THE HOSPITAL

I am woken by a man in a white coat. His face is covered by a surgical mask. There is an antiseptic smell in the room. It reminds me of hospitals. Where am I?
“Hello Johnny,” he says, lifting his mask. He looks like he is going to burst out laughing – his green eyes twinkle, the corners of his mouth turned up.
“Welcome back.”
He reaches forward and checks the drip on my arm. I hadn’t noticed it. I am in a hospital, I think.
The man examines a clipboard attached to the end of the bed.
“Lovely to see you awake, bright eyed and bushy tailed. I hope you aren’t feeling too hot.” He giggles a little, and that makes me feel uncomfortable.
I don’t know where I am, or why I’m here, or how long I’ve been here. I start to speak and he places a finger to his lips. “SHHHHHH.”
He sounds like a librarian telling a schoolboy to be quiet.
I look more closely at him. A shock of blonde hair. Slim. His skin is pale, almost white. I stare at the fingernails of his right hand. They are ragged, dirty, as if they don’t belong to someone who works in a hospital. I am feeling very hot. He takes a hypodermic needle from the tray next to the bed. I’m about to protest when he stabs it violently into my arm.

I am awake. The room is empty, save for the bed I’m lying in and a small table, upon which stands a glass jug and a paper cup. White-washed walls. I see a hypodermic needle lying on the floor, close to the bed. Some liquid has seeped out. The overhead light is bright enough to dazzle me. My arm is throbbing like mad. Where am I?
Swinging my legs over the side of the bed, I sit up. I’m wearing white cotton overalls. I place my bare feet on the floor, taking care not to stand on the needle. The floor is covered in grey linoleum.
There is a clipboard hanging from the end of the bed. I suddenly recall that the man who was in here earlier examined it. I reach sideways and look at it. A name is printed at the top of a sheet of white paper. Underneath the name is a series of bizarre doodles. They make no sense whatsoever.
Whatever this place is, I decide it’s not somewhere I want to be any more. I’m struggling to recall what has happened to me. Christ- I’m not even able to remember who I am, let alone why I’m here. Someone had drugged me. Hopefully, it will wear off.
I stand up and walk towards the door. As I do, I take a sideways look at the bed. There are straps hanging down from the side, with manacles attached.
I try the door handle. It isn’t locked. I open the door slowly and peer outside. I’m in a long narrow corridor which stretches perhaps thirty metres in both directions. There are doors along both sides, and a door at each end. There is no sound. I’m feeling a little dizzy and decide to go back inside and drink from the jug. As I take a sip of the water, I hear something. It came from outside. Like a muffled cry.
I walk out into the corridor. I want to call out, but decide against it. I look left and then look right and decide to go left. Then I change my mind, swivel round and walk to the right. The doors are all numbered. My number, I notice, is seventeen. I walk past two doors, then stop again and listen. Nothing. I decide to try one. This is number fourteen. It isn’t locked.
The room contains a bed and a table with a jug on it. There is someone lying motionless on the bed.

I approach the bed. Whoever it is, they are not dead, because their chest is slowly rising and falling. I look at them. Their face is a mass of painful looking sores. Eyes closed, mouth closed, nose barely discernable among the carnage that is their face. There is a white stick lying on the floor by the bed. A pearl of blood leaks from their left eye socket. In God’s name, what is this place?
The mouth opens. The person speaks. It’s a man’s voice.
“I know you’re there. I heard you earlier. You made SO MUCH NOISE.” He shouts out the last three words as if I have done something wrong, something to offend him.
I move closer. “Who are you? What is this place? Why are we here?”
The figure in the bed laughs. It’s a gurgling sound, as if the sores extend down into his voice-box.
“What can you do?” he asks.
I don’t understand the question.
“Who’s the man in the white suit with the blonde hair? Is he a doctor?” I ask.
He laughs again. “You are joking,” I think he says. I decide that he can’t help me and turn to leave the room.
“We are the chosen,” he says. More blood oozes from his left eye. He shouts at me again. “AND KEEP THE NOISE DOWN. IT DRIVES ME MAD.” He is holding his blistered hands to his ears.
I leave the room and pick another door. What greets me is extraordinary. I half expected the table, the jug, the bed, the patient (prisoner?). But not the cold. It’s freezing in here. The figure lying on the bed is covered in something. Is it ice? His breath is pluming in front of his frost covered lips. How is he alive? It must be below freezing in here. He doesn’t seem to register my presence. Then I feel a hand on my shoulder and I spin round. It’s the grinning man.
“I see you have introduced yourself to Bobby. He can be quite cold with you when you first meet him.” The grinning man almost doubles up with laughter. “He could be your evil twin, you know!”
I move closer to Bobby.
“Not too close, Johnny, you’ll catch your death.”
The grinning man pulls me back, his grip vicelike on my arm. I suddenly feel a wave a heat envelop me. Bobby’s eyes momentarily open.
“That’s quite enough of that,” says the grinning man and pulls me out of the room. He guides me back to my room and points towards the bed.

“Sit yourself down, Johnny. You really shouldn’t be wandering around on your own. We don’t want you getting all heated up now, do we?”
Once again, that ferocious giggle. I have absolutely no idea what he is talking about. I decide I have had enough of this and shake his hand off my arm, pushing him away at the same time. He stumbles backwards, then grins at me.
“Johnny, Johnny, Johnny, there’s no need for that. Sit down and I’ll answer anything you want to ask me. And if you don’t behave yourself, well….” he pulls out a gun from his pocket.
“Sit on the bed, Johnny.”
I feel a tremendous hot flush wave over me. I decide to do what he says.
“Ask away!” he exclaims.
“Who are you?” I reply.
“My name is Jack Napier, or Jack White, or Arthur Fleck. Or perhaps none of these.”
Another wave of heat ripples through me.
“Where am I? Who are these people?”
“You’re in hospital, Johnny, a very special sort of hospital. Everyone here is special, you know. Like you. Like Matt, in room fourteen. Did you know he could hear your eyelids fluttering whilst you were sleeping? He’s like a human radar, you know!”

The grinning man moves towards the side of my bed. I notice his teeth are chipped and discoloured. His breath is appalling. I recoil. His smile broadens." I’m going to have to put you back to sleep, Johnny." He puts his gun back in his pocket, then pulls a hypodermic needle out, shooting some of its liquid into the air. “We don’t want to have you getting all hot-headed, now do we, Johnny?”
As he leans forward to inject me, I lash out. A wave of intense heat fills my head. I look at my hands. They are smoking. Smoking? Oh my god I’m catching fire!
The grinning man lies spread-eagled on the floor, two smoking patches where my hands touched him. “Johnneeeee,” he scream-giggles, “cool it!”
He pulls his gun out of his pocket again. I point at him, and a beam of fire shoots out from my hand and envelops him. I scream at the same time as the joker does. The fire pours out of me. I watch as the skin melts from his body. My arms are on fire now. I don’t feel hot anymore, even though my entire body is enveloped in flames. I shout out the words “Flame On” and feel like a GOD!