Martin John

The Worst Place

By Martin John

The chemical perfume of hospital-thick antiseptic wipes hung heavy in Marlo’s shared accommodation. This was the worst place. Her roommate moaned endlessly. She had expected Chariots of Fire as her recovery’s soundtrack, but the neighbour’s unh, unh, unh burrowed into her thoughts. The fluorescent orange earplugs the nurses supplied sucked; they amplified the agony: UNH, UNH, UNH. 

Marlo practiced empathy; she had read a book about compassion titled, Rainbows in Thin Air, but it was difficult with a broken back. Her patience was thin during the best times; now, it was damn near see-through.

Marlo had a thoracic spinal injury to her T6. There was a robotic quality to how her doctors explained it to her. Her primary doctor was a master of the impersonal. He exemplified business: I will get you walking in X amount, as I’m the best of the best doctor of all the doctors. Yadda yadda. He had an immense, toothy smile with a military cadence in his voice. She felt like replying, sir, yessir, to everything he said. 

The weight of this hospital pressed heavily on her—this place was dangerous for Indigenous women like her—but she didn’t want to say that out loud. There was something she had read once about surgery and mortality rates. Women like her had the largest ones. She wondered if they even measured those types of statistics anymore. Doubtful. She speculated if the toothy doctor thought of her more of a turkey to carve into than as a woman. That made her laugh, and she considered how the fuck she’d gotten so jaded about everything.  

The view from her bed was of a door leading into a sterile hallway. That door was ever open, a luminous rectangle teasing a broader world. It was an escape hatch into the realm beyond, a shining square to freedom. She wanted to climb into her wheelchair and disappear into that molten hot rectangle, to abscond and never return.

There was so little privacy. Shit this way. Piss this way. How do you feel about the possibility of never feeling your vagina again? What do you think about never having sex again? This was a different level of interpersonal interaction. There was part of her that knew she would never worry about showing someone her asshole ever again. It was public property now. 

Fishing in her pillowcase, she removed a container and placed a wad of Skole under her lip. It was the one item that made this bearable, but they were forever taking her snuff away and reproaching her. Some of the staff barely hid their disdain for her. The nurse with the tattooed brows was the worst; she hated Marlo.

The wheelchair reminded Marlo of her shattered spine. She remembered falling onto a rock getting out of their riverboat. It was such a stupid way to damage a spine.  

Sockeye season was starting—specifically, the fish camp, the extended family living in tents by the river, gutting and smoking fish, telling stories, and sharing food. It was the loveliest time of year, and she was lying in a lumpy bed, sharing a room with uh uh uh girl.

To make it worse, her family would eat all the utsungui she had dried for the trip. The taste of dark smoke ghosted the back of her mouth. What was worse, Derrick would probably eat the most of it. 

The Dixie cup Derrick had left behind was halfway full of murky spit. At least she had a cheek full of Skole. Utsungui with a smear of butter was better, but you worked with what you had, and she had Skole. 

Despite her tobacco, the nights remained the worst. Everything was still, and the lights were too bright. She didn’t sleep well with lights. What was worse, the wall clock marked every second of the night. The quiet tick, tick, tick, synced up with unh, unh, unh girl’s groans. Bored and restless and in pain. All you could do was sit and stare. 

Marlo stared blankly at the hall—the white blanket of light continued to tease her—waiting for action: someone gliding by in their wheelchair, shuffling by with a walking aid, or a nurse pumping their arms to accelerate. 

People shouldn’t be alone. 

Not that you were ever alone. There was always a nurse, a doctor, or an aide to exercise you, examine you, striving to get your spine to miraculously not be broken anymore. Marlo was part of a catch-and-release program, but healthcare workers didn’t think about the holes their hooks left in your cheeks.

Marlo spit into her cup and stared through the bright postcard, and her thoughts wandered home. 

They were building a ramp for her. Her kids loved it. For them, it was fun. She imagined Tesha running down it, squealing with her funny little laugh. Ja, ja, ja, ja. That girl had too much energy. Malik, her boy, was different. He was only two but was quiet like his father. Malik would sit on a blanket and watch the ramp being built, enraptured. He was a miracle—he could sit for hours. The chubby legs that bore him both walked and ran, but he preferred to sit and observe. That child absorbed the world; he would be a fantastic hunter. Marlo imagined thoughts forming in his giant head—crayon drawings that solved the universe’s mysteries. 

Would Samantha have liked her ramp? That beautiful, hard-headed little girl.

The morning arrived as Marlo’s lids closed. 

—

Marlo stood on the shore where she broke her back—walking the slick rocks she had known her whole life—the ones that had crippled her. A catch of salmon gleamed in the sun, waiting to be cleaned as her children played around her, and her husband looked wistfully at the lake. That lake was where he belonged, not on solid land. He enjoyed the water over everything else. It was quiet out there. Fishing was uncomplicated. 

