The hospital never runs out of the sick, the dying and the formerly dead.
I have asked what Dunni means when she says ‘formerly dead' but she smiles and her face turns into a cypher, she closes her eyes and goes away to wherever it is she goes when the pain subsides and lets her through.
I m at the hospital now, my shoe is making clumpy sounds like stilettos on the linoleum floor. It is wet and shiny, and the sterile air smells like izal. Or is it detol. Dunni thinks its detol.
I walk past the children’s ward. I try not to look. I hear the scream of a child who’s getting a shot, I look. Then I turn away.
Dunni was alone when I came in. Those translucent pipes rising from places in her arms reminded me of Neo in the matrix. Her chest rose and fell gently like swells of agitated waves long after a storm.
Dunni's storm began some months ago. She is still in the middle of it, riding the crest like a brave stowaway thrown overboard by treacherous and mutinous benefactors.
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I gently pull a hospital chair with those plywood backs over the red tiled floor so I don’t wake her and settled in it. It made a squeaky groan under my weight. I watched her face. Her eyelids quivered slightly and I chuckled.
“Hello, friend," she whispered.
I touched her hand, it was cool, “Dunni, how are you today?”
She smiled without opening her eyes. A big grin spread her lips. Her perfect set shone in the original sunlight coming through the window.
“I m still alive," she said.
“You’re going to live forever, Dunni.”
She opened her eyes then. They were bloodshot in the corners and a little glazed over like a smeared mirror. I used to see reflections in those eyes some months ago when the skin on her face was tighter, the dimples on her cheeks were deeper and the pores weren’t so obvious.
“You think so?” she asked quietly, her eyes boring into mine.
“Absolutely," I said, “Hey, listen to this….”
I took one of the buds from my ears and stuck it in hers, she giggled warning me of the nurses here who would soon accuse me of molesting a sick girl. She shut her eyes again, her smile widened, she said, “Aww, Samuel. You didn’t…”
It is sometimes heartbreaking to see what this illness had done to her, had taken from her. At other times I get to see the old Dunni swim up from the undertow, like a broken circuit connecting to some new source of energy, the sparks webs out in bright streaks of lightning, and holds. She comes alive and my hope is restored, that she’ll yet be here when I come to see her again.
“Fly away, do, do, do, do, do….” She sings along with John Denver.
—
Dunni does not know today is women’s day.
“I have a special for you tonight.”
“What is it, tell me?”
“It is a secret. I’ll be back by 9pm.”
“Hm, the nurses won’t let you in, Sam.”
That was true. The last time I tried, the matron told me to get lost. We had both laughed, I and Dunni, to the nurses deepest consternation. I overheard the nurse asking her if I was her boyfriend. She had only smiled contentedly, shut her eyes and let the drugs pumping into her take her on the voyage of dreamless slumber.
“Please tell me.”
“If I tell you it wouldn’t be a secret again.”
“I don’t like secrets," she said crossly.
I laughed, “No. It is the suspense you don’t like.”
“What’s a secret worth without suspense? Nothing.”
“And what is life without secrets? Boring.”
“Back at me, right.”
“Yeah. But you know what I’d really like?”
“What?”
“I’d like to drag a big speaker in here and get a party going, get everybody to jiggy with it.”
She laughed softly, "some people here will jiggy their way out to heaven.”
“At least they’ll go happily, abi.”
“Sam you are hedging, tell me the secret.”
I looked around the room. I saw a brown hold-all, I asked if she has changes of clothes in there. She said yes, why? I said she will be needing it tonight.
“Can you get off the bed by yourself?”
“I could try.”
“Good.”
“Are you not going to tell me?”
I told her I have said enough already. She said I should make sure I get here then, whether it stormed or fire fell from heaven. “Be here," she said.
So I told her I would come. “Be here," I said too, strolling away.
“I will.”
