The hospital corridors were unbelievably stuffy and the air had an undertone of bleach. The walls were white, and the wallpaper was scraped in places from the hundreds of trolleys that had bumped into them. The pictures on the walls were cheap benign prints of uplifting scenes and above the double doors were large blue plastic signs with the areas of the hospital that lie ahead. Nowhere is the chronic underfunding more evident than in the hallways. They are for the most part crammed with patients on trolleys, some tended by strained relatives and some alone. Each of them lies on their back, strapped in- eyes toward the naked fluorescent tubes that flicker as though they are on their last legs.
In the brief gaps between these unfortunates who cannot afford the exorbitant private fees, the pale blue walls were deeply scored by the metal framed trollies, the drywall showing though like white scars. The cheap prints on the walls were insipid, so lacking in vibrancy that they appear sun-bleached in this windowless strip. The nurse which had the liberty of escorting Vanity to her mother was a solemn, large woman who's hair was scraped back into a bun. An unflattering pair of glasses were perched upon her angular nose and her lips were pulled into a thin line. She had no sense of sympathy in her voice as she explained her mother's circumstances.
"She's suffered an overdose, which means she's consumed an excessive and dangerous dose of a drug. During an overdose, the slowed breathing that occurs with opioid ingestion of any kind becomes dangerously slow, leading to a complete stop. Then your heart. Your heart rate slows as the opioid suppresses neurological signals. It's unlikely she's gonna be discharged today or any time soon, kid..."
Vanity's head snapped up from her scuffed trainers at that and she looked at the nurse with alarm in her eyes, mournfully shaking her head in response to her statement.
Her assumptions were correct, then. They reach the navy double-doors with their plastic band fastened midway around their dull chrome handles. Suddenly Vanity had no desire to go in at all. This wasn't real. It couldn't be, could it? Just this morning her mother was laughing and joking with her, and now she had been rushed into hospital.
"Call me if she needs anything." The nurse gave a stiff nod and manoeuvred her rotund body around Vanity in order to depart. How courteous of her. Staring after the nurse helplessly until she was no longer in sight, disappearing behind the large doors at the end of the hallway, Vanity hesitated, hand outstretched towards the doorknob, hot tears sitting heavy in her eyes.
"M-mom."
The metal was cold. It was harsh. Guilt weighed heavy in her gut, unfurling and winding up her chest until she was stood shaking with a trembling hand clasped around the doorknob. Was it an accident? Why hadn't she been paying attention? Thoughts buzzed through her head at the speed of light as she pressed her weight on the door handle, blinking back the rising tears which pricked in her eyes. Upon opening the door, she was met with more vapid walls. Every single one was the same. Bland, lacking any life.
The room was completely vacant save for a metal trolley, containing a half full glass of water and a barely eaten sandwich, which was propped beside the window, a cream leather chair on the adjacent side of the bed and a small television suspended above it, which absently broadcasted a show Vanity wasn't familiar with. It was dark. Her mother laid with her head turned, her thread-thin curls dispersed over her pillow, her chest lulling slowly and weakly with shallow breaths as the heart monitor toned mutedly beside her. And suddenly she felt like a stranger. This... woman. She wasn't her mother. She couldn't be. Her face was always stretched into a grin, even when Vanity was crying. Now her face was obscured. She was almost skeletal.
"Ma?" Vanity intoned, frozen still in the aperture of the door. Now the tears tipped over and spilt down her face. Her voice didn't sound like her own. It was choked, wavering and sounding so plaintive over the routine beeping of the monitor. She was met with no response, only the shallow, ailing breaths of her mother as she advanced into the room with tentative steps. Soon she had made it to the bedside and as she wearily gazed down at her mother's form for any sign of consciousness, her tears grew. They grew into stifled sobs, and she had to clamp a hand around her mouth to stop herself from calling out in despair. This.. this woman. She was a husk. It wasn't her mother. It couldn't be.
Lydia always found reason to smile, and even when Vanity was crying, she looked to her face as it was always reassuring. But now her face was sunken, mottled and lined with wrinkles and her skin was paper white. Something which invoked dolour instead of comfort. Even as her eyes were closed, she could tell that they held a flat look, where once they shone with inspiration, and her lips were pressed into a thin line. The same lips which had kissed away her tears. Was she dead?
Her breath rose and fell still, though it was barely audible over the monotonous bleeping. A taunting reminder that her heart was still working, but she wasn't alive. Not really. She was just... there. No life, no movement, no nothing, not even as Vanity fell to her knees at her bedside, hands bunching the sterile sheets and she buried her face into the musky fabric.
"I'm- Im so sorry-" anguish tore through her words, muffled into the chemical scented sheets as she dampened them with an another outpour of tears.
"God, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry I didn't see- That I didn't notice." But her voice fell upon a impenetrable silence.
She was alone.
YOU ARE READING
Girl of the Unorthodox (UNDER REVISION)
General Fiction((POTENTIAL TRIGGER WARNING: mentions overdosing, strong detailed violence, occasional elements of gore and angst, please read at one's own discretion)) EDIT: TWs still apply. i haven't touched this pile of shit since last year so i'm revisiting it...
