Jane comes in with homework.
"I thought their intentions were making me want to kill myself LESS," said Daria.
When Jane stopped by she hoped Daria would have been sent home before the night ended. Daria was here- miserable in the same bed. Not for a broken bone or flu, for the paranoia of others. Giving her a pile of schoolwork would be pulling the knife out and in. The figurative blood can be seen running out of her. It was in the sleepless black-brown eyes behind pieces of fogged glass.
"I know, Ms. Li looks like Jim Jong Un but does she have to run a school like him?" Jane responds.
"No not that." She turned away. The bosoms of blanket shrinking with movement. Pills fell to the floor and the noise was annoying her. Little blue allergy tablets bounced like jumping beans. The unit between the two sub rooms was pulled back that morning by a doctor so they can see a languid person move to pick them up, very languid.
Jane swallows. "Oh you poor soul."
Tiffany takes a break to read the capsule for whatever reason. Equally as slow, sat on the floor reading; not out loud thankfully. In her head she was on just the third word. The girl knows these things are doing something for her. Yesterday she was a balloon with bleeding eyes, today she recovered into her default self. She hums something untranslatable before being spoken to. Then she looks around to see where those words came from.
"Hey Tiffany, there's a mechanical horse ride outside that goes up and down and up and down for one minute," Jane whispers loud. "Only for twenty five cents"
"I love ponies." Tiffany leaves.
Daria wondered in there was a doctor ward out there somewhere to stop her. Questioning the linguistics of this crazy hospital was futile. So she learned not to past the one speculation.
"It's going to break her heart when she finds out there is no ride."
"I was serious! It's right behind the claw machine."
Jane shuffles through her pack. It was fuller looking than usually even without the homework from various classes stuffing it. Daria hoped it was not more homework. To make things easier, paint brushes were taken out of it.
"Speaking of which." She gives her the stuffed toy right after pulling it out. It was like magic that they read each others minds. If that was the case than they both knew how embarrassing it would be to ask. Jane said to keep it, Trent worked hard getting it for her. Claw machines are rip offs the rest of the time. Jane also said to think of them as she holds it. Defiantly as a joke, no sentiment was in her voice. She had to go home for some time until after noon. Daria dreaded waiting alone again. Everyone was all over the place, Hellen and Jake calmly discussing "adult duties" in the other room, Tiffany outside, Jane and Trent home for hours maybe even for the day. The only one not participating in the chaos was Quinn. Home doing yoga and work outs in purple tights in front of a camera. Tinkerbell looks at the strange ritual and at one point, runs under her head during a sit up. She gets paged by her mom to get over to the hospital in the middle of another sit up. As soon as possible.
"Come on down to Jo's, there's a clearance sale...on human rear ends! 'Pick Your Own Butt' tonight on Sick Sad World."
One shock of static and the Channel was changed. That was one of Jane's favorites, too. Crowding the screen with unneeded drama was the bickering forty-something ladies Quinn went to a book signing for. That was one of the only times she ever stepped foot in a library willingly. The Real Housewives of Lawndale, Daria thought it was called.
"Hey change that back," she growled, very monotone like.
"No wayyyy." Tiffany yielded when the other girl tried to make a grab for her remote. The beds were not far enough apart for that to be impossible. Already Daria pulled away for only a second.
"If you don't give me that I'm going to extend your stay at this hospital, do you understand." ...for a second chance.
Tiffany disappeared and reappeared at the opened mouth of the door. Carrying the remote outside with her. "I'm hot, but I'm quick."
Daria did not have the care to chase her; thinking she will be back with the remote at least before her show was done. Whatever the point of keeping the remote away if she left the room where the tv was is completely lost. Maybe this means she won't have to hear the grating strain of her voice. Like how her trip other went, now if only the pony ride lasted for more than a minute. When Daria got up it was not to get up to find her, but to use the bathroom.
She only had to take a few steps to the door until a big bottomed woman blocks it. No big bottomed woman stopped Tiffany when she walked out her room for no good reason even after stealing a remote.
"You got to be kidding me."
