devil's berry

Chapter 8

The hospital corridor is stuffy, and the air has an undertone of bleach. The walls are magnolia and are scraped in places from the hundreds of trolleys that have bumped into them. The pictures on the walls are cheap benign prints of uplifting scenes and above the double doors are large blue plastic signs with the areas of the hospital that I stand in.

I sit down on a hospital bed and a nurse entered the room in blue scrubs, po-faced, serious, washing her hands at the sink like she was lost entirely to worrying thoughts. When she turned to me her face softened into a smile and she introduced herself before asking what had brought me to the hospital - as if it wasn’t obvious.

I sighed and told her the lies that I was taught to say whenever someone brought up a mark, and she listened while taking my pulse, feeling my skin making me flinch and listening to my raspy breathing.

Occasionally she would ask a pointed question but other than that the chatter was no different to when I used to get my hair fixed with my mother. After talking to a doctor, they pump me full of drugs, making me drowsy.

I lay down and fall asleep. The stark smell of bleach was overwhelming. I scrunch my eyes at the bright light that was sipping through my closed eyelids.  I feel powerless and heavy. I could not move my tail, my head or my body. I close my eyes tighter and take a deep breath, realising it is easier to breathe now.

When I open my eyes again, my chest aches and I see my dad slouched next to me, texting. He doesn’t seem too bothered that his little girl is dying because of him. The only reason he is hear is most likely because the doctor told him to stay and Ash didn’t want to raise any more questions than there already will be. Jake is next to him, still in his kit and rolling the football along the floor.