It's mid-morning and the foyer has begun to fill up with people waiting for appointments with specialists. This hospital isn't an overly large one and most of the work done here is private. I walk into the hospital grounds, the sun is up and it's warm outside. I breathe deeply and I'm certain I can smell a vague scent of spring. There are two main buildings here; the first was built of stone in the late 1800s, and was converted into a high care facility after the larger modern facility was completed. The stable, long-term coma patients still remain in the old hospital, but they've been relocated to the basement in a makeshift coma ward. I was around when the staff debated moving them across to the new building, but it was decided they didn't need windows, so it was agreed it was unnecessary to move them.
I always see this ward as human storage for broken equipment. The staff duties here are limited to patient care, pressure area checks, and equipment monitoring. There's never more than one nurse and an assistant on duty here at any time, and they don't hang around. Mostly they sit in the nurses' station chatting or flicking through magazines while their patients lie in silent death-like slumbers. I worry that one of them will wake here, and be plunged into a different and unfamiliar world to the one they've left. Even though the ward is in the basement, it isn't dirty and dank down here – the walls are cream coloured and the rooms are flooded with fluorescent lighting. Without windows, it's easy to lose a sense of time here. I can wander through the narrow hall here with both arms stretched wide, running my fingertips along the walls without fear of someone walking through me. Towards the end of the corridor is an open door that I walk through into a familiar room that contains three beds, each with its own rail and curtains that I've never seen drawn. The patients here don't have a concept of time passing, which makes a mockery of the round, plastic clock on the wall, with its large hands and audible tick. In each bed an unconscious man is hooked up to monitoring equipment and fluid bags. I visit them regularly, but I still sense that none of them are ready to die, which I feel is sad – they are all stable, but absent from reality.
I walk over to the first bed; a chair is already placed beside the bed from when last I visited. I wonder if the nurses ever notice the furniture has moved. An elderly man lies there, breathing serenely, looking as if he's just sleeping. "Hello, Albert." I don't know if that's his real name as he's been in a coma for years, but I can't bring myself to call him 'John Doe'.
"It's nice to see you. It's been a strange day for me. Niklaus visited this morning, and we watched the sunrise together which was nice, I guess. I really want some answers and I'm not sure how to get them from him. You know he doesn't usually stay here for very long, which can be frustrating. I did my best to open up to him but it didn't get me very far. He's not telling me what I want to know." I sit in silence and let the peaceful ambiance absorb me for a moment.
"Dr Reeves is still exhausted. He hardly sleeps between his shifts. He's not coping as well as some of the other doctors are with the back-to-back shifts. Nicole is still infatuated with him. She's found an excuse to talk to him, but she hasn't used it yet." I lean into the hard back of the hospital chair and take a deep breath then let it out slowly. The tick of the ward clock echoes loudly in this under-furnished room. The rhythmic tick-tock is mesmerising, measuring seconds in slow motion and making me feel almost hypnotised.
"My whole existence is weird. It's a bit like yours, Albert. We don't really understand why we're here, but we're stuck. Kinda sucks – as Nicole would say."
I know he can't respond, which is fine. I just want to feel like I have a connection with someone. Someone I can share my experience with, and pretend he's listening.
TING!
"I've got to go Albert, but I'll be back soon to visit." I smile at him, but of course, I receive no response.
TING!
I rise from my chair, close my eyes and let the bell pull me out of this room and into another...
YOU ARE READING
Death's Captive: Will she escape eternal confinement?
ParanormalA woman is trapped within a London hospital and can't move beyond its grounds. She doesn't know exactly how long she's been there, and she can't ask anyone because nobody can see her or touch her, except people on the verge of death whose souls she...
