My symptoms: Not being able to swallow, shallow breathing, unexplained rash on my arms and legs.
There were three to a room. The room strangely looked like the back spare room from my Grandmother's house but I would later discover in the dream the "hospital" was in her carpenter's shed. (It's a dream, remember?)
Normally my not-so-pleasent dreams consist of zombies in numerous ways of attack. This dream had mention of zombies but I don't recall ever seeing one in the dream.
Well, anyway... in the dream I remember being allowed five minutes in the ER before Health Insurance wouldn't cover anything else. They tucked me away in one of those ER rooms just long enough for me to hear over the loud speakers, "Your five minutes are up!"
I grumbled, "Figures," just moments before a doctor pushed his way into the cubical like medical room. He took what seemed like a gallon of blood and let me know that they had a room available to me until the tests came back.
"I don't have money for that. Five minutes are up. Health Insurance isn' t covering anything now." I plead with him to just call me with the results but the doctor laughs at me and leaves the room, I overhear him telling a nurse to 'stick her with the other ones.'
Fast forward >>>>
I'm in the room they stick me in, the one I previously mention. My bed is in the middle. There is a large grassy plant hanging over me and making my hives worse. I remember trying to make small talk with the woman to my left before I realized she was deceased. "She died five hours ago." The middle-aged woman to my right clarified.
"What? Why haven't they moved her?" My voice unsteady.
"No Health Insurance. They will move her last on a garbage day... if they get around to it." The woman scoffed.
"Been here long?" I ask, thinking about how large the bill will be.
"Two years next month. Waiting on blood tests, my symptoms went away after a day or so of waiting but its clean here and no one seems to bother me much. I figure they can't send a bill if they're still charging me." The lady chuckled. I found her annoying. She was a bit overweight, had wild curly short hair that bore gray roots to crudely dyed brown hair. She looked mousy and un-kept. Her clothes were street clothes and she never looked at me directly, her gaze never left the soap opera on the small television mounted on the wall.
The dead woman separated me from the large window to my left. I choked down tears. Somehow I knew that I had been kidnapped by the Hospital and I was doomed to die or watch soap operas for the rest of my life: Both outcomes scared me equally. I fell asleep to the sound of Mousyhair speaking along the words to the television, like she had seen the program hundreds of times before. I awoke much later to the dead woman making popping noises with her body. The dead woman's head twisted in my direction, mouth slightly agape and her eyes vacant. My fear turned to annoyance when I realized it was the not-so-dead woman making the popping noise with her legs. "These hospital beds are killer." She spoke mainly to herself, throwing her head back in a mighty triumphant fit of laughter. I rolled my eyes and got up to look out the windows. I felt like the room was a couple floors up (couldn't recall an elevator ride, but then again... how did I get there, anyway?) But I saw the familiar backyard of my Grandmother's house, it also appeared that we were on the ground level.
"I can get us out of here." I say aloud to myself as my fingers quickly start to open the window. It took moments that felt like ages but the window gave, crackling and creaking. As I pushed it open a cool breeze of fresh air rushed in and I took my first full breath in days. I felt much better. Fuck the blood test. I hoisted my leg up to crawl out of the window when Mousyhair seemed to hover on the opposite side of her bed. I couldn't see her feet to be sure. "I wouldn't do that." Her voice was demonic.
I gave a weak smile, "But it's nice out here. All sunshiny and perfect." I tried to sound convincing, as one would to entice a friend into a cold pool on a summer day. I didn't stick around to see if Mousyhair was actually floating or not because I fell from the window, three stories down, landing on my back. I stood up to dust myself off and look at the bleak dried grass visage around me. My eyes canvasing the horizon. It felt like I was seeing shadows run at the edge of the woods but surely my mind was playing tricks on me. "You really are in trouble now! You were safe in here!" Mousyhair called down to me in her demonic voice. I didn't turn to look at her, my eyes still trying to focus on the familiar landscape.
Then I heard a man's voice behind me, "She's right, you know." I turned around to face the ER doctor who had put me there. "Its not safe out here." He had something in his right hand and was tapping his left palm with it. A scalpel or syringe? I never got a good look because I heard a howl in the distance, a very human howl, a zombie howl. I remember sucking in a lot of air and running with a camera scene all jiggly like in Cloverfield or Blair Witch Project; a flew glimpses of the doctor and the figures running in the distance. I wasn't sure if they were memories or what I was seeing because my eyes opened and Hubby's soft snoring and his hand gently resting on my shoulder grounded me back into reality.
It was just a dream.
It was just a dream.
It was just a dream.
It was just a dream.
It was just a dream.
