The hospital workers slowly scramble; to and from, here and there, back and forth. Like ants they assemble and follow invisible trails without looking down. Feet move too slow. They’re moving too slow. Nobody notices. The floor starts spinning and feet cannot seem to find their way. Hands, like parachutes, take hold the moment before the ground approaches her face, they guide slowly down. Tenderly they caress the landed body as words blur and shouts lose meaning, not making their way into the brain. More words fade out, and the spinning room is drenched in black as eyelids close shut. Quiet. The world is quiet.

Lifted, awakened, and the spinning room reappears and gains momentum. The hospital waiting room looks unreal . The room is bright and blurry. The ordinary colors are oversaturated and colorful blurry pictures hang on blurry white walls. Colorful blurry people comfort their blurry children in blurry blue chairs. The smell of antiseptic thrusts itself at hypersensitive senses like an unwanted and uninvited house guest. The feet are drunk and they stumble against the hands that carry. They struggle to balance a limp body. The blurry people watch the stumbling.

Hurry, let me down, I have to lie down.

And the people watch the stumbling. Poked and prodded. Blood pressure is dangerously low. She’ll go back quickly. The girl is no longer a conscious human being, but an empty shell of a body. The body lays across chairs that are meant for sitting, and the brain feels like it’s whirling around, trapped in the vicious tide. A rickety metal bed is rolled out and as the body is laid down on the the cold white sheets, it vaguely feels the brush of cotton as the shaking body is covered. Then the hallway goes black under eyelids again, and words fade out. A gentle thudding follows the bed as it rolls over small bumps in the bleached linoleum. With each bump the body is slightly stirred, and the mind wonders for a moment what is going on. People talk, but the ears don’t cooperate, they can’t make words. The limp body strains to hear, knowing somehow that very important things are being said, but only indistinguishable muffles make their way through. The metal carriage rolls around the corner, into a dark empty room, and again the world is quiet and black. Pain overcomes the body and yet the room stays quiet, no one hears the whimpers, no one that can help. The pain grows stronger, and with the pain, so does the whimper, it grows into a cry, and from a cry into a scream. Nurses are called.

Hurry! Get me a bag I’m nauseous.

The limp body arches over the blue bag just in time and violently releases its stomach, then after the bag is filled, the pain from straining sets the room spinning again. The body shakes, then returns to the bed as a windblown and uprooted tree willingly collides with the dirt. Again it goes limp as the room fades away, but this time the screams are heard. Limp limbs are lifted, like tree limbs inspected for timber.

I’m just looking for a vein. This is only me cleaning it. This will only hurt a second.
Pressure engulfs the arm and needles struggle repeatedly to find their way into the sick blood. Pressure and pain, and then the pain is gone and the veins are overtaken by morphine. The sharp smell of saline sets in late, and causes a metallic taste in the lifeless mouth. The undiluted medicine burns its way down the track and leaves nothing but fire behind. The burning veins match the burning pain in the stomach, but neither burn is reduced. The screams continue to pierce worried ears, and more medicine is given, this time diluted. The screams continue. More sheets are added in attempt to contend with the body’s vicious shaking. The cycle continues until no more morphine is allowed. But still the pain is untouched, and the stomach upheaval is constant. More blue bags, no more morphine.

Please give it to her, it will put her to sleep and keep her from throwing up.

The limp mind drowns in medicinal blackness and the body is finally set still. It is drenched in unconsciousness as the medicine diligently marches through the veins. It no longer screams, it no longer shakes. Beeping. The sound of an open door and Nurses’ voices can be distinguished, but still only muffles. More beeping. More nurses. The body in the bed is shaken and pulled from the darkness, nurses’ faces peer down either at the bed or the beeping monitor, never both.

You aren’t breathing. You need to breathe. Deep breaths. You have to remember to breathe.
The body struggles. The medicinal ocean threatens to pull it back under, but still the body tries to stay above the water and keep breathing. After time, the blackness and the breathing become one, get lost in each other, and control is gone. No more can the body in the bed think about breathing. Exhausted, it gives up and lets the blackness pull it under, forgetting how to live. The lungs question their profession. As they slowly pull in increasingly shallow breaths, they seem to contemplate. Beeping. What is that beeping? Darkness and beeping. The body is pulled out of the ocean as a wet cloth is tenderly placed on the forehead.

I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I forgot.

The lungs purposefully thrust the dry air in and out. The body in the bed is closer in kin to machine than to man. It is hooked up to machines, machines that light up in sync with the unseen motors in the body, machines that make noises with the thuds of gears inside the chest, machines that beep when the body is broken and needs fixing. Machines that beep. Beeping. The beeping alerts when the gears won’t turn. The machines beep. And they beep.

Oh yeah, breathe. I’m sorry.

The machines beep and the body apologizes. The body sleeps and the machines beep.