V
Henry lay in the hospital bed,
staring up at the ceiling, trying to reassure himself that he was alright.
I’m safe in hospital, he
told himself, where the nurses will attend to me and they’ll help me get
better. Anything else is just a
delusion brought about by illness. It
must be. It’s the only thing that makes sense. His mind recycled the thought several times, just to make sure he
really believed it. It became like a
mantra to him.
I’m safe in hospital,
his mind repeated, I’m safe in hospital, I’m safe in hospital, I’m safe…
There was a groan which seemed
to run through the structure of the building, echoing slightly along the empty
corridors, rolling through the vacant space towards the door to Henry’s room,
left slightly ajar. The old man
clenched his fists around the bed clothes, wrapping them around and around.
I’m safe, I’m safe, I’m safe.
The groan came again, louder
this time and it seemed that the lights flickered for a moment. Absurdly Henry found himself thinking of
films he had seen in which people were trapped aboard sinking ships. The hospital felt the same way.
But that’s nonsense because
I’m safe in hospital…
When the groan came for the
third time it felt like the entire building was shaking. Henry could feel the tremors rocking his
bed, could see plaster dust falling from the ceiling until the lights flickered
and then went out, one by one. He held
on to the thin foam mattress like it was a lifebelt, then, as the shaking
subsided, lay in the dark, unwilling to even think for fear of the noise in his
head.
He breathed a sigh of relief a
few moments later as the light came back on, but when the television switched
on at the same time and the shadows he had seen before began to crawl up the
walls he realised that he had had enough.
He didn’t care whether he was
really safe in hospital. He didn’t care that it was almost certainly
all a hallucination. He didn’t care
that it would probably be some terrible breach of hospital protocol to just get
up and leave.
He untangled himself from his
sheets, grabbed his trousers which were folded neatly on a chair beside the bed
and then, after pulling them on and tucking in his hospital nightgown, he
darted warily out into the corridor and made for the stairwell.
He needed to be with people he
knew, he had realised, even if that meant the three strangers downstairs.
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