Short Stories

White Rooms

He was lying in a white room. The floor tiles so clean that dust feared to touch its porcelain surface. There were two small windows overlooking a parking lot. Old tiles from the sixties staggered on the ceiling; there was a metal track with a sea foam green curtain hanging down skirting the floor. Harsh fluorescent lights illuminated the room, flickering every once and a while. Wires plugged into his body, countless wires, connecting to machines, countless machines, monitoring everything that they as if he was a science experiment.

The bed had thick overused white sheets bunched around his legs, a piece of white plastic wrapped around his ankle. There was a white board next to the bed, he didn't look at it, he couldn't look at it, it would only make him feel worse. There were some old chairs scattered around the room, empty. They were empty before and they were empty now. There was a bed to his left and it was empty before and it was empty now.

There was a clock on the wall above the open door that he couldn't read, so he just waited, he didn't want to know what the time was; time was useless to him now. The television that hung from the ceiling was off and it had been that way since he arrived. No use watching anything now, he would think to himself.

Instead of using the pointlessness of television and time to occupy him, he let his mind wander and remember things that he hadn't remembered in years. Through all of his thinking, he was still able to hear a faint chorus of beeps and clicks, something he was very familiar with now a days. He opened his shut eyes to the sounds of footsteps coming in to his room.

"Hey Bernie, how are yah feeling today?" A lady in a pink nurse's uniform asked with a thick Jersey accent.

"Oh, I'm fine," he answered in a raspy voice, "just tired that's all."

"Well that's good," she smiled and walked over to his machines.

"Hey miss?"

"Yes," she was too perky in his opinion.

"What are you going to do?" he mumbled a little, ashamed for needing to ask. "I don't like needles much and I have been stuck with one so many times in this visit that I can't even keep an accurate count."

"No worries, I'm not that fond of needles myself," pulling her bright carnation red lipstick over her yellowing teeth that probably had been caused by smoking, he could smell it on her clothing.

"Good, then what d'yah need miss?"

"I'm here to check your stats and to make sure that everything is fine," she checked some of the machines, taking down some notes on a clipboard that came from the foot of his bed.

"Oh"

"Is there anything you need before I go?" She leaned over to fluff his pillow, it felt nice and soft.

"No, no, thank you," he sighed, "I'm fine, I'm fine, don't need nothin' much."

"Ok, let me know if you need anything Bernie." She walked out of the room, her shoes squeaking on the tile floor.

He closed his eyes again as he resumed his aimless reminiscence. He kept his eyes closed for what felt like a while hoping to fall into a peaceful state, but listening to the heart monitor and some weird machine that was making a constant high pitched beeping noise kept him on edge. It was hard to relax in a place like this anyway, with the sterile feeling of the place, the constant interruptions when you least wanted them, or the millions of machines that you needed. It was torture, to be stuck, he knew that he couldn't leave, but still, the place was horrible. It reeked of cleaning solution and sick people, it felt constricting and lonely. To a visitor it was a place to avoid, but when they visited it seemed calm and healing, but everyone that was on the inside knew differently, it was stressful and bleak.