• Hospital waiting rooms are limbo: you go there waiting for either good news or bad news, and ninety percent of the time the news is bad. But you don't know that. No, you keep on hoping for the best, even though you know full well that the chances of coming out with a clean bill of health are slim. See, the way to do it is to hope for the worst. That way, when the doctor comes through that door and tells you that your rash is poison ivy and not a severe case of herpes, you feel good about making the appointment.
    Then you look at the bill and wish you did have herpes, if for no other reason than to make the visit more worthwhile. See? Limbo. But this isn't about you. If you want a story about your visit to the hospital, you write it. This is about me.
    At least they painted the walls. That stark white was driving me crazy. I kept trying to find a spot in the paint job where the painter had ******** up so I could focus on something that wasn't the reason why I was there, but they had tried so hard to make the place look clean, tidy, and sterile that there wasn't a single splotch of paint to be found. Not that the current sea-foam is much better. The nurses just kind of blend into the walls. You don't see them coming until they call your name.
    The nurses... god, do I hate the nurses. They never pronounce my name right and they force small-talk while they lead me down the hall, which they have yet to paint. "How are you?" Gee. I'm just dandy, I want to say, dripping with sarcasm That's why people go to the hospital, isn't it? Because they feel awesome.
    "I'm good," I say, carefully avoiding the sarcasm. Short answers mean less questions. They can sense that you don't want to talk. They're like animals that way. We, my memory reminds me, are like animals that way.
    She takes me to the scale and weighs me. I've lost another three pounds. Most women would rejoice upon discovering such a thing, but I know that its just something else for the doctor to ask me about. Blood pressure: high. Heartbeat: normal. Temperature: 98.7
    And then I'm waiting again. This room still has the bright white that they got rid of in the waiting room. I find myself trying to find flaws in the paint, and once again I fail. Once again, a voice in my head repeats. You fail.
    The expanse of time that elapses within the walls of the increasingly small room is nearly impossible to capture in words, just in the same way that anything having to do with time is difficult to describe. How does one put into words such an abstract concept, especially when you're in a tiny room that's not stimulating in the slightest and you're waiting for news that you know for a fact is bad? The best I can do is say that time stretches itself, then condenses itself, stops entirely, only to do it all over again in one smooth movement.
    I don't own a watch.
    Finally, the doctor comes in, looking as if he just got out of his lunch break. I imagine him with a tuna salad sandwich in one hand and talking with his mouth full. Same questions: How are you? How was your weekend? What does my weekend have to do with anything? I spent most of my weekend waiting for something to happen, but I don't tell him that. Now he begins the real questions...
    "Have you been taking your medication?"
    The truth of it: no. When he'd given me one to make sure I took it, I hid it under my tongue and spat it out when I passed the nearest trash bin. The coating on the pill left a slimy and uncomfortable residue in my mouth. One pill makes you larger, Jefferson Airplane rings in my head.
    "Every twelve hours," I say, repeating what I remember from the label. He scribbles a note down on his clipboard.
    "And how is your memory been? Improving?"
    "Not improving," I say. "But not getting any worse," I add. He makes a non-comitting "mm-hm" sound, as if pretending to believe me.
    "Says here you've lost three pounds since our last visit. Have you been eating properly?" His voice is mechanical, like a robot. Like all doctor's voices are, I've noticed. They never let their personality show through when they talk, just a serious of practiced questions and a flowchart of answers to said questions: if the answer to Q1 equals A4, then response is R3, and so on until the interview is over.
    "Define 'eating properly,'" I respond nervously. He jots down a note on his little clipboard.
    "You should be eating at least two servings of vegetables a day. They could help you with your condition, if you should forget to take your medication." He is peering over the clipboard at me, behind thin-rimmed glasses. He knows. He has been writing too much for simple yes or no questions. In the minute-and-a-half that we've been talking, he has probably written an entire paragraph about me, my condition, and actions to take.
    "N-no. I haven't," I say. Lying won't get me anywhere now. The doctor sighs.
    "You haven't actually been taking your medication, have you?" I nod. One pill makes you small. "You know what we have to do now, don't you?" Again, I nod. He puts his clipboard on the counter between the jars of tongue depressors and cotton balls. He flips through a stack of papers until he finally finds the one he seeks, pulls it out of the pile and clips it to the board. He hands the clipboard to me, along with a pen. I hesitate. "Sign your name on the bottom line."
    I don't read the fine print. I don't even read the large print. Hell, I don't even read the title. I just sign my life away to put it in the hands of a man I barely know and don't even like. It looks like chicken scratch, but they won't care about that: what matters is that my name is scribbled down on that bottom line.
    I feel a pinprick in my shoulder and soon enough my sight goes dim. Not long and I lose it entirely. It doesn't matter. I'm no longer there. I'm no longer myself. I am no longer at all.
    I am gone. I don't even feel myself fall. The only thing that I am aware of is Jefferson Airplane ringing in what used to be my head: and the pills that mother gives you don't do anything at all.