Warnings: Pretentious writing
Disclaimers: These guys aren't mine, they don't belong to me, worst luck, so don't bother me.
Archive: Fine, but if you want it, please ask first.
Feedback: Hell, yes.
Detached
It was odd. Surreal. Like being inside a tunnel or at the small end of a megaphone with all the sights and sounds being filtered with only a small percentage making it through.
Like being wrapped in cotton wool.
Like being underwater.
Like being in a dream.
Like being in a nightmare.
Like floating above everything and everyone.
Like being an observer.
Detached.
Numb.
Too bright lights.
He knew what the room without looking at it. He'd been in too many like it over the years.
White. Antiseptic. Suspended ceiling. Cheap white curtains on metal tracks.
Hard linoleum floor.
People.
People crowding around him. Working, mouths moving, blurring into an indistinct background babble he ignored.
Hands touching him, prodding, sticking needles into him which he couldn't feel.
It didn't matter.
There was a window (it was probably a window, it was too hard to think) high up, near the white ceiling, near a water stain on the wall.
A rectangle of brilliant blue. A tree filled part of the frame, a tree with leaves starting to open. Spring.
His birthday was last week.
He loved that tree. He let his eyes stay on it and found a bird resting on a branch. Dark with a rusty orange breast. A robin.
A robin; that made him smile. It made sense, it was right that it should be there.
One of the people moved in front of his line of sight, doing something with a machine, bending over him, blocking his view.
He hated the person and wanted them to move out of his way. He wanted to see the tree. He wanted to see his robin.
The bird turned it's head, tilted it to one side, it's black eye stared at him. Their eyes locked, the bird understood.
People in the room moving faster. Trying different things.
External massage.
Stronger medicine.
Electroshock.
Frustration filled the room below him.
Knives, blood; internal massage.
He and the bird waited.
Minutes passed. The people stopped trying, one called out a time.
He and the bird were outside as a large car stopped too fast, tires squealing. Man and cape ran inside.
It didn't matter.
It was over.
4/24/10