[Del]'s Diary

ENTRY FORTY-FIVE

I woke up to the feeling of a warm wet cloth sweeping over my eyelids. The washcloth lifted from my face, and then I could hear it swirling in water. I bolted up in bed and opened my eyes to find Fill wringing out the cloth into a metal bowl full of water with his back towards me.On turning to face me, he almost jumped out of his skin, knocking the bowl off the metal tray it had been sitting on.

“Jesus Christ, what are you doing up?” he cried.

“Am I dead?” I asked.

“I dunno. Do you feel dead?” he said, while picking up the bowl, and tossing the sopping cloth inside.

“Isn’t this a morgue?” I said, looking around the unfamiliar room. It had two long metal slabs in the middle. The type coroners used in autopsies. Across from me was a long counter on top of locked metal cabinets underneath, and that housed a grime-covered sink in the middle. And then there were various medical instruments strewn about in various states of rust. The dingy emerald green tiled room had a sick medicinal smell to it and cloudy glass block windows that one couldn’t see out of.

“Maybe it is; maybe it isn’t,” Fill replied while mopping up the water on the dingy terrazzo floor with a raggedy towel he procured.

I suddenly realized I was hooked up to an IV. And then noticed the myriad of electrodes cemented to my exposed bare chest. I immediately covered myself over with my arms.

A crooked smile cornered Fill’s lips. “Nothing I haven’t seen before, darling,” he drawled. But he still turned his back to me while I donned the top half of my jumpsuit.

He refreshed the bowl of water, and returned with a new cloth. “Those are a bitch to remove. You sure you don’t want me--”

“I can manage,” I said and then started to discreetly pick away at each one.

Fill crossed over to my IV drip, and made some adjustments. I stared at the tattoo on his arm. It was of a man in a short tunic with long hair standing between two pillars, pushing them over.

“Who’s that?” I pointed.

“Samson.”

“Who’s he?”

“He’s the guy who brought the whole mother-fucking place down.”

“Why?”

“Because some bitch stole his power.”

“How?”

“She cut off his hair.”

“Why?”

“Jesus, you’re like some fucking little kid sometimes.”

I could feel a cold numbness spread through me as Fill hopped up to sit on the counter opposite of my bed. Out of his breast pocket, he pulled out a thin hand rolled cigarette and then lit it. It smelt funny but familiar. For some internal logic I can’t explain to myself, I thought this was strange, and furrowed my brow.

“They turn a blind eye to anything I do in here,” he explained, pointing to the corners of the ceiling. “Look, no cameras.”

I felt a slight chill when he took a step towards me but he only offered me a puff. I declined so he said, “Suit yourself.”

I settled my head back down on the pillow as the coolness spread up towards my neck. As my eyelids grew heavy, I could see Fill pop the cap off a bottle of rubbing alcohol, and reach for some cotton swabs.

He took a step towards me. I whispered, “Do me a favor.”

“What is it?”

“Sing me to sleep,” I asked. “I am going to sleep now, ain’t I?”

Fill looked me over for a moment, deciding. Finally, he leaned his arms onto the side of the bed and then started to soulfully sing as I closed my eyes:

“I went down to St. James Infirmary,
Saw my baby there,
Set down on a long white table,
So sweet, so cold, so fair…”

I woke up to finding no remnant of the electrodes on my chest. I wonder how was it that I remember? Perhaps Fill is also a dream like the others. Or a distant memory from the past.