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, which  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 to the world of the living.”
He reaches forward and checks the drip on my arm. I hadn’t noticed it. I am in a hospital, for sure.
The man examines a clipboard attached to the end of the bed.
“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. One looks like a man with flames coming out of his head. 
Whatever this place is, I decide it’s not somewhere I want to be. I’m struggling to recall anything about what has happened to me. 
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 my room and drink something 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.  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 tight shut, nose barely recognisable 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?
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 on his face extend down into his throat.
“What can you do?” he asks.
I don’t understand the question.

He speaks again, in a voice full of pain, "we can all do something, something special. What can you do? what are you powers?"

I have no idea what he is talking about, although I can sense that something is struggling to click into place in my subconscious.
“Who’s the man in the white suit with the blonde hair? Is he a doctor?” I ask.
He laughs again. “A joker,” I think he says. I decide that he can’t help me and turn to leave the room.
“We are the chosen,” he says as I move towards the door. More blood oozes from his left eye. He shouts at me again. “AND KEEP THE NOISE DOWN. IT DRIVES ME MAD.” He is now holding his blistered hands to his ears.
I close the door and pick another. What greets me is extraordinary. I half expected the table, the jug, the bed, the patient. 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 minus ten 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 to see if I can learn something, anything.
“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 of heat envelop me. Bobby’s eyes momentarily open.
“That’s quite enough of that,” says the grinning man and pulls me away. 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 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. I’ll answer anything you want to ask me. But if you don’t behave yourself, well….” he pulls out a gun from his pocket.
“Sit on the bed, Johnny. Now."
I feel a tremendous hot flush wave over me. I decide to do what he says.
“Ask away!” he exclaims.
“Who are you?”
“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 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. It's for your own good." I don't believe him.

He puts his gun back in his pocket, then pulls a hypodermic needle out from his jacket top pocket, 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!
He lies spread-eagled on the floor, two smoking patches where my hands touched him. “Johnneeeee,” he scream-giggles, “cool it, won't you!”
He pulls his gun out of his pocket again. I point at him, and a beam of fire shoots out from my finger 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. I don’t feel hot anymore, even though my entire body is now enveloped in flames.

I shout out the words “Flame on" and feel like a GOD!

 

 

Authors note: I am speculating as to what comic book super-heroes might actually go through if they went through the various mutilations/transformations/mutations that change their state of being. For instance, Matt Murdoch referenced here is the Marvel comics character Daredevil, who fell into a barrel of toxic waste, rendering him blind, but greatly enhancing his other senses. Bobby is the real name of the Marvel character Iceman, and, of course, my bad guy is the Joker, from the world of DC Comics. The actual name of the the Joker character is never categorically revealed, although the three names mentioned above are all referenced to him somewhere or other (Arthur Fleck is his real name in the recent movie, The Joker, for instance) The protagonist is Johnny Storm, AKA the Human Torch, in case you hadn't guessed!