Samantha sat nearby, playing with a wooden net float. A void occupied where her daughter’s face was. 

—

In the early morning, and Marlo blinked hard in the dim light. It was difficult to orient herself, and her watering eyes scanned the room, seeking familiarity. The sorrow of the bleak, blank room settled into her as she realized where she was. 

Uh uh uh woman wasn’t in her bed; her bedsheets had fallen onto the floor. There were stains on them that hadn’t been there before. 

Marlo pushed herself up, staring into the glowing hall, and listened. There might have been a low unh, unh, unh from outside, but she wasn’t sure. The sound might have been the building’s low breath. 

Her heart skittered in her chest, telling her that this place was wrong for the millionth time. The room felt as though it could grow teeth and grind her to bloody paste. 

            There were footsteps out there, out in the dirty martini lights of the fluorescent-filled-hall. The doctors were asleep at home, so it was likely a nurse. She hoped it wasn’t Eyebrows. There was a desolation to that nurse’s rage that made Marlo’s soul want to disassociate from her body. The nurse’s hands were rough, and death seemed close when that nurse was near. Perhaps a nurse was returning her roommate.

Why had they taken her? She had been coughing. Possibly pneumonia? She hoped not. Despite how annoying the woman was, Marlo didn’t want her roommate to drown in lung fluid.

A nurse passed by—Eyebrows. Marlo couldn’t be sure, but she thought she saw blood on the nurse’s scrubs. 

“Hey,” she whispered. “Hey!” She didn’t know if she wanted to be heard. 

Unh, unh, unh. That was her roommate’s moaning. Marlo closed her eyes to concentrate and heard the fluorescent lights buzzing. It was constant—almost comforting—a sign of her growing insanity. 

She let her breath out and thought about getting out of bed, but lifting herself was difficult. Her arms were too weak from sitting in bed. 

Breathe. Thoughts of The Land poured over her. The lake. The river. The mountains. Breathe. 

Nothingness. 

She drifted into sleep.

—

The dream was of her hospital room, and Samantha was with her—her face an unrecognizable blur. Marlo began to crumble apart. 

As her daughter touched her arm, tears welled in her eyes. Her daughter squeezed her arm hard, suddenly angry.

 “Mommy. Go home.” It was a funny thing for Samantha to say because she was dead and Marlo couldn’t travel. She sat her dead daughter down and braided her hair into a thick plait. Samantha had such beautiful hair. 

—

Tears rolled down Marlo’s cheeks as she woke—quietly this time.

Footsteps in the hallway. Click, clack, click, clack. Marlo shifted upright in bed, needing to know what had happened to her roommate. “Hey,” she called, “Hey!” 

The nurse stopped to peer in at Marlo. It was her, Brows, backlit by the hall’s bright lights. It was tough to see her features, but Marlo could delineate her smile—its widened edges cut like a razor.

 “Why are you up?” Amazingly, the smile widened as the nurse spoke.

“Do you…,” Marlo stuttered, her words limping out. “Do you know where my roommate is?” The nurse reminded her of a rabid dog. 

“Uh-huh,” the nurse nodded. “She’s stretching. Don’t interrupt again, okay? I’m in the middle of critical work.” Her voice dripped with disdain as the smile strained even wider. Marlo noticed more gobbets of blood on her scrubs.

“Wait!” Marlo needed to know. “Is there something wrong?”

Brows smiled, her head tilting unnaturally to the side. “I surely don’t know what you mean. I’ll be back to stretch you soon. It’ll be good for your back.” The nurse turned to leave, exposing a knot of bloodied hair that dripped down her back. 

Marlo stifled a scream, and she gripped her blanket tight as Eyebrows evaporated, humming a wordless tune. 

This wasn’t right. There was something wrong. This woman was murdering people. Slitting their throats and pushing their corpses out the fifth story windows. Marlo caught herself and talked herself down from her mental ledge. She needed to investigate further.

Marlo pulled back a curtain to gaze out her window. She couldn’t see much: the nearby buildings. Too many lights were on for such a late hour, and the sky burned a murky velveteen purple. A clutch of nocturnal clouds glowed with arcane crimson. She had never witnessed a sky like this. Something about it tore into her thoughts, but a stray thought of Samantha brought her back. 

            There was a noise from the hall. Marlo twisted toward the door, but nothing came into view. This was too much: the sky, the nurse. Something was wrong. If this was the end, Marlo didn’t want to sit and wait for it. 

She shifted her legs closer to the side of the bed. If she did this wrong, she could fall and hit her head. Or fuck up her back even more. Fuck it. She wasn’t waiting to stretch with the nurse. 

