NUMBERS

     Two drops of blood painted the staunch white floor of the hospital lobby. A wide-open space with marble stone accenting the walls and garnishing the countertop. A handful of people seated in the lobby looked on towards Mirai and Laia in a daunting silence. Mirai dragged her eyes across the lobby. The lack of immediacy within the building felt unfitted, and unusual. Another stark reminder that she was not on active duty, yet something about the place felt uncomfortably familiar.

Patter

Patter

Laia looked at the dripping blood and nudged Mirai forward towards the counter when a nurse intercepted them from the side. “What happened to you?!” the nurse cried out as she lifted Mirai’s hand; now painted in blood.

“She umm…” Laia fumbled with her words before being interrupted by Mirai. “It’s just a cut… she urged me to come here,” while glimpsing at Laia from the sides of her eyes.

     The nurse rolled up Mirai’s shirt as she began asking for her citizen ID, but swiftly pulled it back down as unpleasant groans from those in the lobby could be heard rumbling around them. She began glancing around with her hands firmly holding Mirai’s shirt over the wound. Two more nurses then approached and began escorting Mirai towards the ER wing.

     Laia attempted to follow suit, but, to her dismay, was stopped short as one of the nurses asked her to take a seat while they prepared the forms for her to fill out.

     Disappointed, Laia sulked in her chair like a spoiled child. Glaring off she met eye to eye with an old man beside her giving her a drawn-on grin.

“Y’know, I could be at home watching TV if I’d ignored that damn phone call,” she whined.

     The old man, possibly in his mid-70’s with a pleasant looking round face and thinning snow-white hair, dressed in a warm red sweater with denim jeans stared on with the same drawn-on grin. Not saying a word in response.

Laia then returned one of her own before sitting straight up and staring lifelessly at the ceiling above.

     At some point Laia looked at her phone screen, noticing 30 minutes had already passed by and the old man that was once beside her was now gone. Feeling a sudden wave of detachment from the environment, she sat up and peered around for one of the nurses. She approached the front desk but just then the staff disappeared through a door behind the counter.

“Imagine I was dying right now…” Laia quipped to herself.

     Peering down the hallway to the righthand side of the front desk, she found the wing to be uncomfortably quiet. With a final glance over her shoulders, she stepped through the wavering doors and descended into the lengthy hallway.

     Passing by a door left slightly ajar, Laia caught the sound of a faint grunt. As she peeked into the window, she noticed the same old man from earlier lying on the bed hooked to an odd apparatus. Just as she turned to step away, the man began chanting, “nineteen thousand nine hundred sixty-nine. Sixty-three thousand four hundred ninety-four.”

     Huh? She thought to herself as she backtracked and peeked into the room once again. The old man continued reciting random numbers and letters as he looked out the window beside his bed. Laia, taking a closer look around the room noticed something unusual which urged her to slide the door open and step inside.

The old man looked over at her with a grin on his face, but this time Laia didn’t return one of her own.

     Slowly stepping towards his bedside, Laia asked the man what he was being treated for.

“Sometimes, I seem to get a bit confused,” the old man whispered, “I feel like my body isn’t quite my own body. When that happens, the doctor here helps fix that problem for me.”

“With this thing?” Laia responded as she pointed to the machine at his bedside. It was an unfamiliar computer like device that had various code drawn across its monitor. Laia was unfamiliar with medical equipment, but the more she looked at it, the more out of place it appeared.

     “I never really concerned myself with the how,” the man followed. “But then again, what would a confused person like me know anyways…”

     Unable to find the words to reply, Laia began taking a closer look at the screen hoping to pick apart what it was processing.

Clatter Clatter

“Mam, you can’t be in here,” a nurse cried out from behind.

     A bit startled, Laia apologized, made up an excuse about looking for the restroom, and began to make her way out towards the exit. But as she passed through the doorway, she could hear the old man once again begin chanting random numbers and letters. Leaving her with an uncomfortable sensation in her chest.