She was told that she was under special watch and need to stay in her room at all times. When she reiterated that she had to use the bathroom. The guard reiterates that she needs to stay in her room.
"That walking eggplant can leave whenever she wants but I can't," Daria said not as a question but as stating an observant fact.
"The bathroom has several accesses to self injury and death. We lost two patients over the course of a decade from letting them use it."
"Brilliant idea, not letting sad people pee." Daria rolled her eyes.
"We'll get you a basin."
The jaded teen went on a merciless rant,
"Or you can let me go and drop this treating the mentally ill like babies none sense ad hominem to teenagers. This kind of attention is the reason some people kill themselves, if they're not being ignored they're committed and looked at like unstable time bombs needing to be defused before it's too late. If that's the way people are treated when openly facing their problems, then I guess suicide is the easier option. Even if I was cutting this sure as hell won't make me feel anymore valid."
"Oh God did we trigger you?! Just take it easy and quickly return to bed," The adult pants like a husky in heat.
Daria rolls her eyes again. Went back to bed again. Refused any basin or medicine shoved in her face. Told everyone to forget about it, everyone being the doctors crowding her. To ward them away, she pretends to sleep.
The way the door opens did not sound like it was a doctor doing the opening. It was a very familiar way that made Daria open her eyes instead of roll them.
"Jane?" Daria sat up excited
"Ew no." it was Quinn
"Who made you come here?"
"Daria, nobody made me do anything! I'm an individual, I march to the beat of my own drummer." Quinn had that laugh-speak in her voice. Their mother has that too sometimes, when she was happy or lying.
"Ah yes, the wind up monkey with cymbals." Daria watches her look around the room. Like it was a museum exhibit and not, you know, a hospital. She questions in her head if she even knew Tiffany stays her, right next to her.
"No really why are you here," she goes on.
"Making sure you're not slitting your wrists to loud bad music, y'know like what the kids at school were asking about." Quinn closes a biology book after flipping through it. It was so thick that the papers gave the room a cold breeze of air briefly, like an air conditioner.
"Oh," Daria sighs.
"Where'd you get THAT?" Quinn crinkled her nose and scrunched her freckles together. Those of which a caricature artist once saw past layers of foundation caked on out of shame. The makeup was only rubbed in a few spots from having her face licked by Tinkerbell.
Daria took the stuffed bear close hard to her ribs. "Jane's brother..."
The sister who was bed bound and catching a light blush like an embarrassing sneeze stopped talking. Any new spoken words after came out in a grog. Smartly, it put this random affection into remission. Quinn took it from her roughly, impatient from the silence.
"I mean, I won it at the little claw machine outside."
The soft fat head gyrated in a fast motion with the shakes from Quinn's hands. She tested the durability, the mass, the little ugly thing had its vigor from the day it was first born. It was still full of love, all full of love. From the cloudy insides with no more fortis, to the skin, the gray cloth.
"Tinkerbell is going to love chewing this up!" Quinn shouted. She scuttled with it out and into the hallway without hearing word from Daria, someone who was against the idea. No matter how nonverbal she was about it. She could see the image of both Trent and Jane melt.
"I told you, that girl is not being crazy," Quinn chuckled. "I don't know why you want me checking up on some stranger."
"Quinn" Hellen sang disciplinary.
Her daughter became fish eyed from the glares. She did not feel guilt but responsibility. The bear was squeezed gently in her fist to mitigate the tension out of her body. The ration of it verses her small figure was jarring.
"Okay it's my fault! We were in the dog store and the lady showed us this cute Chiweenie-"
"Chiweenie?" Asked the doctor who was with her parent.
"Half Chihuahua and half Weenie dog, but she looks more like a Chihuahua. Anyway she showed it to us and mom said it was the cutest thing and that I had to take her home or else she would herself!"
"Worse mistake of my life." Hellen said to herself with half opened eyes.
"Then I decided to call her Tinkerbell-"
"Because of how much she loves 'tinker'ing on dad's rug," gibed Daria through the vibrations of the door.
"And- I can't take it anymore! I have to stand by my own flesh and blood and explain everything. No more lies!" Quinn finally finished.
