Excerpt from Opened Up
"I'm supposed to be having an operation this morning. What time will it be then?"
"Take a seat, I'll find out." With that, the receptionist left her station and scurried away down the corridor. This is the point at which I should have felt that something was amiss, her absence for the next forty-five minutes being a good indicator. Three-quarters of an hour I spent sat in that room alone, no other patients, no visitors and, now, not even the receptionist. The only time I stood from my chair was to visit the toilet which was at one end of the room. If I had needed to venture further maybe I would have seen that all was not as it should have been. If I had attempted to go back out to the street, then I may well have panicked upon finding the large glass doors of the main entrance now locked. I remained blissfully unaware, only mildly irritated by the delay, more distraught by the lack of food.
Despite the strangeness of the situation, I played the part of the model patient, waiting as instructed. Finally, the receptionist returned. Physically, she appeared the same but there was something unfamiliar about her. I could not put my finger on it, only a sense that she had returned and was now different. Her voice was slower than before, her eyes not quite looking at me as she spoke.
"Sorry for the delay," she mumbled; her gaze just passing over my left shoulder. "The doctor is ready for you now. Follow me." She led me along the corridor from which she had appeared, arriving at a staircase to my left. I glanced up the stairs ahead of me and saw that the next floor was in darkness. As we began to ascend the stairs, the light fading, I had to ask the reason.
"Is there something wrong with the lights up here?"
"Not that I am aware of," she replied. "But it's an old building. It seems a little dim upstairs, I'm afraid." A little dim! I thought. It's almost completely black! At the top of the stairs, we passed through a doorway into a narrow corridor with drab, red carpets. The walls were painted in the repossessed house colour of magnolia with a hideous burgundy, floral border wallpapered along them. Damp patches appeared above the skirting boards, and all was eerily silent.
"This is your room," I was told, the words sounding almost robotic as they slowly struck my ears. "Get into the gown and I will be back soon."
I pushed to open the door to the private room, expecting the same level of darkness but my eyes were in for a shock. There was no issue with the lighting inside, the brilliance of it causing my pupils to retract suddenly. Once inside, I closed the door and looked around. It was spotlessly clean, as a hospital room should be, but in stark contrast to the corridor outside. There was a private bathroom and a hospital bed, a machine for taking observations, even a television fixed against the wall. The uneasy experience outside soon dissipated once inside, and I stripped out of my clothes, unsure whether or not to leave my underwear on beneath the gown that had been provided. I decided that, as the surgery was to be on my foot, there was no need for me to expose everything to the medical staff.
A few minutes later, as I struggled to drag the surgical stocking across my good foot, the receptionist returned and invited me to follow her once again, into the darkness of the corridor. We walked slowly through the darkness, my eyes following the line of wallpaper on either side of me. It was unexpectedly long, the hallway, and it was only as I started to feel we had walked further than I had anticipated, that I began to notice there had been no breaks in the wallpaper. No breaks and, therefore, no other doors which could have led to other rooms. As I weighed up whether or not to enquire about this oddity, the receptionist stopped suddenly. Slowly, she raised an arm, pointing ahead into the blackness.
"Take the lift down to level B, someone will meet you there." I could see no lift, or anything else up ahead, but I made my way cautiously regardless. B? I muttered, to myself. As in basement? I came across the shiny surface of the lift door and was relieved to find the inside of it was as brightly lit as my room had been. There was a choice of three buttons to press, 1, G and B. It was obvious that I was currently on level one, the first floor and, as unsettling as it sounded, I had to accept that level B was indeed the basement. In the short moments that the lift was in motion, I feared that I might step out into some horrific scene, some insane surgeon strapping patients to a metal table in the middle of a poorly lit room.
"Take a seat, I'll find out." With that, the receptionist left her station and scurried away down the corridor. This is the point at which I should have felt that something was amiss, her absence for the next forty-five minutes being a good indicator. Three-quarters of an hour I spent sat in that room alone, no other patients, no visitors and, now, not even the receptionist. The only time I stood from my chair was to visit the toilet which was at one end of the room. If I had needed to venture further maybe I would have seen that all was not as it should have been. If I had attempted to go back out to the street, then I may well have panicked upon finding the large glass doors of the main entrance now locked. I remained blissfully unaware, only mildly irritated by the delay, more distraught by the lack of food.
Despite the strangeness of the situation, I played the part of the model patient, waiting as instructed. Finally, the receptionist returned. Physically, she appeared the same but there was something unfamiliar about her. I could not put my finger on it, only a sense that she had returned and was now different. Her voice was slower than before, her eyes not quite looking at me as she spoke.
"Sorry for the delay," she mumbled; her gaze just passing over my left shoulder. "The doctor is ready for you now. Follow me." She led me along the corridor from which she had appeared, arriving at a staircase to my left. I glanced up the stairs ahead of me and saw that the next floor was in darkness. As we began to ascend the stairs, the light fading, I had to ask the reason.
"Is there something wrong with the lights up here?"
"Not that I am aware of," she replied. "But it's an old building. It seems a little dim upstairs, I'm afraid." A little dim! I thought. It's almost completely black! At the top of the stairs, we passed through a doorway into a narrow corridor with drab, red carpets. The walls were painted in the repossessed house colour of magnolia with a hideous burgundy, floral border wallpapered along them. Damp patches appeared above the skirting boards, and all was eerily silent.
"This is your room," I was told, the words sounding almost robotic as they slowly struck my ears. "Get into the gown and I will be back soon."
I pushed to open the door to the private room, expecting the same level of darkness but my eyes were in for a shock. There was no issue with the lighting inside, the brilliance of it causing my pupils to retract suddenly. Once inside, I closed the door and looked around. It was spotlessly clean, as a hospital room should be, but in stark contrast to the corridor outside. There was a private bathroom and a hospital bed, a machine for taking observations, even a television fixed against the wall. The uneasy experience outside soon dissipated once inside, and I stripped out of my clothes, unsure whether or not to leave my underwear on beneath the gown that had been provided. I decided that, as the surgery was to be on my foot, there was no need for me to expose everything to the medical staff.
A few minutes later, as I struggled to drag the surgical stocking across my good foot, the receptionist returned and invited me to follow her once again, into the darkness of the corridor. We walked slowly through the darkness, my eyes following the line of wallpaper on either side of me. It was unexpectedly long, the hallway, and it was only as I started to feel we had walked further than I had anticipated, that I began to notice there had been no breaks in the wallpaper. No breaks and, therefore, no other doors which could have led to other rooms. As I weighed up whether or not to enquire about this oddity, the receptionist stopped suddenly. Slowly, she raised an arm, pointing ahead into the blackness.
"Take the lift down to level B, someone will meet you there." I could see no lift, or anything else up ahead, but I made my way cautiously regardless. B? I muttered, to myself. As in basement? I came across the shiny surface of the lift door and was relieved to find the inside of it was as brightly lit as my room had been. There was a choice of three buttons to press, 1, G and B. It was obvious that I was currently on level one, the first floor and, as unsettling as it sounded, I had to accept that level B was indeed the basement. In the short moments that the lift was in motion, I feared that I might step out into some horrific scene, some insane surgeon strapping patients to a metal table in the middle of a poorly lit room.
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