How To Not Die

seventy-two

Sometimes, when I open my eyes, I pretend like my head is a world so that little people fall into the cracks of my eyelids, into my eyes, and into oblivion. How dumb is that, right? Oh well. It's not like I don't have a plethora of thinking time in this damned hospital.

I look around, hoping Mom doesn't come back in pretending to be worried. She had the first twenty four hours to do that. Those are over now. I hope I don't have to see anyone's damn face until the end of these seventy-two.

I glance around the room, searching for a clock of some sort, and eventually read the damned machine I'm hooked up to. 8:47. Damn it. I ripped the stupid tubes out of my arms and it kind of hurt. They were fucking needles. God damn it. They got me while I was out. Well, I might as well make an attempt to enjoy these last twenty-six hours.

There's the joke of the year.

Maybe I could jump out of this damned hospital. I don't have a window room, which only makes me feel like worse shit. I can't even stare into the fucking sun. What the hell? If I'm going to be stuck in this shitty room, I might as well able to blind myself.

I'm almost out of bed when I hear the door turning. With lightning speed I lay myself back in bed and re-tape the thing onto my arm, hoping the doctor won't be able to tell that the tubes aren't in my arm.

I see the doctor stick her head inside the door, but nothing else, which probably means she has a visitor for me. Damn. She's not fooling me. "Hello, Miss Guill. How are you feeling?"

I don't know what kind of bullshit question this is, so I take on a sarcastic smile and proceed to answer. "Oh, absolutely fantastic." I see the nurse actually believe it and she begins to step in. "Oh yeah, life is pretty fucking sweet. That must be why I offed myself, right? That's how people fucking respond to being 'absolutely fantastic', right?" I had started yelling pretty loudly by now, but it's not like anyone is going to hear me and, even if they did, who cares? This is a God-forsaken hospital.

The nurse's smile faded and I replaced the displeasure that had begun to set foot across my own with yet another sarcastic smile. "Did you honestly think you'd get someone from the suicide sector to say, 'Oh yeah, Doc, life's really fucking swell.' I just killed myself. I didn't want to be waking up anymore, but here I am, still breathing with these shitty lungs, still trapped inside this miserable flesh. Are you familiar with Joseph Stalin?"

The nurse shook her head. Of course not. "Joseph Stalin was the leader of the Bolsheviks after Vladimir Lenin passed away. He was an asshole, but he was an honest asshole. He said, 'One death is a tragedy----one million deaths is a statistic'. You assholes are the ones who stopped me from becoming the statistic."

"Shouldn't you be happy about that?" Of course this nurse understands nothing.

"No! Because everyone is already a tragedy to those who pretend to care. Becoming a statistic is the only way to fully enter oblivion, and you prevented me from doing that. Don't you dare pull the 'I'm glad you're alive' or the 'I care about you' bullshit, because that's all it is: bullshit. What the fuck do you even want? Why are you here?"

"There's someone here to see you. The doctor said that I have to let them in, even though you won't like it. So, I guess, here he is." The nurse shoved the kid through the door.

"I swear to God ALL YOU DOCTORS ARE FUCKING SADISTS!" I immediately take off my tubes and tape and throw them at the wall. "And what the hell do you want?" I turn to the kid, who I immediately recognized. "Charlie? What the hell are you doing here?"