A New Type of Realism

(1) The Plague of a New Age

So, I know she probably hasn't read this, but I thought she deserved this dedication. LauraGordon is an amazing writer who can make you laugh, cry and feel every other emotion there is to feel out there with just a few short and excellently constructed paragraphs.

If you haven't checked out her work already, I can't recommend it enough!

So! On with the story!

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I awoke to the steady beep of machines all around me; and the blinking of the lights overhead as they flickered into life. As soon as my eyes had opened, I was forced to close them again. I brought my hands up to my face and rubbed vigorously at my sealed eyelids. Slowly, like a creature awakening to the first light of Spring after being asleep for the whole of the harsh Winter, I squinted, and finally opened my eyes properly. 

I looked around me, although any specific details seemed to blur into a haze as my brain refused to process what my eyes were seeing. Initially, all I saw was the off-white colour of a used tea towel, that hadn't been washed for several months, and had begun to emit a smell strikingly similar to a mix of urine and the bottom of an old man's foot. 

I tried to sit up in my disorientated state. With each beat of the electrical unit beside me, my vision cleared exponentially. I had already seen the ceiling, the faded white panels contained little detail, and each one had been easy to discern even through my previously blurred vision. Now I could see that some had fallen out of their places, and hung from the framework too indolently for motion to threaten to pull one down. I took in further details of the room around me; faded white walls, faded white floors, and faded white bed covers. No other colour seemed to exist. I concluded that it had been the stark whiteness of the room that had caused the shock to my vision, and not the low level lighting.

I called out into the room. My voice could have barely beaten a mute mouse in a shouting competition. I cleared my throat and licked my lips before calling out again. This time, it echoed and dissipated, finally loud enough to be heard in a heated conversation between two human beings. There was no reply. I shouted once more. Still, there was no reply. Either nobody had heard my pleas for help, or there was no one around to hear it. The possibility that no one cared flashed through my mind before the thought was suppressed. 

I pushed the dust covered duvet onto the floor and wriggled my feet. If I could move, then there was no reason that I couldn't get up and wander around. The place had looked to be a hospital, so the worst that could happen would be a doctor requesting that I 'kindly return to bed'. 

A screen separated me from the rest of the room, though there was no hint of movement behind it. I ripped off a mask that had been placed over my nose and mouth, and removed a small rectangular box that had its mouth wrapped round my finger. The regular rhythmic pattern of the bleeping stopped, as the machine gave off one continuous note. An absent thought ran through my head that I pushed to the back of my mind and into a box labelled 'unimportant'. How had the little machine been able to detect my heart rhythm? Furthermore, why had the bleeps remained constant – surely I had become a little more stressed since waking up, my heat beat should have become elevated? I must have written it down to incompetency, as the apparently 'answered' questions never passed through my mind again.

I rested my hands on the bed either side of me, and pushed down. Slowly, I stood up. The floor was cold on my feet and it bit into my flesh like some kind of fish that eats the dead skin off the soles of a foot. The sensation was odd, but slightly comforting; it proved that whatever was happening to me was real, and not a dream. It gave me proof that this was my reality.