Tonight, in Every Bar in Town

Chapter 2

This hospital's doing everything it can to stop me from sleeping.

After Akagawa left, I was dozing away to sleep when I heard a rumbling like thunder come closer and closer from the hallway.

The door opened and a masked old woman with a nurse's cap came in, pushing a wagon.

"Dinner tiiime."

Everyone in the room slowly sat up. They all took their sliding tables from beside their pillows and pulled them out for their meal. I hurried, imitating them. The table on my bed had an aluminum coating that glimmered silver.

The masked old woman took out meals with names on them and distributed them as she read the names.

"Mr. Nishiura, here you are. Mr. Fukurai, here. Mr. Ayase...here. Mr. Yoshida, here you go. Mr. Kojima, here."

It was amazing how quickly she finished the task. She returned to the door, bowed, and pushed the wagon away to the next room.

I looked at the meal set before me. The plastic bowl was about seventy percent filled with a rice porridge. There was tofu, boiled vegetables, some steamed salmon wrapped in aluminum foil, and a pickled plum.

I wondered if this was the "high-protein calorie" meal that Akagawa was talking about. It make me crick my neck in disbelief.

Somehow as I looked over the other patients' food, I could tell that they all had different menus. There were some with rice porridge and some with just rice. I felt sorry for the young Ayase; he had only rice porridge with clam sauce and vegetables. A kid like him might need a lot more to eat, but it also might be some special nutrients for some kidney disease or something.

I guessed that Fukurai had the same condition as me as he had the exact same food. That old orangutan Nishiura happened to have a banana. The old guy didn't even look human as he took it in hand to peel it, but I was too tired to laugh at him.

All of the food was made for patients, though. Nothing oily, everything made to go through your digestive system smoothly. Well, frankly I didn't care at all. I had absolutely no appetite. I felt like if one solid piece of food entered my mouth, I'd spew it back up as vomit.

Honestly, for the last two weeks, the three liquids I drank were whiskey, milk, and honey. It was just enough to 'keep the soul and body together,' as the saying goes. My digestive system probably shrunk after all of that and I felt that my stomach had withered away to the size of a fist.

I was thinking about taking one sip of that rice porridge, but when I brought the spoon up to my mouth, the warm smell of the porridge assailed my nostrils. I could feel the sour swirl of vomit rise up inside my gut. I gave up and took the tray out to the hall where I put it on the return tray.

Since I was up, might as well go to the bathroom.

I saw on one wall a line of plastic bags with urine in each of them. There were names on them: 'Nishiura,' 'Yoshida.' Each bag had gradated lines measuring the urine with the amount of total urine written down. There was a bag for me as well, but that was empty, flat as a piece of paper.

I looked over all the bags, trying to find who was winner in the 'Pissing Contest.' Seem that the old man Yoshida was the clear winner. He had double the piss of a normal person. The bag looked filled and heavy. I mean, it wasn't something to be boastful about and fill up like that, but the hugeness of the bag was still daunting to me.

I found the piss beaker that was near the entrance to the door. There was a label on it that said, "PLEASE WASH THIS WELL AFTER URINATION AND RETURN IT." Seems like they had to mark everything in this place.