[Just a note, Dear Readers: Today is the 100th post at Dy’s Mind’s Eye! WTF?! I thought to wax quixotic about this milestone with you all…and maybe post something seriously ranty-ravey in my purest political uprisingness style. However, that is not to be. We’re in a happy cozy mode at El Castillo tonight…my marvelous Sky martinis, hot roasted smokehouse almonds, chilled prawns & cocktail sauce, BBQ ribs, coleslaw, Mr. RockStar and Fantabulous Daughter in Da Haus. It’s way too nice & mellow for a ranty-ravey-type hooplah. So sip your Friday Night Poison of Choice, and read this here little blurb of an installment in the continuing story of Jill & Thol. Short and Sweet tonight. We’ll catch ya later and Have a Fucking Marvelous Friday Night! 🙂 ]
“Jillian…darling…Jill, honey?”
Her Mother’s voice continued its irritating intrusion through the fog that was most likely some sort of sedative that had kept her asleep for…how long? What time was it now? What day? How many wasted hours had she been in this gawd-awful hospital? Had she missed many classes? She hated missing class and having to make up and catch up. She tried to sigh without letting her parents hear her.
“Em…” Now it was her father’s voice. “Emilia, leave her alone. She’ll open her eyes when she’s good and ready. Just…Em… I mean it. She’s fine. Come…let’s get some lunch, I’m starving…and we need to continue our discussion where it won’t disturb her. She needs her rest and we aren’t helping anything here.” He made his way toward the door, trying to steer his wife by the elbow in the same direction.
“Jill, dear, we’ll be right back, okay?” Oh, take your time, Mom, really. “You need anything…anything at all…just call the nurse. The nurses’ station knows how to reach your father and I…” Her voice faded away as she was gently pulled out the door by her husband.
Oh, thank god, thought Jill. Finally.
She gingerly opened one eye when she was pretty darn sure they were long gone down the antiseptic-smelling hallway. Good. The coast was clear. Now for the other one. Jeezus, her eyes stung like the insides of her lids were made of sandpaper doused with lemon juice. And her throat…she tried to swallow the golf-ball coated in crushed glass stuck between her tonsils and her collarbone. She needed some water, juice, something, that was for sure…anything liquid and cool to soothe the swollen scratchy painfulness of her throat. She looked around for the little plastic pitcher she was sure was nearby…there always was one in these hospital rooms, right? She’d seen them in every soap opera she’d ever tried not to notice on the televisions in her friends’ apartments and dorm rooms. There had been a one by her bed when she was a little girl of seven and she had her appendix out. Yep, they still used them…there it was on the little rolling table just out of reach. She struggled to sit up and reached for the puke-yellow/gold plastic pitcher and the matching cup beside it. Empty. It figured.
She pushed the button to call the nurse, despite her desperate need to shut out any and all persons at the moment. She needed to think, to try to remember what had happened, to try to figure out what she needed to do. Was her apartment completely toast? Was she going to have to move? Did she have anything left to move? Maybe it wasn’t as bad as that…maybe it was just a matter of repairs and replacing those possessions that were damaged in the fire. She brightened at that thought. If that was the case, she could hole up in a hotel for a while and not have to…she shook her head not wanting to think of the horror of the alternative, and released a torrent of sharp thudding pain throughout her skull. Ouch. Better remember not to do that for a while.
The nurse that answered the call was a heavy-set, older woman…probably in her late fifties to early sixties. Jillian’s first impression of her was that she was not exactly a sweet grandmother type, yet not quite a Nurse Ratched, either. She was something in between, no-nonsense, with an air of “I’ve been doing this longer than you were even an egg in your mother’s ovum” about her. Tired maybe, but not weary, and to use the word efficient in describing her was probably the understatement of the year. She took one look at Jillian in her upright sitting position, saw the rolling table had been moved closer and knew exactly what was needed next. She swiped up the pitcher without a word and went to fill it from the tap. Jillian could only hope…in vain, she was sure…that the hospital had some kind of automatic water purification system of the Britta/Pur type throughout the building that would transform the water flowing from the tap in her particular room into something other than all the other tap water in the city. Yeah, right. Well, any water was better than no water at this point. A little chlorine right now wouldn’t kill her, but she longed for the sweet H2O of her Pur water filtration system at home even before she let the cup touch her lips and she could smell the chlorine and other unfamiliar miscellaneous chemicals used to treat the city’s water, to make it “drinkable”. Ugh.
Oh, but it did feel nice flowing down her raw irritated throat.
© 2011 D. Kessler
Dy's Mind's Eye 