            Marlo picked her legs up with her arms and pulled with her core but was too weak to move them over the edge of her bed. With another effort, she pushed them over the side of the bed, then swung her body around quickly after, following their weight. The doctors had told her if she injured a leg, she wouldn’t feel it and could bleed out. Maybe it would be better that way. 

            She shook her head to rid herself of the thought. 

            Unh, unh, unh. The sound echoed through the hall with the clock. Tick, unh, tick, unh, tick, unh, tick. Marlo’s eyes grew accustomed to the blinding square of light.

A bloodied hand appeared on the left side of the square, and then another hand behind it. 

UNH. UNH. UNH. 

Two frail, bony hands dragged themselves across the floor, and her roommate’s head followed them. The woman’s face streamed with tears, and her mouth twisted in misery. The roommate met Marlo’s eyes. 

            “Kill me.” The words fell out of the roommate’s mouth in an unsteady, barely legible voice.

Marlo’s skin rippled with goosebumps, and she bit her cheeks. Blood filled her mouth, but she remained quiet.

Her roommate’s head rebounded off the floor as someone grabbed her unseen legs and pulled. Marlo strained to see, but only her roommate’s hands remained where she could see them. There was a scream, and the hands twitched before falling still. 

Marlo stared into the hallway as the fluorescent lights hummed, trying to turn back time to save her roommate, but the clock ticked forward. Blood pooled around the hands. Marlo stifled a scream and lay still, attempting to hide. The coppery perfume of blood and the bitter, putrid smell of spilled bowels wafted into the room. She whimpered and bit down on her hand to soothe herself. 

Her roommate’s blood flowed across the floor, filling half the square. 

            Her babies. She needed to tell them she loved them again—just one more time. 

She lay back on the bed with her hand over her mouth, stifling screams. As she watched, her roommate’s hands disappeared, smearing two trails in the stillness of her blood. 

Marlo’s body trembled. She closed her eyes. This wasn’t happening. It wasn’t—. 

An absence growing in her chest wanted her to follow it into its bleak darkness. That absence had claimed so many of her sisters, aunts and mothers, and now it wanted her. Her inner toughness was gone. Only a hole of agony remained. 

The image of Samantha’s vacant face lingered. Marlo started filling in her daughter’s sturdy hazelnut eyes, caterpillar eyebrows, her scrunched-up nose, and fiercely pouted lips. People always said Stephanie was as stubborn as she was. 

Marlo had pulled a sturgeon from the water with a gaff and had packed moose out of the bush. If she were strong enough to birth three healthy children, she could deal with this.

She opened her eyes. If someone came for her, she would fight them. If this whole damn hospital came for her, she would fight them. Then she would find her husband and drive north. 

There was movement in the hall. The nurse stopped in the bright doorway; her face was covered with a bloodied surgical mask, one of her legs dragging broken behind her. An injury to one of the nurse’s eyes caused vitreous humor to mix with blood dripping from her brow. The nurse held scissors dripping with gore. 

Marlo lay still, eyes open, watching the nurse, whose healthy eye surveyed the room. The nurse stared at her, blood soaking through the surgical mask and falling off her chin. Marlo held her breath and remained unblinking. 

The nurse panted heavily, her arms twitching, for minutes. 

Marlo prepared herself for an attack. Her body was slick with sweat, and the adrenaline made her toes twitch. 

There was an immense bang, and the nurse took off running.

Marlo let out her breath. 

There was a crash, and Marlo imagined the nurse stabbing and stabbing and stabbing as the scissors did their murderous work. The thought urged Marlo to reach for her wheelchair. She dragged it close and paused, considering her next move.

She placed her legs over an armrest and pushed herself onto the chair, grabbing the armrests. Her hands slipped as she tested her weight. She wiped her palms on the bedding and tried again. Her body trembled. Her legs were wrongly arranged. She repositioned them while glancing at the hall. There wasn’t enough time to debate whether she was strong enough. Locking her arms, she pressed down and pulled her body forward, dragging her core painfully towards the seat, bruising her ribs and hips. Finally, she fell into the chair. Her legs looked twisted, but she placed them into footrests, praying she hadn’t damaged them badly. Her body shook restlessly. 

Marlo pushed herself to the room’s edge and met the bright lights of the hallway. This was it. She wouldn’t rot here, and she wouldn’t die here. Not in this place, the worst place. 

As far as she knew, her husband was sleeping at the hotel across the street. That was as far as she needed to get herself.

She peeked outside of the room.

Her roommate’s blood trailed around a corner and disappeared. It was quiet except for the buzz of the fluorescents. Marlo patted her pockets, taking the Skoal from a pocket and tucking a slug under her lip. Now she was ready.

This world would probably kill her, but if anything, it would be on her terms. 

She moved into the brilliance of the hall. 

The End.