Lola Wade

Chapter 2

When I woke I was in a different room. I was surrounded by walls instead of flimsy sheets printed with childish patterns and faded in colour. I think I preferred the sheets, as the walls in the hospital room were Chinese white and made me feel separated from the reel world. Everything was too quiet, too still. I had come from school so my Cath Kidston satchel was hung on the end of the bed containing all of my school books . On the small cabinet beside me was my blue inhaler. I picked it up and held it in my hand only to realise that it wasn’t my inhaler after all. On the bottom it had a sticker reading “Property of Mandeville hospital”. Shame, I lost mine ages ago.

Suddenly I was outside the room and walking up the corridor. I don’t remember leaving the room, only appearing outside. On the wall was the fish display but it didn’t look quite so poor this time. In fact, the fish were moving, swimming up and down the wall; their magnificent colours swirling and dancing through the rippling water. As I walked further up the corridor they followed me, gliding along the dull blue walls, brightening them.

The door at the end of the wall was moving further away from me every step I took towards it. I quickened my pace but it was no use. This incident seemed vaguely familiar, it reminded me of a book that I had read once. As I realised the links to Alice in wonderland, the hall became black and white checked and grew narrower and narrower. I broke into a run in a desperate attempt to reach the door. As I looked to my side, the fish were no longer there but instead were hundreds of jungle animals. I remembered the other display from before and tried to imagine their friendly faces. I couldn’t. All I could see in my head were the angry scowls of the stampeding herds racing beside me. Elephants trumpeted and the rhinos bowed their heads, charging horns first. Behind were antelopes and smaller four legged animals. Cheaters and leopards took the lead, alert and ready to hunt. Above me were hundreds of thousands of birds. Parrots in reds and greens, flying low below all of the other birds. There were toucans also, they were clumsy flyers (probably due to their oversized beaks).

As the corridor grew ever smaller, the animals appeared to get bigger. Some of the smaller animals began to break free from the wall and joined me in my sprint. I started to panic as the larger creatures also broke free from the wall display. I would be trampled and flattened. Brambles and jungle plants started to take up space in the now metre wide corridor. Vines blocked my path and I fought to get through them. It was no use, they were to thick. I tried to climb around them, but my leg got caught. Turning around I could see a whole stampede of aggressive animals heading straight towards me. Time slowed down as they approached me only metres away.

To my delight a door appeared out of nowhere right in front of me. I twisted the gold plated door knob and pulled open the door. And stepped through. I walked right into the charging animals.

***

I was back in my uncomfortable metal framed bed in the general ward. Two nurses sat beside me, one was dabbing my head with a damp flannel and the other was stroking my arm and repeatedly telling me that I was going to be alright. This confused me. Unlike my last encounter with a nurse, I wasn’t so angry this time so I let them be. I was too exhausted to say anything anyway.

As I lay there, I realised that I was shaking so I clenched my fists in an effort to stop. The nurse stroking my arm tried to smooth my hands out whilst continuing to tell me that everything would be fine. I didn’t understand.

Just as I was beginning to calm down. A doctor came into my small fabric surrounded room.

Everything came back to me and I started to panic again. The nurses went back to their roles again, dabbing my forehead and stroking my arm. This time I was too fired up to let them continue so I shook them off and climbed out of the bed. I took a few steps towards the edge of my room when in horror I realised that I was wearing a hospital gown. It was a thin white cotton with bears printed on the fabric. They were wearing small red bow ties and top hats. In my opinion they looked creepy.