Fragment of a nightmare

[maradydd]

I was somewhere in a hospital, sitting in a wheelchair, being pushed down a hallway by someone I could not see. Other patients in paper gowns sat huddled against the walls, some trying to sleep, some muttering to themselves. My head lolled to one side; I knew I did not want to be there, but despite the fact that my wrists and ankles were unrestrained, I was too groggy to stand up on my own. My vision blurred and reconverged every few seconds; when it was blurry, colours shifted like a photo negative and everything moved jerkily, as if lit from behind by a strobe light. "Another dose of E," said a voice somewhere above and behind me, and another voice replied "Mm-hmm," but I couldn't tell whether they were talking about me or someone else. I knew I hadn't taken any drugs, but I didn't think they were talking about MDMA. I knew they had given me something, but everything was too fuzzy for me to remember when, or how often, or whether they had even told me a name for it.

We turned down a side corridor with a hand-lettered sign over it reading "6 UP AND GAPPING DIMENSIONS". There were patients in the hallway here, too, but most of them were slumped over and unmoving. From behind the closed exam room doors I could hear muffled pleading, sobbing and screaming. As we passed alongside a set of glass doors leading out to a concrete balcony where two doctors stood smoking cigarettes, a blonde nurse ran out of an exam room and through the glass doors, fell to her knees just outside, and vomited.