Through the Portal

Chapter 11- Jerome

        The doctor brought Jerome a bowl of thick broth, and Jerome wolfed it down gratefully. He hadn't eaten anything since lunch the day before, and the cafeteria's food was nearly inedible. The doctor watched him while he ate, and he found it slightly annoying. He was used to people staring at him while he ate, but now in this place, wherever it was, he had hoped to get some privacy.

        When he had finished slurping at the last drops, barely restraining himself from licking the bottom of the bowl, the doctor took the smooth wooden bowl from him and left the room.

        Jerome was alone at last. He tried to remember everything that had happened over the last twenty-four hours. "I got up this morning, was it only this morning?" he thought, "At a quarter to seven, like I usually do, and I went to the bathroom to wash my face and think. I heard the other boys wake up and start a pillow fight, and ran back to the room. I went to school and tried not to think about my parents, and then I basically skipped ninth period to sit in the bathroom and think some more, I seem to think really well in bathrooms." The doctor walked in and Jerome focused his attention on him because his head was starting to hurt from thinking so hard.

        "Are you feeling better?" the doctor asked, watching him closely.

        "Yes," Jerome said slowly, his mouth was working now, but the words came out slowly.

        "Perhaps now you should sleep." Jerome had not realized until that moment that he was completely exhausted.

        "Yes," he said again, and the doctor helped him slide back down onto the strangely prickly mattress. The doctor removed the pillows that had been holding him up while he ate, and Jerome made himself comfortable. He closed his eyes and his last thought, before he drifted off into the pleasant cushion of sleep, was that he was sleeping on a straw mattress. "But why would I be lying on a straw mattress?" he wondered before sleep engulfed him.