1. Imagine That

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Suppose that itty bitty part of your brain that harnesses the powers of imagination was damaged.

Imagine that:

I had told Darius to wake me before dawn; I had to get to the hospital.

I opened my eyes and stared fixedly at the blurry ceiling, it seemed as though the fan was stationary and the ceiling was spinning...

Slowly...

Hypnotically...

"Lacey?"

I looked to my right, "...hm...?" I responded dully.

"How are you feeling, Lacey?"

Dr Laurent was standing in the doorway to a hospital room asking me if I'm okay. Something isn't right. I am supposed to be on the other side asking that question to patients.

I tried sitting up but my body felt heavy as led squashed under led that was squashed under a million buffalos. So instead, I did the bright thing, I blinked my utterly helpless response.

"Don't worry Lace; we'll get your head all fixed up, honey." I looked to my left, sitting in a seat was Darius, and I frowned disapprovingly at him.

My head required nothing fixed, what does he think he's playing at? If anyone needed head-fixing it was him, he was the one with the donkey head and the strange Elizabethan costume.

"Lacey?" I looked back to my right.

Nikki Minaj?

'Why yes, Mary, I'm here to take you far, far away!!'

"Lacey!"

I shook my head and looked around the room.

"Hon'? Are you okay? You've just been staring at the ceiling for the past," Darius paused, glanced at his watch and said "Eleven minutes! If you haven't recovered completely, you can stay home..."

I sighed, no donkey heads, thank god! "I'm alright."

"Are you sure? After that mugging yesterday you took a bad hit to your head."

"My head is fine!" I said agitatedly. That's all he's been going on for the past day!

"Alright, alright, calm down, you've gotten rather short tempered ever since the mugging."

I threw a glare at him and the cook standing behind him flapped her enormous elephant ears at me, my eyes widened, no way...

"Lace?"

"Yeah?" I said, rather distracted by the cook who suddenly had small ears that fit her head quite well. That's strange.

Darius turned and looked at the cook and back at me. "Don't tell me you swing that way now..." I frowned at him disapprovingly, he cleared his throat. "Alright, you go wash up I'll get your stuff together."

I got up and stumbled to the bathroom.

On the way, I spotted a rabbit in a waistcoat worrying over a pocket watch. Beside him, idled my green colour sock playing poker with the three little pigs from the children's storybook and the wolf.

Darius snapped his fingers in front of me, giving me a worried look. "Lace, sweetie." he walked over to me and took my hands in his "Are you really okay?"

I blinked back at him, worried myself. "I don't know..."

His nose quite suddenly turned round and red, antlers popped out of his head. He leaned over and started sniffing me. Santa Claus dressed in a pair of jeans and a pink halter top muttered something about soap.

"I'm taking you to the hospital," red nosed Rudolph said, "We'll get your head checked."

Anger boiled in my stomach. "My soap is fine, Rudolph!" I yelled, thrashing quite violently.

Santa with elephant ears said something about varnish. Rudolph yelled at him to shut up. Then Rudolph with the donkey head and antlers and the Elizabethan dress picked me up and trudged across the room with the stationary fan and spinning ceiling through Dr Laurent out to the hot dog on large buttons and somehow drove me to the giant pack of ice cream with a red cross on it.

Imagine that.

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