Flower-head

Part 3

I emerge from my slumber, get up and walk past the beds in ward 4D. It's the diarrhoea section, and you'd need to don an apron and gloves and a mask to go in. It's usually full; funnily enough, mostly as a result of too much medicine, given by too many doctors. There are comparatively fewer food poisoning cases that need warding, of the kind that I used to experience myself.

Feeling peckish, I lurch past the control station, where I leave my jacket and give Michelle a little signal that I'm taking lunch downstairs early. No problem, she signals back. It's been a calmer week overall, and she'd hardly be troubled by my popping down for a bite. The flowerhorn fish in the tank on the shelf spies me leaving and seems to nod in approval. I'm glad I have its blessing too.

And would you happen to know it, they're serving burgers today. They are the first thing I spy in the hospital cafeteria, meaty steam rising off the right-most chafing dish, with hot buns and greasy relish piled up in trays to the side. How weird it is to say that the best burgers I've ever had can be found in the canteen of some random hospital, but I stand by it wholeheartedly. And since Paula is running the station today, I get sneaked a second patty when nobody else is watching. After paying, I take my tray to a quieter part of the canteen, and find a seat by the window. The burger is as heavenly as I anticipated and when I'm done, and when I'm sure no one's looking, I lift the plate up and lick the what's left of my meal off the styrofoam. Sometimes, I wonder if I might as well just eat the plate along with the rest.

After finishing things off with my daily cup full of pills, I let myself bask a bit in the midday sun before taking my leave and exiting the canteen. On the way, I meet John going in the opposite direction. He's pushing a trolley filled with yellow plastic bags stamped with biohazard symbols. He asks if I can stay put and watch the trolley for a bit while he pops in to buy a drink and a pack of crisps. I agree and watch as he goes off for his break. And when he's gone, I take a quick a peak at the contents of the bags.

My, my: a whole collection of tumours snipped off their flower-heads, floating in jars of formaldehyde, some small like lozenges, some large like golf or billiard balls.

All these years of pain and who knew that all it would take to get cured would be to befriend a simple porter like John who'd show me the place where all these unwanted bits go to be disposed. To think of all the waste that used to happen before I arrived... all that fortune and glory lost like the wisdom in those old wives' tales to the ears of so many, not least of all my doctors who spared no effort to rubbish away my beliefs when they weren't preparing the poisons they're making me take just to fatten their own wallets.

Well, I can play along, so long as I still get to bathe in the milieu of the most precious things in the whole wide world...

I stroke at the nearest sac of pickled flesh and smile; no trip to the incinerator for you, my dear. When I'm better, you'll be coming home to me and there'll be so many new friends waiting for you. You'd even be able to pick your own spot, fancy that. There's space by the windowsill, or if you want I could find you a nice airy view hanging over my bed... is that what you'd like?

And every day, I'd stroke you and brush you and let you dangle off my clothes. And after that I'd put you out on display with the others and invite people in to have a taste for themselves of what you have to offer; at a fee, of course. Our fortunes would multiply many times over, far faster than you could ever dream of metastasising, and with our riches we would build a palace dedicated to all flower-heads big and small, with me a pope preaching sermons under the auspices of my heavenly, tumourous host, in gilded hallways stuffed with crowds feasting on the finest burgers in existence while the light would shine from everywhere, and it would be very welcome to do so for it would be entering as a defeated spectator, harmlessly bouncing off all our backs. Because in you all I finally found my shield.

And when we're done for the day, I'd take you all back to my room to retire for the night, where I'd caress you and your friends with the tenderest of touches. I'd then remove my clothes and stick you all on me so that you could all feel part of me, part of this wonderful new body that no light could ever hurt and no pain could ever touch. And we would go to bed together as part of this one great whole, from which one day our offspring will spring forth and blossom, and cover the earth and all its beings in our greatness and glory.

Why, we'd never be more perfect.

So, sleep well, and dream, and dream of all the things I have spoken of today. Dream to your heart's content until we meet again tomorrow.

In the meantime, there's a place I'm just dying to try out for lunch, and my innards can hardly wait.

Copyright KH Lim 2017