Hospital

This woman in the stiff white coat, who dislikes me so much—and the feeling is mutual, by the way—is right. To this man, currently confined to a hospital bed, he's a nobody. Technically. The other aspects of our relationship are also essentially unclear.

And yet I can't get up from the three-legged stool upholstered in blue fabric, I can't sling my purse over my shoulder, straighten the wrinkles in my skirt, take one last look at him, and walk away. And pretend nothing happened, even if it would be best for both of us.

Will the blood stains ever disappear from his hair? Will he be able to see? The bluish streaks across his face look so serious... Surprisingly, no major head injuries. One arm in a cast, the other dislocated, ribs "counted"... He'll get through this, but after a while, he'll forget it ever happened. Unless he's a fool and doesn't erase these memories from his mind, instead he'll dream about it at night, lying to himself and others that everything is fine.

And me? I managed to distract the nurse, Mrs. Aneta Z., like a "bitch," and enter the room again. Staring at his face hurts my eyes. I also have some strange spots floating around; I think they're called scotomata. "I wonder if Mrs. Aneta knows the correct term?" I wonder, but I'd rather not risk asking. It's a few minutes after 6 p.m., and I'm terribly sleepy. For the past dozen or so days, I've been resting an average of four hours a day. I'd love to lie down next to him, try not to touch him (even though I really, really want to), and fall asleep. But I can't, just as I can't let anyone take me out of this room, out of this hospital. Because I KNOW that if I so much as let him out of my sight, something bad will happen to him again. They all don't understand the responsibility of having the fate of another person in their hands.

He sleeps. He simply sleeps, and in the meantime I die and am reborn.

The worst part is the juxtaposition of the sight of the injuries with the imagery of their creation. Thoughts flash through my mind like lightning, combining into images and scenes. The sound of the blow, the sight of the blow, the feeling of the blow, and the fall. Over and over again, until someone reaches satisfaction, who in that moment is God to the man lying there. I don't know if I will ever rid myself of these visions. And he? I'm dying.

He's breathing steadily. It's getting better by the minute, the young body regenerating its strength. "He'll get through this," the doctor said firmly. Oh, how quickly the Creator's persona has changed. In that moment, he took on the form of a kind-hearted man in his fifties. His words are sacred; I drink them in, thirsting for good news. I am reborn.

"You're here again?" Nurse Aneta says reluctantly, her face twisted into a grimace of dissatisfaction. "And who will get in trouble because of this? Me!" he says as if to a small, unintelligent child.

I don't want to argue with her. After a few previous times, I've realized that's all she wants. She'll throw me out anyway. Without a word, I get up from the stool, ostentatiously leave my purse as a sign that I'll be back, and leave.

There are no chairs near the entrance to the ward. They're about six shuffling legs away. I won't sit by a door with a different number, and I don't have the strength to move four seats that are firmly connected together. It's too bad. I sit on the floor and tightly tuck my legs under me, lest one of them disobey and trip the nurse when she comes out.

Maybe I'm being unfair to her? She's just doing her job. To her, I'm no one special; she's seen so many people sitting next to each other that she's learned not only to show, but also to feel, indifference. She's as official as her stiffly starched apron.

Agata will be here in a moment, supposedly to keep me company, but in reality she'll be trying in a subtle way to convince me to go home, get some sleep, and come back in a few hours. Nothing.

On the floor of the not-so-clean, yet seemingly sterile, hospital corridor, I sit—a lost girl in my younger sister's sneakers, slightly too small for my feet, put on without asking. I was in a hurry, as if I'd already sensed something. A caricature of a woman frantically asking herself: "What next?"