A dark skinned, gray haired man walks by specifically for them. He is holding together a clipboard and has a pen perched behind his ear. Under his aquiline nose was a ashy mustache hiding a mouth. Despite his age, he appeared new.
"Are you all here for a family member?" He points at them.
"Yes we are, Rosie Greyson at room B106 please point us there."
Quinn rehearsed that line since the beginning.
"Loser doctors can't count for beans!" Jake ran out of nowhere from the distance and into the hallway screaming this for some reason. There was a thin sheet of paper pinched between his fingers
"Beeeeeeans?" Said Tiffany who was finally back in the room, after both her show and Daria's have ended.
the dyad of Fashion Club members came to a bisect by Trent, who arrived there to tell Jane that she needs to head home for dinner in an hour. With his left eye he saw Sandi and with his right he saw Quinn, alone with Tinkerbell. Both his heavy eyebrows waved in the same pattern of his eyes' moments. The girls did not do anything but stop and blink at each other. Yet, Trent heard most of everything in spite of just arriving shortly. Quinn sang her running steps with the puppy's pinpoint paws swinging out of her arms. Sandi and her almost came to a collision.
"This is like that scene in the movie Dancer in The Dark, only there are no Bjorks," Trent says slowly as he comes to a bit of a pause. He talks again, "no offense, but you guys are no Bjorks."
He was oust by a stare by Sandi from their sight. Once distractions were over a spat was unavoidable; started most predictably by her.
"Visiting your emo dog sitter, I see." She cocks out a leg and crosses her arms.
"Don't be silly Sandi, I was just seeing my great aunt, Reba." Quinn only just noticed Stacy standing in place behind Sandi. "I mean Rosie."
The silence was enough to broadcast something bad, Quinn was being spurious. Trent can be heard coughing nearby. A gray wind blew away a dropped piece of paper; it was dragged all the way down the hallway like a victim of possession. If wind had faces this one would look like the one that knocked down Mr. O'Neil's papers.
"Well, what are you guys doing here?" She points out vaguely antagonizing.
"Seeing Tiffany of course," Sandi responded equally as antagonizing
Stacy speaks up at last, "I heard they got her swelling drained."
"Stacy! Ew!" Then she shrinks in the light of Sandi's scold.
Rosie woke up to a familiar face from no so long ago, Quinn only talked to her briefly as to not make a stranger out of herself for this moment. The room H-106 inhabitant was an octogenarian who is lovely if not a little senile. Both traits will help in Quinn's favor as she would rather lie than give off any hints about her relation to Daria. It came to no surprise that her dog clamored and rejoiced. She licked the peanut butter stains on her nightgown.
"Oh, hello Tina," Rosie politely greeted.
"Actually her name is Tinkerbell." Quinn held her dog facing the other way so she can rest her head on her shoulders. Sandi was the only one dreading that dog. Even before the frequent interruptions it was because she always thought of it as uncute. Like little rabid vermin in a pink dress that had "I Love My Mommy" written across the back.
Sandi sasses, "well while you're here visiting your fake grandmother or whatever, we're going to go see Tiffany."
"Tinkerbell, oh how I love Disney movies. So that's where you got the name from." Rosie smiled down at her. She got a kick out of the dog; where Sandi saw it as a rat, she saw it as a little baby deer. Finally having the name remembered, she thinks Bambi would be more suitable. Quinn of course wanted a girly name with a lot of personality. If there was any real meaning being naming her Tinkerbell it was esoteric. Rosie looks up without the smile and ganders at the window of the closed door. She was staring for a while, so much that Quinn thought she was going through a silent aneurism or another memory blackout. The old face moves back and looks straight at her. The eyes are rounded with secret; she signals the teenager to come closer to hear something important.
"What the hell kind of name is Sandi?"
The fashion club had their meeting over at the hospital. Stacy said it was no different than having one over Sandi's. Daria was above making that easy joke, as she was forced to suffer the disprivlege of overhearing their discussion. Today was the day they will be taking the TeenWeek magazine's Estée Lauder personality test, 'what perfume scent is best for you'. Fashion club tradition ruled that in circumstances of turn taking, the person hosting the meeting goes first. This room was Tiffany's, technically, and Stacy said it was fair to let someone 'handicapped' to start them off.
