When Seiko was a child, she pondered why the hospital walls were painted white. Her parents told her it was to exhibit a clean and sterile atmosphere… That's why everything was white, from the linens sprawled on the beds to the doctor's ironed coats. When something presents itself with such sanitation, one can't help but conclude that they're in an establishment of health; one that prides itself in being healthful, one that puts health above all else, one that yearns for the eradication of the unhealthy through healthful means. Being surrounded by such an abundance of health is the first step towards oneself becoming healthy.
But Seiko never felt healthy. Even within her white-threaded sheets on her pure white bed, surrounded by noisy white machines, fostered by white-cladded physicians, she never felt healthy. She could feel the crushing weight of unhealthiness sit on her chest, seep through her pores, and flow through her veins. The filth of illness mixed with toxic drugs were her blood; there was no ounce of health within her. How could one sit in an establishment of health when she could not recall one moment health swirled through her body?
No, the white walls didn't represent cleanliness, she had decided as a child. Nor do they represent health. Nor life.
Then why were the walls white? This was a thought that crossed her mind daily as a child… She didn't have much else to contemplate considering her life was within these four white walls. A five-year-old child, who had never seen the sun for more than five minutes at a time – the heat that clogged the outside air would make her faint, so she couldn't be out of her walls for long –, had not one friend besides her nurses, who would only race in momentarily to ensure she was still alive. They had other unhealthy patrons to tend to, some who were far more pitiable.
Seiko did have one other friend, though… Her medicine. They made her feel whole, even if it was for just a few hours at a time. She was almost eager to take her medicine, for when she did, she felt as though she could be just as healthy as anyone else outside of those walls. One day, though, her excitement worried her parents. "Was she taking too much?" "Is she becoming too dependent on them?" "Maybe she was becoming addicted to them?" They asked her doctors to lower her dosages, just for a while, just to ensure their baby girl was okay.
Seiko was never okay. For a week, she was miserable. The low dosages of medicine she was injected with were hardly effective; even with them, she still felt numb and empty, the filth of her sickly blood taking over every sense of humanity. Breathing had become a chore, and the defined edges where the walls intersected blurred, so all around her was a fog of unclouded white. When her doctors brought the dosages back to their recommended levels after noticing her rapid decline, she asked for a surgical mask. They had believed her decline had caused her immune system to suffer heavy damage… In reality, she was afraid to ever show excitement again.
She wasn't confined to her coop much longer after that, though. Her medicine brought her back to speed almost immediately, and she improved so much over the course of a few months she could walk laps down the hospital hallways. Every day from then on, the denizens of the hospital could watch a small, gray-haired, puffy eyed girl plod her tiny pale feet against the polished tiled floors, holding a pole where her IV hung. Sometimes, when she yearned for something interesting, she would follow different colored tiles that were plastered together in a line, leading her to a new destination.
It was apparent that her health was improving, but her dependency on her drugs could never be sated. She had grown so attached to them, not only because they helped her feel good, but because they were there when no one else could be… The doctors were rarely there, and her parents even less; they worked very far away, and some days their schedules were so booked, they couldn't even visit their sickly daughter. And even when they did, they hardly knew how to act around her. Because of the mask, they never knew what she was thinking, how she was feeling, or what she wanted. Over the course of those few months, Seiko had grown apart from her only friends… They only people she truly knew…
But found sanctum in another, the only things who knew how she felt and how hard she tried to live: her medicine. They were there at her lowest days, when her muscles refused to work and she could barely keep the pain muffled. They were there to support her, to see her through the undeniably difficult journey of life. Her life, a life confined within white walls with plastic cords poked into her skin, pumping medicine into her blood. Medicine, in the form of liquid who scorched as it slithered down her thin throat, brooding within the pit of her stomach and thawing every sense she could muster. Medicine, in the form of pills who threatened to choke her, make her face her fate if she were to fail them now. Medicine, her friends who wanted her to live.
Seiko liked living, despite the sullen world she lived in. She knew, at some point, she wouldn't be confined in this prison much longer, and one day she could bask in the sun without the white walls staring at her. But…she didn't truly understand life. Not yet.
One day, when her sixth birthday was rapidly approaching, her doctors had informed her parents that she could leave this hospital before the month was over. She could even attend public school with intense supervision, they said. Her parents were ecstatic, but when they turned to their little girl, she seemed to make no reaction. Her mother wanted to rip that mask off her face and see that pearly white smile… But before she could, Seiko asked if she could take a second walk through the hallways that day. The doctors allowed it.
Her feet lightly pat against the cold floors. She didn't take her IV pole this time – she was faring just fine without it now – but she did take some supplements and a water bottle in case she began to feel woozy. She took a new route this time: instead of following the yellow tiles, or the red tiles, or the green tiles speckled with black, she took the light blue ones. They led her up a flight of stairs (which, no doubt, made her wheeze for a bit) and onto a floor filled with women's screams and babies' cries. The maternity ward, which Seiko heard was, no doubt, the happiest place in the hospital.
Through all her time in the hospital and the many walks she made through its halls, the last time Seiko was ever in this ward was when she was born herself. She was premature, birthed a full month before she was expected, and spent a good portion of her newborn life hooked up to machines to help her breathe and eat. Of course, Seiko didn't remember this, but she never doubted this to be fact.
She tiptoed down the hall and around nurses and mothers in wheelchairs who cradled their beloved babies in their arms, fresh from the womb. The women's faces glowed, their smiles radiating a joy that could not be described… But the babies' faces were all contorted with discomfort, giving out quiet yet desperate cries. They were so small, so wrinkled, so fragile… Seiko couldn't help but stare at every one she passed. No one seemed to mind.
She soon found herself in front of a massive window, inside lay a dozen or so of these uncomfortable babies. The light seemed to shine down on them all, as though they were presenting them as new gifts for this world. Some peacefully slept while others were distracted by specks of dust that floated through the air. Some hollered for food and warmth while others were pampered by nurses. Seiko eyed every single one of them, and counted every single one by the onesie they wore… Blue, blue, pink, blue… Pink, blue, pink, pink, blue…
Then, there was one that caught her attention. One that was much smaller, much more wrinkled, and much more fragile than any other baby she had seen on this floor yet. Almost every inch of skin was hooked up to some sort of machine… It even had something hooked to its nose to help it breathe. Seiko approached the very end of the window, where on the other side this small baby lay, clinging onto a life that the machines held in their very grasp.
But then Seiko realized: the machines were off.
One of the nurses approached it… Her face was sunken and her eyes had dark, deep bags. Slowly yet carefully, she unhooked each tie the baby had to the machines until it simply laid there with nothing left. No pulse, no breath… No life. Seiko balanced all she held in one arm and pressed her hand against the frigid window, staring at the lifeless little baby as the nurse lifted it up. It barely fit in both palms of her hands. She didn't seem to notice Seiko, because she turned around and approached another nurse, who held a perfectly happy, perfectly healthy baby on her. Seiko wanted to call out to the disheartened nurse… No, she wanted to call out to the baby she held in her hands, the one who barely had a chance to live. But something distracted her, and she felt very unsteady.
The white walls. They bore down on her like lions eyeing their prey. Her legs grew weak, her knees buckled, and sweat dripped from every pore. Hastily, she uncapped her supplement, dropping the lid onto the floor, and took a swig. Almost in an instant, she could feel herself breathe again, and the walls waned.
And in that moment, she knew why the walls were white.