We Met in the Emergency Room

“So everyone,” that crow of a woman asked, “has anyone had anything interesting happen in the past few days? Anything they want to share?”

I sat as close to the window as I could, and tried to find a better place outside of this cold hell. No one answered her question, they never do.

Next to me sat George, a bipolar raging maniac who tried to shoot his teacher. Next to him was Lucy, a paranoid druggie with short blonde hair who spent three weeks in the subway, giving guys head so she could get her next hit of LSD. Across from her was Lilly. She had long brown hair that fell in loose curls over her thin shoulders. Her arms were covered in a cross hatching of scars. Then there was Billy, a large black man who ate to fill the empty void left from his absence parents. When they were present, he had a tendency to throw things at them.

In my opinion, I was the sane one.

And of course there was the crow of a woman that led our “group sessions”. I was forced to go to these once a week, even though they were a complete waste of my time.

“Alright, well I’ll go first then,” she muttered. “I saw my son the other day. I haven’t seen him in nearly three months. It was like nothing had happened. It almost made me angry at how calm he was,” she trailed off hoping someone would comment.

“Okay, I’ve got a story,” Lily interjected. I shifted quietly and watched a bird fly by the window, wondering whether or not it was affected by gravity.

“We were in the mess hall the other day, and there was this, thing, that caught my eye. Against the edge of the table was this thin piece of metal, and I thought of how easy it would be to pull it off. And how easy it would be to just, slip it into my room. And how good it would feel digging into my arm-“

“That’s enough,” our group leader said. Lily let out a frustrated sigh and leaned back in her plastic chair.

Everyone shifted anxiously, hoping that the crow would stand up, in her black pencil skirt, and tell us that that was enough for today. But instead she just sat there, with her hands folded neatly in your lap.

“Frank, has anything interesting happened to you recently?” she asked, glaring over at me.

I wanted to tell them all about Gerard. I wanted to scream about it. My brain was screaming for me to talk to them about the amazing person that had stumbled into my room.

But instead I just counted the trees outside the window.

“Freak,” George mumbled under his breath. I think he meant for me to hear him, but I’m not entirely sure.

“Alright then, you don’t have to share then Frank. Maybe next week.” Her voice seemed tired and frustrated, so I began counting the red cars outside of the hospital.

She leaned back and set down her pen, looking up at the clock.

“Well, I guess we’re done for today then,” she said, smiling lightly.

She was so plastic. Everything from her collagen-injected lips, slathered in red lipstick, to her bleached white teeth, it all made my stomach churn in disgust. Her black blouse was unbuttoned towards the top, revealing her perky, saline filled breasts, and I couldn’t help but wonder how many filthy old men had stuck their face in between them. The thought in itself made me cringe.

Everyone stood up and neatly filed out of the room, some conversing, but most just quietly heading to the boarding rooms. But of course, I had to wait for someone to come and get me and take me back to my ward, back with all the sick dying people, back with the hopeless.

“Frank,” that whore of a woman croaked at me, “you need to start opening up in group.” All I could do was stare back at her, imagining what she looked like under that caked-on foundation.

“If you don’t start talking with us,” she paused, “well then I don’t know if we’ll treat you. We need the space for people who want the help.”

She didn’t seem sympathetic or sorry for the vile that spat out of her mouth. She didn’t seem to notice that the thought of losing all human contact absolutely killed me.

Even though I hated people, the thought of being stuck in my cell all day, counting panels on the ceiling, listening to my breath, wanting to die, made me want to scream.

But instead of saying anything, I just stared dumbly at her, like I couldn’t care less.

We sat like that for only a few moments when my nurse came into the room, pushing in front of her my shitty wheelchair.

There’s nothing more humiliating then having to be pushed across the entire hospital when you’re perfectly capable of walking. They treat me like a little kid; coddling me, babying me, trying to protect me from the big bad world. Or maybe they’re just protecting me from what they think I’ll do to myself.

Either way, the ride back to my room was degrading, as always.

Everyone in this god damned place knew who I was why I was in here and they all gave me the same sympathetic look as I rode past them.

I hated them all so much.

Finally I had reached my room, and was lead to my bed. The clean sheets that comfort most only reminded me how far I was from everything I was and how I had become just another lost soul in this coffin of a room.

It made me wonder how many people had died in here, how many families had cried beside the lifeless corpse that lay in this bed.

It made me wonder if anyone would care if I died, if anyone would cry for me. And it made me angry to realize that no one would care, no one would notice. They would just pry my body out of this bed like road kill off of the street. I would be that one grave in the cemetery that no one visited or cared to, with the weeds overgrowing the name on the tombstone.

It made me furious. But at the same time, I couldn’t care less.