"This is my hell," Daria moaned.
"Question one," Sandi dictates, "which animal print do you find the most attractive on yourself or on a possible mate?"
She bends the magazine back to keep the page pinned. She shows Tiffany the answers instead of reads them to her. The idea was insanity for anyone who was farmilar with her.
"Hm, leopard...cheetah...zzzzzzzzebraaaaa..." The drawl on 'zebra' made Daria recoil. Tiffany peers closer to the next word before completing the reading.
"...or giraffe. That's a hard question Sandi."
"If you ask me I find leopard the most trashy of the four," Sandi said.
"I would say giraffe, it's the least overdone and it makes your features look thinner." Stacy takes a look at the page too.
Tiffany had no original or complex output, "yeah, girafffffe."
"Although, zebra print looks very alluring on those with black hair." Sandi pulls the magazine from Stacy and puts it down on the floor.
"Yeah, zebraaaa."
"Oh I wish dalmatian was an option. They never seem to have it." Stacy leans over it with a hand on her face and supporting her head on an arm.
"Yeah, dalmationnnn."
The banana in the fruit bowl started to look like cheetah print, thought Daria. It took a half an hour for the verdict to be closed. Tiffany answered zebra. That was by no means not the worst debate on an answer within the span of the quiz. Daria had two pillows pinned on each ear. This went on for light years in her own head. The questions were pedestrian and the answers were as bad. The ones with more than four choices were the worst. When they were done and left, Jane came back. A doctor just pulled out the wall until to separate the rooms for the night.
"How about this as a form of torture only S ranked dictators would think of; sentenced two hours locked in a room with Tiffany Blum-Deckler reading about the nomenclature of the word Homo Erectus."
"Hey, that'sssss not niiiiiiice" Jane imitates. They both laugh a little, Daria fallen off a little.
A frown so small graced her face. "I can't leave my room, so uh Jane can you get me a soda?"
A vending machine made more sense than a claw machine for a facility like that to have. Yet it was harder to fine; not right out front but all the way down the east wing. The snacks at least were not decaying like the decades old toys. Though Jane thought the selection was a might odd.
"What the hell kind of vending machine has cinnamon rolls?" Cinnamon rolls, but no bottles or cans of anything. They had Gatorade, but Jane remembered Daria hates Gatorade.
"Real scholarly minded, these people are." She puts her money away. The smell of pollen hits the air and she knits an eyebrow up. Someone stood with huge flowers in their arms, she looked lost. Two shocks of brass blonde hair grew out the sides. The flowers were a plain sign of when she was here. They are dying people and dead people all over, but a friend was put away here unfairly. The flowers lowered, Jane knew the person instantly. She cursed herself for being so slow on the realization.
"Brittany! What are you doing here?" Enter Brittany Taylor, reveal to have pink cards on her person too. Jane thought Kevin must have played sports without a helmet and had a football lodged in his mouth.
"Jane, do YOU know where Daria's room is?" Brittany's sprayed eyelashes flapped.
"Yes but to save you the walk, no. She's not drowning in her sorrows to some Papa Roach." Jane crosses her arms.
"Really? At school we were really worried."
"Yeah, well, tell them- wait a minute..." Jane uncrossed her arms, "'worried'?"
"Like, when the rumor came around, everyone laughed, and thought it was funny. But then during lunchtime, they weren't laughing. And Jodie said something about compassion for a fellow student in need. She also said we should treat what Daria has as serious as an actual sickness. I think that's right, we are all different things and have different thingys but we are all equal in the eyes of The Lord, right?"
"It's like Buddha if he was stupid,"
Brittany gives up the pink flowers and pink cards, saying the later is full of comments she would write in get well cards. Jane was confused on how to feel, and will just wait to see how Daria does. Her reaction will be something one can only imagine.
"Wow, Brittany, this is, well, this is..." a card fell, "...got to say something I wasn't prepared for."
