Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 62430 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 312(@200wpm)___ 250(@250wpm)___ 208(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 62430 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 312(@200wpm)___ 250(@250wpm)___ 208(@300wpm)
I continued until my time was up, until I really should leave and finish my rounds. There was something about him, though, something mysterious and energizing. What had he done to maintain his figure? How had he decided to turn himself in? He was too far into the detoxification process to answer me with words. Instead, he just watched me, his eyes thirsty for human interaction. For the rest of the day, as I worked, I felt haunted by his soulful eyes.
5
PORTER
Everything hurt. Everything hurt, and there was a crashing sound in my ears that wouldn’t go away. The crash and the pain and an ache in my soul completed the devilish trio, torturing me as I was sure no creature had ever been tortured before. I rolled to one side, then the other, desperate to get comfortable. The tiny cot seemed like my deathbed, like it was pulling me down, unwilling to let go.
I got up and paced when I was able, in the early morning hours before the flu-like detox circled back to bite me again. I memorized every inch of the cell they had me in. White walls and grey floors left no doubt as to what the room was for. There were no pictures on the walls, no color on any surface. There was a toilet in the corner with a curtain for privacy. Even the curtain was white. I thought they could have added pink or green, something to cheer up the inhabitants of this bleak place.
I threw up into that toilet, feeling my stomach rip through delirious convulsions. I knew I had signed up for this. It had been my own two feet that had walked in the door, my own hand that had shakily signed the intake forms. Those pieces of me were traitors, I decided. A quick death from overdose couldn’t possibly be this bad. The only bright spot in my life was the nurse who visited me three times each day.
The first time I saw her, life had been a nightmare. I had only a spotty recollection of her sitting down beside me. It looked as if she had wanted to reach out but had stopped herself. I wondered what her touch would have been like. Her delicate fingers might have swept over my own and taken the sickness away.
I thought she had said something about a landline, but that couldn’t have been right. And a cat called Evil. Even in the depths of my madness, it had struck me as odd. That very mystery had been enough to keep me going after she left.
There were orderlies who came in to deliver my food. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, and one snack were all presented on the same mint-green plastic trays. They were all prepackaged foods, sandwiches on white bread, potato chips, and apple slices. It was as if an industrial mother had decided to feed hundreds of children but didn’t have an actual kitchen. Or more likely, I thought as I sobered up, they had outsourced the food to a company offsite.
If they gave me a utensil, it was always a plastic spork, never a fork and never a knife. The orderlies returned after exactly thirty minutes to collect the trays and whatever I had left uneaten. They were super serious about keeping me hydrated. If I didn’t finish my bottled water, the orderlies, usually strong young men, would stand and wait for me to drink it. I was also hooked up to an IV flushing the toxins out of my body.
I wondered if patients ever gave them trouble. I could just imagine some strung-out junkie getting strapped down to one of these cots. I didn’t want to press my luck. Still, I spent a good deal of time considering whether I could take on one or all of the orderlies. I didn’t consider myself strong, but the job at the lumberyard was no joke. I spent all day hauling logs in the sun; it didn’t make me a lumberjack, but I knew I had a good thirty pounds on most of the patients who were admitted.
I didn’t know any of their names, and I was too far gone to remember them even if I knew. The one with the bald head was particularly beefy. I figured he could take me down without much of a fight. But the one with the tattoo peeking out from beneath his scrubs was just about my size. If I had to make a run for it, I thought I had a good chance of defeating him.
But who knew what lay outside my door? I had a vague recollection of walking into this trap. This room was at the beginning of the dormitory hall. Dormitory was a poor word for it; it was more like solitary confinement. My room was just past the nurses’ station, at the beginning of a long hallway of cells.