Welcome To My World, Stranger

Hospitals are quite boring places.
They smell weird, are mostly plain and white and have people dying in them;Like me.
Like I was.

Yes, the nurse was right.
She called my parents and told them to come visit me.

Only Jack came, though.
He looked horrible; horrible and upset.
He began by saying how sorry he was;
He had an emotional breakdown, actually.

“Christopher, please forgive me,” He had sobbed,
“I was horrible; I lied to you; I – I listened to Rhiannon; I’m so sorry.”

Around about then, Jack sat down on the edge of my hospital bed, hung his head and paused.

“About a month ago, Rhiannon had this… idea.
She really; no, I will be honest: we really wanted to get rid of you. We looked for orphanages and foster homes, but didn’t find any.
Then, one night, Rhiannon had a thought.
We’d – I mean she’d… murder you.”

I can remember that I was shocked at first, but thought of Rhiannon’s vulgar personality and got over it pretty quickly.

“She told me she got some arsenic from someone she knew; then told me her ‘plan’.
We’d put on an act; we’d make your food so we could slip the arsenic in; we’d be nice so you’d eat what we made.
We hid is in a coffee jar so you wouldn’t find it.
We mixed it in with Milo and made you drink it.
We lied to you, Chris;
I’m sorry.
I fucked up big time.”

By then I was swimming in tears of disbelief and anger;
“Well… where’s Rhiannon now?”

Jack had pursed his lips and looked away.

“She… um. She left.
She left after the hospital called.
Pretty angry she was; when I didn’t run off with her…”

When he finished speaking, I did nothing.
I said nothing.
I didn’t move.
I simply stared at the ceiling and thought how horrible my life was.
How good it would be if I wasn’t here.
How much of a burden I wouldn’t be if I simply…
Disappeared;
Vanished;
Died.

My self-esteem had hit rock-bottom.
And as Jack left, I sunk even further down.

I was nothing.
I never was anything.
Just a fragment of people’s imagination.
And nothing ever happened.
It was all just somebody’s dream.

And as the days passed, nobody visited me except for Jack, who would apologise over and over again.

I wouldn’t respond;
I wouldn’t eat;
I wouldn’t move.

I would lie there and think about things.

Like if Arden was dead, yet, and
Where the hell Chas got to, and –

Zaccheus.

Once I took a pen from the table next to me and scribbled
Where’s Zaccheus?
All over my arms.

Then the nurses made me take a shower and I had to scrub all the pen ink off.

Then one night, as I was planning how to kill myself in the least painful way possible, someone stumbled into my ward, connected to a small, portable machine similar to mine.

I watched his silhouette as he tiptoed over to the bed opposite mine and peered into the sleeping person’s face.

His machine rattled noisily as he moved to the next bed and did the same thing.

As he moved to my side of the room, he tripped and cursed reasonably loud.

For a moment, my eyes widened with shock.
Not from the cuss that echoed about the small hospital ward, but from the voice.
His voice.

The drab thoughts that filled my mind were deleted in a matter of seconds.
As he began to move towards me, I swept my hair out of my eyes and attempted to upright myself.

“Zaccheus?”
I whispered, my voice hoarse from not speaking for days.

“Christopher; is that you?”
He came to a stop next to my bed and squinted into my face.
His light breathing tickled my nose;
I nodded.

“I’ve been looking for you all night…”
He stepped back awkwardly and looked at his machine,
“This is the 5th ward I’ve been into tonight.”

Zaccheus rubbed his nose and looked at his feet;
“So, what have you been doing?”

I bit my lip and looked at him thorough the darkness.
“Um… Nothing.”