Shades of Gray

“My eyes burn,” I groan, turning to my side. The mattress I’m lying on is extra firm, and I’m pretty sure it’s made out of 100% iron straw or something.

Jack stares at me, something he’s been doing for about an hour, though his hands have been writing out a handwritten report for a “Sociology course term paper,” and he’s been barely saying anything. Or maybe he has said things, but I don’t hear, anyhow.

The ER nurse smiles at me from her spot in front of the little hospital room computer. She’s been smiling at me a lot. Every time I say something, do something, anything, even turn from my side to my back, she smiles at me and types away.

She has also been doing this for an hour.

“Do you want to try sleeping now?” she asks, but I’m not sure if I’m remembering her asking me from earlier or if she’s actually asking again.

“I’m trying to set a record,” I comment idly in response, whether there’s anything to respond to or not.

My eyes focus in on the ticking clock before me. Jack changed it, with the doctor’s permission, the first time I complained about it, syncing it with my watch, but I’m highly suspicious it’s a few seconds off.

Either way, it’s somewhere around 2:36 PM.

“I have class at like, six or something,” I tell Jack.

He seems to huff. Very loudly. That, I can definitely hear.

“Take a nap, and at five forty five I’ll drop you off by Hansen’s Hall,” Jack tries to bargain.

“No,” I refuse.

“You said he passed out, yeah?” Nurse Lucy or Lainey or something like that inquires to Jack, who answers with “twenty whole minutes.”

She looks at me. I can hear the thought in her head almost. Or maybe I can hear it because she’s, you know, speaking, but whatever.

“Guess you didn’t break your record,” she says, and she’s trying to bargain with me too. “Passing out, being unconscious, that counts as sleeping, kind of. So maybe you should start a new record- how long can you stay asleep?”

“My record for longest time sleeping is seventeen hours, six minutes, thanks,” I shoot in response. “That was not a fun wake up.”

“How so?” Jack says, and he’s putting his paper away, staring at me intently. Or more intently than the last seventy nine fucking minutes.

“Not important,” I say, closing my eyes. I keep them closed and count to three hundred and six, until I hear Jack and the nurse sigh.

“Got ya,” I say coyly. “Not asleep.”

“I swear to fuck,” Jack says loud enough that a couple of nurses chatting outside the room by the reception desk or whatever stop talking and peer inside. “Put this asshole on sedatives already. Depressants.”

“We can’t,” the nurse says exasperatedly, staring at me like I’m insane. “We have to have his legal consent or the legal consent of a guardian, since he isn’t twenty one, unless he’s mentally unstable, and in this case, he isn’t. Not yet, anyways.”

Jack huffs again.

No one says anything for nearly three whole minutes, no moving, no breathing, no sighing, and for a moment, I kind of think time has stopped, but the sound of the clock ticking assures me it has not.

This really loud laugh echoes into the room as this tall, balding gray haired dude in a lab coat, obviously the doctor meant to come in nearly two hours ago or whatever, walks in, half turned around because he's talking to a nurse, who I'm pretty sure is flirting with him.

"Mr. Gaskarth," he states, when the nurse walks away, grin sliding. He switches from something obviously personal to professional. I note the ring on his finger and internally scoff. Typical southern white guy. Cheating on his wife.

"How are you feeling?"

I stare at him.

"You know," he tries. "My daughter used to stay up for up to 48 hours on end in rebellion to several things. Is there anything you'd like to share?"

"I think I overdosed on caffeine," I shrug, "but I feel much better now. Threw up a couple times, had an IV, I'm just waiting for your OK to get me out of here."

"I'd like to try and give you some kind of diagnosis, kid," he says sarcastically kindly. "Sleep makes you a better person."

"Okay," I say loudly. "Does everyone want me to sleep? I'll sleep. But I better not fucking wake up."

"Alexander," he enunciates slowly. "Do you have any suicidal thoughts? Sad feelings? Thoughts of hopelessness?"

I laugh, then cough abruptly, shifting up my arm to cover my mouth, but the IV digs more into my veins, and I set it back down in pain.

"Look, sir, I have a lecture in less than three hours that I'd like to study for. Can't you just prescribe me some pills or something so I can get out of here?"

He gives this kind of weird chuckle, and the nurse clicks a few times on the computer before printing something out and handing it to him.

"I can't give you pills to treat your insomnia until we know why you have insomnia. Is this a medical problem, or a psychiatric problem? Perhaps you would feel more comfortable speaking to me without your, er, partner in the room?"

Jack snorts. He does it the way you'd imagine a character in a book to do. I find it sort of endearing.

"This isn't a problem, period," I say. "I really don't care about my sleeping schedule. And for God's sake, fix your watch."

He looks down at it, tapping the glass for a second. Jack, though thoroughly frustrated with me, gives me a wry grin.

"Alexander," the doctor says again. I squint to read his nametag, gold DR. HAYDECKER shining over.

I hum in acknowledgement.

"It's really important that we get to the bottom of you not sleeping. Very serious problems can occur from sleep deprivation. You could develop serious breathing problems, cardiac arrests, permanent schizophrenia, and extreme muscle fatigue. Sleep is a form of recharge- you're running a marathon without any water."

"I'd save it," Jack says.

"I'm hoping we can arrange some form of communication, Alexander. Perhaps I recommend you to a psychiatrist?"

"Oh gosh," I hum dramatically. I clear my throat, blink, notice my eyelids actually hurt passing over my eyeballs. It burns like the way your piss burns after standing outside in the cold for three hours.

"With all due respect," I say, noticing the uneven tone of my voice. "I'd like to leave."

He looks at me for a second, giving me a look I mentally dub The Decker.

I start to babble about some NC-17 movie my older brother let me watch with him in the fifth grade. Dr. Haydecker looks insanely disgusted, and from the corner of my eye, Lucy or whatever is crossing her legs while standing up, awkwardly pressing herself against the wall. I'm certain she's lesbian.

Jack looks amused, blue cap in his mouth, pen touching his skin as he draws something on his arm.

The doctor presses his hand to my forehead, and I watch as he stares at me for a moment, trying to ignore the black shadow previously hanging around by the TV that now passes right through him and rests next to the bed, as if it were a person staring at their dead loved one- I absolutely ignore it, pushing back the random thought that it might possibly be a demon coming to painfully torture me to death. Because as silly as it sounds, it scares the crap out of me.

My mind eventually wanders, noting the 2:57 pm on the clock, paying attention to this weird outside thermometer that passes over my forehead.

The attention to my head makes me notice once again the pounding headache I have.

"How long has this been going on?" asks Dr. Haydecker.

Nurse Lucy hands him another piece of paper, almost giving him a look that says don't let this dick talk any more. He nods at her, eyes scanning over the text.

"I'm going to prescribe you something to relax your muscles," he says. "Make you feel nice and not so tense. Not sleeping pills, mind you."

He writes something on a slip of paper, handing it to me. "And remember, Alexander. You can't overdose on these."

I take the paper, note my shaky hands.

Fucking sedatives.