If you're looking to keep track of my progress while the blog is on semi-hiatus...(Update soon MAYBE, I mean... I feel like I've been bitten by the bug!) my user page is riiiiight HERE. Click click click click.
There's even a tiny excerpt there: But here's a little taste of what I've been working on just for fun. I have to remind me you it's largely raw and unedited, so forgive grammar, and errors in tenses.
Nobody likes hospitals. Nobody like hospitals here because when they make you wear the gowns, it means you have to take your clothes off. If you’re sick, it means you’re failing at being healthy. If you’re naked, it means you’re failing at being modest. If you choose to eat the food from the cafeteria, you’re failing to recognize the lack of both nutrition and flavour The Uglies hospital is a dismal, but very white, sanitary place.
When I walk in I fill out my form without looking the nurse in the eye. I do sneak a glance at her while she’s looking up my file on the computer screen. She’s an Average. Middle of the road, not pretty but not out of shape. Maybe her nose is a little expressive, but maybe some people like birds more than I do. She has to have something right about her if she’s working in the hospital. Her hair is black. That’s probably the most beautiful thing about her. It’s not from a box drugstore black. It’s real black. That’s sort of rare. They gave her a pass for it, I would too. I’m careful not to touch her when I pass her back the ballpoint pen I had to borrow. She smiles at me, sourly like she smells something bad.
"The doctor will see you in a moment."
Then with the naked. Then with the poking and prodding. The embarrassing feeling of being looked over by someone smarter than me. I wish I had looked up my symptoms on the internet before coming to the hospital. It was probably nothing- a reaction to coconut that I had not had before. An allergy. Something. Nothing could be worth this feeling.
“Try and relax…” I wanted to tell him to shut up. To try not to laugh as I moved onto the table that would take me into the heart of the machine that was going to look at my insides. I was not really worried. After the cold stethoscope and the looking down my throat while I still had breakfast breath, any humiliation from here on in was going to be a piece of cake. Maybe a whole cake, even.
They scan my brain to look for anything unusual. The table I lay on, sliding slowly into the scanner is metal and cold. Wearing the hospital gown is not any less humiliating in a completely horizontal position. Essentially, half naked, I lay, trying to be still, not shiver on the table while waiting for the machine to find out whatever is wrong with my body. Being cold is failing to stay warm. This is why we fail at everything.
In this gown I am as close to naked as I almost ever get—half. I am disgusting, by the standards of 2/3 of our society, the middle and the upper. I close my eyes and breathe out slow as they remove from the bowels of the machine. The doctor sends me away with one reassurance.
“We’ll have the results mailed to you as soon as possible,” when you’re ugly, you get your x-ray results by mail. I wonder if It’s because they don’t want to have to see your face, since everyone already looks horrible when they cry.
you are doing oh so well, Riley! Impressive!!!! Your writing kinda reminds me of Palahniuk-- very terse and accessible.
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