DARK COMEDY

Don’t We All Need a Bit of Chlorine in Our Lives?

You never know which room or box is your best bet

Exhausted doctor, image generated by Gemini

After spending hours in a hallway beside a bearded man who wouldn’t stop vomiting, Robert Davis was fortunate enough to receive a bed in the overcrowded hospital. Maybe not your typical inpatient room, or one of the more respectable overflow accommodations, but a room nonetheless, complete with a door and a makeshift table bed where Robert could finally rest his torn muscles and not look at vomit.

Oh, never mind the double-folded blanket instead of a mattress, or the agony of a ruptured right bicep and a dislocated left shoulder with torn ligaments, there was no TV, phone, radio, or even a window. It smelled of evaporating chlorine, but good thing Robert secured the privacy he’d been denied all day, a rare luxury bundled so generously with sensory deprivation.

The janitor flicked the light switch off from around the corner, unaware there was still a living body stored behind the chemicals. A little later, a nurse noticed the dark room and assumed Mr. Davis had already been discharged. For the first time in his otherwise sociable life, Robert began to suspect he had been downgraded from patient to inventory.

An entire day passed, then another, then another, all of them equally dark. Robert peed and pooped in the bed, but found he minded it less than the company of his own thoughts.

A constant murmur of brain goblins reciting everything he already knew about work, hospitals, and solitude, then looping back to the fact he was still in a storage room full of cleaning supplies, buckets, mops, and too many boxes of different sizes. His attention snagged on the biggest box to his left. The label read, “DISCARDS IGNORE.”

He stared at the box, curious about what was inside, but couldn’t stretch his arms. Then his own mind began to resemble the box, thoughts bouncing like a charged pinball inside a mislabeled container stuffed with suggestions he had to pay attention to until it occurred to him that he didn’t.

The goblins scurried all at once, just like that, poof. For a timeless moment, in that tranquil emptiness, elated, a strange peace, beauty, and happiness took over Robert’s bowel and he let out a wet one, watching it drip without a care in the world. In fact he laughed for the first time and said, “Yes, mother, oh yeah.”

By the time the fluorescent was turned on and startled faces appeared around the corner, Robert was no longer afraid of the dark, because the boring inner workings of his own mind conceded to chlorine’s dominion over empty space.

Emptied of thought, his interiority had become strangely accepting of life’s sticky circumstances. He smiled widely and asked the panicked nurses if they had tried the mango flavor on the first floor.

The only problem was that they couldn’t shut their mouths, endless platitudes pouring out like diarrhea, so constant he almost demanded to be left alone again. The light was too bright.

The head doctor joined in too, unable to refrain from a long chain of apologies, and then two more nurses added to the claustrophobia, pulling sheets, yanking socks, examining his body, and wheeling in a cart of supplies, as if one person couldn’t do that.

Items dropped in haste, nervous body language, feces smeared, then wiped again, then smeared a bit more. So much had changed in four days of freedom. To Robert it all felt like a few quality hours before humans appeared out of nowhere. Couldn’t they just leave him in peace?

Questions about pain and concern were excessive. He was cleaned, not in pain the way he had been in the hallway, only annoyed by the intervention, mostly angry at the white fucking light stabbing his eyes.

He threw a dozen pills against the wall as soon as they were handed to him and told the doctor he had a wonderful dream about an open meadow with a large canvas for painting. The doctor was dumbfounded but listened politely after everything that had happened.

“Doc, tell me, what do you know about everything that is slow?”

“Um, I am so sorry, Mr. Davis, there was an error — ”

“I’m not talking about myself. You people seem paranoid, but have you ever experienced slow nothingness?”

“I haven’t had time off this year, the hospital is understaffed.”

“I take that as a no. Perhaps never. I invite you to turn off the lights and enjoy the quietude.”

Robert took a breath and added, “Ahhh… the smell of peace.”

The doctor froze as Robert broke into a booming unnerving laughter and mentioned something about not needing to call his lawyer.

“No, doc, don’t worry. I won’t key your car or post anything online. I really did enjoy the quiet time alone, that’s all. No sarcasm, I swear!”

The nurses stepped out. The doctor pulled a box closer.

“Mr. Davis, there’s been a grave misunderstanding — ”

Robert took his shaking hand. “Please relax, professional. You have no idea how much I appreciate being admitted to one of the best rooms. Do you remember me from four days ago? I almost put that bearded schmuck into his own vomit puddle, if my power jacks worked properly.”

The doctor stared as Robert continued, calm and precise.

“Don’t assume I need TV or anything, pfff, I don’t need monitoring either, you guys are working too hard. Just shut the lights and lock that door. In a few days I’ll check myself out, no resources wasted, my good doc.”

“Mr. Davis, compensation would be formalized in — ”

“Doc, you need rest more than I need arms, eh.”

The doctor said nothing and left.

The next day Robert was moved to a “special room,” and two weeks later admitted to institutional care better suited for his new diagnosis.

A contribution to my Ko-Fi account would help Robert restrain his goblins.