Freedom of Sketch

Alien

A tiny girl dashes by so quickly, she almost decapitates me. Her wild red hair streams from her head like flames. Several staff members burst from the nurse's station to intercept her, badges swinging, keys jangling. They fumble to pull gloves onto their hands. Wade makes an appearance, shaking his head. "We come in peace!" he chuckles to another tech his size, whose arm muscles ripple under barbed wire tattoos. The second tech smiles like Wade's comment is the punchline of an inside joke.

"GREEN BEAST! GREEN BEAST!" the girl shouts, eyes darting around the empty air. She flails her skinny arms as if fending off a swarm of attacking hornets.

"There's nothing there, sweetie!" Tori exclaims, standing a safe distance away. "You're in the hospital!"

The girl ignores her. She stumbles backward, away from the seven staff members who have gathered into a V-shaped battle formation. Nurse Jenny and a middle-aged man in royal blue scrubs stand on the front line, armed with capped syringes the size of pens.

"Xylon Five! They've finally landed to remove the chip!" Redhead points through the staff members. "GREEN BEAST!"

My fingers ache. I look down to see that I've been holding the door frame in a white-knuckled death grip.

Redhead leaps over invisible, knee-high obstacles. She's dressed in a rumpled t-shirt turned inside-out. The legs of her baggy gray sweats are tucked into her hospital socks. She wears a hospital gown that flutters behind her like a cape, buttoned only at her throat.

"You're safe, Riley! You're in the hospital!" Tori tries again.

Riley, I think. Why does that name sound so familiar? I squint, trying to make out the girl's face, but she's moving so fast, she's become a blur. Then, I remember the label on the closet shelf in my hospital bedroom. She's my roommate, I realize with a stab of dread. And she's fucking crazy, the REAL kind of crazy that you can see.

Riley spits out something that sounds like, "worflemigorble!"

The army of staff pounces. It happens so fast, Riley is stunned into temporary silence. The techs and nurses are the picture of efficiency, operating together like a well-oiled machine. The big tech with the barbed wire tattoos has Riley's legs pinned together, Wade has his arms wrapped around her torso, and Blue Scrub Man holds her wrists. They march her in the direction of our room in this fashion. Her cries stay with me, echoing in my skull long after she's gone.

Tori hangs back to keep me company. She peels off her gloves and crumples them into a ball, which she sends arcing into a garbage can behind the nurse's desk. After all of the chaos, the quiet is startling. A deep calm settles over the unit like a morning mist. I can't tell if this is the end of the hurricane, or just the eye.

Tori flashes me a small, reassuring smile. "Don't look so worried, Shiloh," she says, laughter playing in her voice. "Riley will be okay."

"I don't know if I can sleep at night if she starts doing that in our room," I say. What if she tries to murder me? I frown, biting my lip to keep from voicing this concern out loud.

We walk back to the table, where my abandoned food has cooled and fossilized. "If things really get to that point, we can set up a bed for her in the Aquarium until she stabilizes," Tori muses.

"The Aquarium?" I picture the staff lowering Riley, upside-down and by her ankles, into a massive shark tank.

"That's the name the patients came up with for the observation room across from the nurse's station, because it's got big windows looking into it. It kind of stuck. I'm trying to talk my boss into letting me decorate it with an under-the-sea theme, but he doesn't find it very funny."

"If Riley acts like that, why can't the Aquarium just be her room?" I ask, closing the Styrofoam box.

"Because it takes a lot to put someone under such close observation. If a couple of outbursts here and there was all it took to get sent to the Aquarium, we'd need to put ten more beds in there."

***

It isn't long before it's time for light's out, at 10:00. A man named Simon comes into the cafeteria to greet me, introducing himself as one of the night techs. He's a tall, lanky white dude with big, round glasses, a mop of pale hair, and a relaxed demeanor. He wears green scrubs and a badge hangs at his waist. "Come on along with me, Miss Shiloh," he says.

Simon escorts me to my new room. The lights have been turned off, and Riley - or someone - is sitting up under her blanket and chanting in a mysterious language.

"What's with that?" I ask, a little frightened.

Simon chuckles. "She does that almost every night. It's like a prayer, I think. To her people." He points at the ceiling.

"Oh," is all I can say as I crawl into bed.

The tech turns to leave. "The first night is the hardest," he warns gently. "I have confidence that you'll get through it, but if you need anything, you've got me or another tech rounding every fifteen minutes, you can come to the desk, and you've got that camera right there." He points. "Now try to have a good night, all right?"

And he's gone.

I lie back, staring at the reinforced lights built to be shatter-proof, removable-proof, tamper-proof. Then I turn over on my side and stare at the camera, its little blinking red light inside a black dome. Watching. Always watching.

Suddenly, Riley stops chanting and pulls the blankets off of her head. "Was Simon-Says just in here?" she says.

Me: "Who?"

"Tall guy, yellow hair."

"Oh, Simon."

"Simon-Says. Get it? 'Cause you have to do everything he says?"

"Huh. Okay." I flip myself to my opposite side and stare at my bare nightstand. I wish I'd known I'd be coming here, because I would have packed at least some decent clothes so I wouldn't have to wear this stupid fern-print hospital gown over my boxer shorts.

"Say goodnight," Riley hisses in the dark.

"Uh... he already left."

"No. Look."

I groan and roll over on my right side again.

Highlighted in the moonlight streaming in purple ribbons from the window between our beds, Riley solemnly raises her arm and points to the security camera. "No. Him. Say goodnight to Big Brother."