Harold jumped, his eyes
focussing on the lights above him, blurred by a canopy of plastic
sheeting. He struggled to breath, feeling the weight of the stale air
inside the plastic tent pressing on his face, forcing itself into his
lungs, suffocating him in plain sights. He clawed at the plastic,
remembering a dozen images from films where plastic bag suffocation
was disabled by poking a hole where it was stretched over the
victim's mouth.
“Dad, Dad. Calm
down.” A cool, slender hand slipped into his and a blurred face
appeared in his line of sight. The plastic canopy was taken away and
he breathed in great gulps of sanitised, scrubbed air. The face
reappeared. A girl. Twenty-ish. Long golden hair bunched into a
ponytail. Light touched of makeup to make her eyes seem bigger
against her pale skin.
Harold thought of his
five-year old, Lucy. There was a similarity in their features. This
could be how Lucy would look when she was older. He stayed silent,
taking deep breaths while he assessed where he was. A cannula in the
back of his hand, a drip of some clear fluid that could be anything
from saline to morphine, a bank of dials and switches, a bowl of
fruit. He was in hospital.
“Nurse?” He
struggled to sit up. “Where am I?”
“This is St. Pity's.”
“How long have I been
here? Where's my wife?”
“Dad? I'm not a
nurse. I'm your daughter. Don't you remember?”
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