Hospital Stay flash fiction

Colin’s pride was hurt now that he was a paraplegic. Actually, pride was one of the lesser problems of someone who has just been though that sort of life changing accident. He was now in the hospital, staring at the ceiling in his room. He propped his head up on two pillows in his inclined bed, watching the ceiling mounted television, trying to care about the trashy drama on daytime television.

It wasn’t really his room; there were two other people. Curtains on wheeled frames didn’t stop sound. They only block people from view, which must be why they termed the room semi-private. If your worst enemy was in next bed four feet away hurling insults, you wouldn’t have to look at him. Colin caught a glimpse his third semi-private roommate being wheeled in. The man was prune-wrinkled and had a colostomy bag hanging on the rails of his bed. Better not to see someone so pathetic, he thought. “Is it worse to die from old age; or trauma?” he wondered out loud. No one answered.

Colin developed a sort of relationship with one of the nurses, which quickly culminated three days later in the early morning.

How did Colin become so bold as to suggest getting freaky on the hospital bed? He wasn’t sure himself. He vaguely remembered being shy at his hometown school, suddenly introducing himself to the prettiest girls on the first day of summer camp, then being shy again at home. He wasn’t sure how to react to his situation, but he frantically wanted to do something about it. Now his life was in permanent summer camp

She undressed and climbed over the hospital bed side rails, careful to avoid the IV tubes. She smelled like cigarettes. While breathing heavily she accidentally kicked the wheelchair beside Colin’s bed. It rolled through the curtain, and bumped into the leather-skinned old man’s gurney. It was her fortieth birthday, and she had just been at home crying before coming to her late-night shift.

The nurse adjusted her scrubs, moved the wheelchair back to its former place and walked out without looking back or noticing if the old man had awoken.

“Too bad nurses don’t wear white anymore,” Colin thought as he watched her leave.

He hadn’t really noticed anything different about her emotional state that night when he decided to grab her forearm before she left. Some guys might have noticed that subtle condition and maybe they would have exploited it. Some would have done the same thing Colin did because they always are that lewd. He got lucky.

She never returned to his room or spoke to him again. “Must have made an excuse to be assigned somewhere else,” he thought.

Don’t get upset or feel sorry for Colin though, he’s only a fictional character. Plus, he was drunk, high, speeding, and not wearing a seatbelt when he had his big accident.