Short Story: Delirium

His feet shuffle forward, struggling to move across our blinding white bodies. We who have been exposed to so many emotions: rage, honesty, loss. We have sensed all his desperation. We can feel his constant desire to remove himself. 

We are soiled. Soiled with water, urine, dangerous liquids.

Wet slops lick us clean eradicating all parasites till we are pure. They believe we are pure enough to hold his body, believing we offer a hollow sense of safety. Is he genuinely safe as we keep him? Our bright shine, our clean surface is essential for his well-being. He is drenched and uncomfortable. As helpless as us – unable to wash away his own stains. We are both tainted and corrupted. Trapped in this feeble position, we are corrupt.

Corrupted with water, urine, dangerous liquids.

He can only wait till he weens of the liquids till these liquids become dominated and controlled by him. Can he be patient enough? Slowly he works to regain his strength. We know soon he does not need our security. We know someday we will not share a mutual passivity. He loses his vulnerability.

Another drop befalls us. 

…

We can see the wires encasing her arms. 

We cannot see her condition, but we can tell how her health is. Gliding around her organs as they squeeze potions into her. The wires are pumping her full of a weakened strength. They separate her mind from the rest of her limbs as her thoughts become a percussion of noise. Her movements and her ideas are no longer in harmony. She feels disconnected from the outside world like a hurricane that rages within her veins. A clash of blood, wills and potions. Her body becomes No Man’s Land. 

Bip, bip, beep.

We can tell. She is in a state so far away from who she is or who she appears to be. She isn’t sure anymore — a different version of herself — a version where her body fails. Surrounded by us, she cannot escape us. We cannot escape her. We continue to witness her bodies decline. We can barely see, but she sluggishly holds onto anything: the walls, the bed, her mother’s arm, in a futile attempt to lift her body, to regain her autonomy. An autonomy which ensures she must rely on others for aid. We can never obtain this autonomy. It eludes us, yet, everyone else relies on us to be stable and upright. Without us, they will fall. She should accept her dependency; it’s easier.

Bip, bip, beep.

Robes of white and blue automatically lay her onto a cot. She disappears. We hear shuffles, but we cannot see. We are not privy to every detail despite our constant presence. Along with her, the wires disappear from our vision, but we hear it.

Bip, bip, beep. 

Still lost amid a field of colourless ropes, she is partially aware of their hold. The instrument breathes life into her unfamiliar frame. We can sense as it pumps her heart, giving her sustenance when she cannot obtain it or ask for it herself. Do the ropes connect directly to her heart? Are the potions filtered in through her arms, or are they reaching her heart through her muzzle? The sounds and our previous recollections only deduce her situation. 

Bip, bip, beep.

…

Each crevice exposed to us. We are a part of each corner, of each room, of each floor. Omniscient in our knowledge and forever omnipresent. Each device, foot and wheel attached to us as they slip across and glide from place to place. We are the ultimate form of transportation. Despite our excessive presence and knowledge, we are cold. Cold to the touch and nothing you will ever seek comfort from. 

We trap you.

We ensure you’re stuck in a cycle of disinfectant. Escaping us is easy. Walking away intact, however, is not. Escape us through death or failed procedures. Blessed are those free from our stiff and aloof bodies. 

…

We see the movement of air, so hot it’s visible to the naked eye. The many sharpened

points emerging from a puff of smoke, are held between rubber gloves. They are used as instruments of medicine ready to fix and cut away the problems of yesterday. Their brother in arms come just as sharp as them with long wires attached like a tail.

Unclear liquids swift through their tail till they reach their sharpened head. Both brothers and their specific functions allude us as they disappear behind the table.

We cannot see behind the many blockages. We can see the calm shuffle of feet, how the owners of blue robes and masks squint their eyes in focus. Their voices are full of relaxed chatter, and slight murmurs as their levelled minds and hands work in unison. We see they work together for their patients just like we work together to hold these same patients up.

They aren’t fully aware of it, but the scrub owners need us to perform their many experiments and procedures, whether their hands fail them or not.

©  photo from Unsplash

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