a small table with smaller pitch black wheels. The floor on which these wheels sit is a painful grey that is dramatically brightened due to the colouring created by the previously mentioned lights – every time I look down at the floor , I realise there’s a possibility the shining floor could be the last thing I see before I’m blinded by it. An alabaster white gown is hanging as if for dear life over a wide deep set chair the unidentifiable material, smooth in its deceiving appearance coloured with a dying pink and red. Immersed in the white gown are barely visible vine green triangles- I’ve seen gowns like this before , in films and everything – and who’s to say they’re not all the same gown. Maybe I’m soon to be wearing a gown that numerous celebrities already have- for more light-hearted purposes than an operation.

The smell isn’t too prominent though I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t noticeable – an unusual combination of staleness dampness and newly varnished plastic, it’s difficult to generalise- unless it’s generalised as a hospital smell.

 This smell and these sights are accompanied by an incessant but thankfully faint beeping that’s coming from somewhere a few feet away, which in turn is accompanied by an occasional high pitched springing sound- one that’s in no way natural. It’s likely to be emanating from a computer game – one with overly bright vibrant coloured and exaggerated movement that transfer over to the scenery of the game itself as well as the characters inhabiting it- a game that in other circumstances I could be playing right now- well isn’t that a depressing outlook.

Through the large doors fashioned from a cheap wood- which none the less gives an incredibly finished and stylistic look appears a figure dressed in a blue close to being white. A colour that captures literally no character at all. The person in charge of the hospital uniforms should be contacted and told to enforce more vibrant shades onto their workers. The fact that the patients are in a hospital should cause enough despair, without then being greeted by people dressed in unwelcoming colours. The large contraptions refined in features, deprived of colour are operated with by the figure. I am then given notice of the journey I have to embark on. Throughout the journey I don’t leave the almost 2 dimensional bed that originally felt like an ironing board but now feels almost like pure air that I could phase through. The presence of lights is consistent and their shapes in no way differ, this eventually becomes monotonous. In the distance a row of identical corridors appear to widen. From a distance, they seemed so thin they ended as a void, becoming non existant. Im approach by similarly attired workers in a soulless blue. The latter part of their faces is hidden by surgical masks. Now I think of it, in this dazed state, what proof have I got that they do even have bottom halves to their faces. Perhaps their faces actually end at the midway point of the bridge of their nose. “Sir” one of them speaks, dismissing my theory about not having a bottom half of the face, what with needing a mouth to talk. He speaks in a clearly foreign accent that I can’t describe beyond the point of saying foreign. Then of course, the inevitable and the scheduled is finally confirmed “We’re applying the anaesthetic: you’ll be put to sleep now”