"Pleassse make sure Daria gets these. And tell her everything." Brittany pleads.
"As soon as I walk into that room, I will."
"Yay! If she needs any bandaids for those cuts Kevin's got a whole bunch of them in his locker. Like, Plain ones and ones with the yellow teddy bear from Pokemon on them." She takes off and leaves the other girl with her gifts. Jane crouches down to grab that fallen card; she did not have the hands to open or read it. Not that she had to read anything to understand.
"I can't believe it. popular people have feelings?" From the Laagers her and Daria shared it was hard to believe. She liked the idea of giving these to her to let her share her reaction. Nether less Trent calls her to come home, because he could not find her in person at the east wing. Jane was forced to take these things with her.
"So can you like, help me with my..." Tiffany says before being shot down Daria.
"No, I don't want to help you with your damn makeup," she yells at the blockade because the roommate's face wasn't being palpable.
"...Lit class. Short storrrry," Tiffany clarifies.
"Oh okay," Daria looks down at her dry hands. The fingernails have been bitten down close to the horny hard skin. One bled a globe of blood that she whipped away with a tissue. She liked to believe her current behavior was a product of what was going on.
"I had a good idea for a story. It's about a little girl growing up a little lonely, while everyone else at school was eating out of the same box of Chips Ahoy, she was off imitating Emily Dickinson in a notebook under a table." Daria saw Tiffany's silhouette bleed through the dividing blockade. It shifts down onto the bed shaped surfaces to turn into slightly curled ball.
Daria turns her direction forward and impatiently moaned through her story, "when she was in her first year of middle school, she was bullied mercilessly by someone. This someone would step on her glasses, unplug her machine during computer class, make fun of her for things like the way she talked and the fact she didn't like to get touched all that much. All things she couldn't help. All things she grew to feel shame for. Whenever she told an adult, they wouldn't believe her. Whenever she fought back, that adult comes back to yell at HER."
Tiffany's shape rocked back and forth in easy soft motions. No sound was heard on her end. Not even her raspy breathing that sounded like someone planning to scare another over the phone. Daria's face displayed a sample of pain, the seedy eyes pulled down. She told the rest of her piece more slowly this time.
"She soon realizes the best solution was to be quiet, hiding all issues and will handle things all on her own. This little girl became a teenager who admittedly wasn't the happiest person in the world. But still one day hopes to be eased into catharsis so that she can let go of all that pain," said Daria before she swallowed an tearless choke, "turned out she is proven wrong, as she lays in a hospital bed with teeth marks on her arm and her bully's fake cry on her mind. The world will continue to overreact, under react, and even treat you like the problem."
"Waittt slow downnn." Tiffany struggled to keep up with writing so it seems, Daria did not even know she was doing anything this whole time. She asks her to scrap the vent story, seeing it was inappropriate for her to send in. No matter how important it would be for the world to see it. Tiffany chose to instead write something else on a new page, very quietly. All Daria knew about it was it had something to do with 'that guy', as Tiffany always puts it. She had a good portion of it done before one last doctor comes in for the day. Daria concludes that all the doctors and nurses she seen today look the same. Very stereotypical, possessing a stethoscope, and average looking. Not the opinion of Quinn who clucks about how attractive young doctors are.
"Okay Ms. Blum-Deckler, as soon as I give you one more brief look at your eyes, mouth and skin cells and ask you a few questions, the sooner you can go home." She asks the questions while doing the check up. Daria also concluded that Tiffany has been made to answer many questions today. The doctor said she cannot make her take home any allergy medication until she knows if she has been diagnosed her with any chronic diseases that started at birth to early childhood; specifically.
"Toxoplasmosisssssss," Tiffany hissed like a snake
Not this again, Daria grumbled in her head. She smirked after she said something else in her head. In the real world, Tiffany was told that what she said did not count.
"Um, well Sandi thinks I have a can't tell pumps from flats disability. Doesss that count?" She gave her arm out to be examined under a small portable device.
"I got a question for Tiffany," Daria interrupts, still smirking.
"Um, you're not a doctor." Tiffany squints at her. The doctor stops the examination and politely allows her to go ahead.
