I was in the hospital hallway. Alone. Again. Sobbing.
A figure cloaked entirely in green emerged from one of the adjacent rooms. Several identical others came out of the same room, scuttling quickly after the first. They were making a beeline for me, and I was not happy about it. Something was about to go down. My panic mounted.
The first green figure approached my gurney.
“Ms. —-? Is that your name?”
I was too scared to speak.
“Ms. —-, I need you to confirm that that is your name.”
“…..Yeth.” Forming words with my mouth felt like I was chewing glass.
“We need to take you into surgery now. Please listen, I need you to understand…”
I stopped listening. I couldn’t listen. I didn’t want any of this, any of what was happening. But it was going to happen. It had to happen, I knew that. And for the life of me I did not know how to accept this, how to reconcile this, how to escape the inescapable.
I forced myself to chew glass again, and I wailed at him. “HUP….HUP ME…”
Why are you so cold?? Why are you not comforting me??
I reached for his gloved hands. He pulled them away before I could make contact.
I will never forget that moment. In my poor, broken mind, he had recoiled in disgust. I felt abandoned, and repulsive. Of course he would not touch me. I was loathsome. The very act of reaching out like a cowardly child was pathetic. How could he even look at me, let alone operate on me?
“Did you hear me, Ms. —-? Do you understand?”
No. I did not hear you. I do not understand. The cacophony of terrified, lonely voices in my head has drowned you out.
“Yeth.”
He looked up at the clones, silently but firmly nodded his head, and that’s the last I remember of the gurney and the hallway and the cold green men.