"Can you read your short story about 'that guy' to the nice doctor?"
She came out looking manic with a shaking left eye. It started to tear up alone while the other stayed dry. Mr. and Mrs. Morgendorfer were seated in the office watched her scream at them.
"They're both okay. Yep good to go! Tiffany took her meds and Daria was feeling great. You're all free!"
Hellen and Jake blinked
At the Lane house, Daria spend her first day a free woman there. Partially for the reason she never wants to see Quinn's dog ever again. Jane puts down her brush to tell her the dog was taken from Quinn permanently. It was announced that Tinkerbell got terribly sick from eating that gross teddy bear, and also all of Daria's underwear. When Daria returned home momentarily the bottom drawer of her dresser had a noticeably empty spot. Although still alive, she is never allowed back at her house or Sandi's and lives with some lady now. Rosie Greyson will be making her quick return home in a few days as well to raise the dog with her children and grandchildren. All under Quinn's permission, this was possible.
"Unfortunately," Daria says, "if only they didn't clap hard enough and say they didn't believe in fairies."
Jane stops sullenly and view the painting she did of a toothy smear of blue, with bug eyes. The inspiration from the last two days stayed with her. The next conversation took a while to start up, it was more serious than the past one.
Jane incidentally puts a mark of red on part of the blue creature, out of focus. "The kids at school were worried about you."
"Yeah right." Daria dangled her head of the edge of the bed. Her glasses were slipping down. Jane confirmed what she said, explaining the things she heard from Brittany. She was still unbelieved, Daria was sure it was a misunderstanding on her part and the school was worried for Tiffany. The popular kid in school hospitalized for a none life threatening allergy irritation more likely the beacon of attention.
" I guess the world didn't turn sour after two thousand B.S." Jane leads Daria out of the room with her.
"B.S.?" Daria follows her over to Trent's room.
"Before Sandi," Jane translates and opens the door. But they stand by in and do not walk in yet. If the support she received was truth, and the flowers and cards were meant for her, then Daria thinks maybe being open about things isn't completely unsafe. If only that support was for a real problem and not a hoax. Daria hugs herself a little, feeling a small version of the catharsis she seeks her whole life.
Jane laughs lowly, "so was forty eight hours of Tiffany different from six hours of Tiffany?"
"She sure is...something." something impossible maybe. That belief has not changed in Daria. There may have been depth to Brittany and the others but not Tiffany. Who remains to be a flat and boring as she was on the surface.
"That's it?" Jane says as they walk in.
"Brevity is the soul of wit." Daria stalks the walls of Trent's room. It looked different, cleaner. There was something else about it to. She tries to hunt it in her head.
"I think I read that somewhere online." Jane did not get anymore words out of her friend who stared at the wall like it was a giant painting at a museum. Daria touches it, it felt a little sticky. Even days after painting a whole room, it will have a feeling of freshness to it. Like a sheet of drying putty. She knew what was different about it, all she had to do was think about it more.
"Trent painted his room," she flatly said.
"Yep, he's finally grown up." Jane makes her look around more. The only furniture piece seen was his bed standing out in the middle with a whole new comforter. Daria did not really remember Trent's old wall color; even if she spent enough time in it before, all she can remember are the colors of his accents and maybe the floor. That feeling of remembering your childhood friend or cousin's white painted room, but the sunlight hitting it may make you remember it being yellow. Or how a blue rug, makes you picture the entire room blue. Here she sees walls of blue, a unique shade, deep and bright but murky. If Mystic Spiral was a color it would be the one she sees. The only thing straying on the floor was a unidentifiable dark object. Turns out to the girls that Tinkerbell was not the only survivor. Sitting on the floor safe from harm, sans a missing chunk from the head. Trent planned on having someone fix it, maybe return it back to the one he gave it to. Jane accidentally put the bag she used to keep the gifts were nearby it. All but one of the get well cards are from Brittany, it was pink too and identical to the others. She managed to have a few others sign it; Kevin scribbled his name, as well as others like Jodie, Mack, Joey, Jeffy, Jamie and even Quinn.
