Unease in the Medical Wing

He burst through the prison’s pathetic excuse for an emergency room’s doors and demanded, “WHERE IS HE!?”

                The shrink strut up to what seemed to be the head nurse, a large, black man in pink scrubs. He was probably twice the size of the shrink in height, depth, and weight; however, that didn’t stop the shrink from getting up in his face (on tip-toes).

                “Where is my subject? Please God, tell me he’s still alive,” he demanded, puffing out his chest, trying to look as big as he possibly could. “He can’t die on me now!”

                The nurse put his dinner plate hand on the shrinks shoulder, chest, arm, area and said in his deep voice, “Calm down, sir. Mr. Brooks is just fine, he’s just all cut up. We have a nurse sewing him up now.”

                A sweep of relief rushed through the shrink’s body. “Thank God,” he whispered. “He’s no good to me dead. May I see him?”

                “Right this way,” said the nurse, who removed his hand, and motioned for the shrink to follow him down the hallway.

                As they walked the nurse said, “We have these front wards for minor injuries from fights, rapes, and such. The farther down you get, the more sophisticated the equipment. We have everything to treat flus, broken bones, migraines, and allergic reactions, anything you like.”

                The shrink peered into some of the rooms. Several of the inmates were bound to their beds via restrains. To his surprise, several of them wore muzzle like devices on their faces. “Do y’all have problems with prisoners biting the nurses?” he laughed nervously.

                “Spit, mostly,” said the nurse. “We do that to the inmates that are HIV positive. They like to bite their tongues and try and infect the nurses.”

                The shrink’s eyebrow went up and he clutched his throat, “Lovely,” he whispered.

                They reached the second to the last door on the right and the nurse put in a code on the steel door. With a buzz, it unlocked. “Right this way,” motioned the nurse for the shrink to go first, after he opened the door. The shrink sidestepped the nurse and walked in.

                The room was quite small. There was only a large table on the far wall, with shelves stacked up to the ceiling of all sorts of surgical equipment and different glass containers filled with liquids of different colors. The walls closest to the doors were covered in different monitors and clipboards with different information about the patient painted across their surfaces. And directly facing him was the bed were Mr. Brooks was under heavy anesthetic. Bound hand and foot with nylon straps, he was completely immobilized while the older, female nurse was busy sewing up the gash that ran along his forearm.

                “Oh my God,” whispered the shrink as they walked in.

                “Ha, ha!” laughed the head nurse as he quietly closed the door behind them, making a soft buzzing noise as it locked back. “You’re telling me! This crazy has some pain tolerance, the only time we see this sort of damage is when it’s being inflicted on by another inmate. This is a new level of self-mutilation for me.”

                The shrink quickly took his camera out of his bag and began to take picture of the wound that decorated the otherwise, perfect, white skin. What would drive someone to do this to himself? He turned to the elder lady, who had walked over the charts on the walls after she finished sewing together the cut (if you can even call it that). “Excuse me,” he asked. “Did he say anything before he was put under?”

                The woman looked up from her paperwork and scowled down at the man, “He just repeated the same thing over and over again.”

                The shrink traded his camera with a pad of paper, “And what was that?” he asked.

                “Did I bleed purple? Is there purple blood? Oh God! I want it,” she said solemnly.

                “Fascinating,” whispered the shrink as he quickly scribbled down the quote.

                “It’s not right,” she whispered. “I don’t want to be around here when he wakes up.”

                The shrink looked back up, “Can I?” He looked over his shoulder, where the head nurse was still standing.

                “I don’t see why not,” he said as he checked his watch. “You have clearance. Do you want me to get you a chair?”

                “That would be fantastic,” said the shrink.

                “Right,” said the nurse, who then turned to the elder lady. “Miss, you may leave. The doctor will watch the patient for a little while.”

                “Good for him,” she scoffed as she walked over to the door. “You wouldn’t catch me dead with that creep.”

                The pair of them walked out of the door and left the shrink alone with the subject. After he heard the door buzz, signaling that they had really left, the shrink put down his bag on the table and retrieved his camera. He had information to collect.

                He neared the unconscious body, he could his body cringe up and the hair on his arms and neck start to stand up. He placed his hand on the subject’s abdomen, it was warm and he could feel it raise and fall slowly with his breath. The shrink glanced back at the door. He felt like he was being watched. He glanced back at the body to make sure he wasn’t waking up. The then slid his head under the subject’s shirt and felt his stomach. It was covered in coarse hair. I ran his fingers through the wooly forest until he got to the chest. He could feel a heartbeat.

                He nervously turned back around and looked at the door. He had to act quickly before the nurse came back. Not only would it be awkward for the both of them, but he would probably get in trouble for mistreatment of the patient. However, this was science, and science was unorthodox, and this subject was unorthodox, so unorthodox methods were needed.

                The slowly began to lift the subject’s shirt. He didn’t have an excessive amount of fat around his abs, but you could still tell he wasn’t quite in shape. The shrink made a fist and began to lightly punch the abdomen, trying to get a flex. He had to know what kind of muscle mass he had. Was there too much testosterone in his system? Could that explain the violent murders?

                The shrink quickly worked his way around the slumbering body checking the muscle mass, and hair to bare skin ratio. He would snap pictures as much as he could. He checked the chest, arms, thighs, and legs. There was definitely obviously a decent amount of muscle present, but not a significantly so.

                Now body hair was another case. It seemed like the subject was covered in a thick black forest from head to foot. He even had the rare hair on his middle knuckles. One never sees that. The shrink check the door again, to make sure the head nurse hadn’t snuck back in. He had been gone for longer than ten minutes to get that chair. He was sure to get back any second. What was taking so long? Was there a security camera!?

                Oh God.

                He quickly ran turned his eyes to the ceiling and scanned the perimeter. If they were smart they would have one. Stupid! He should have thought of that before he even started! His removed his hands from the subject’s pant legs and began to search the room.

                “Oh god, oh god, oh god,” he whispered.

                A beeping noise came from the door.

                The nurse was back!

                The shrink grabbed his camera off of the body and sprinted back to the table where he lay his note pad on and began to pretend to write important notes.

                The buzzer went off.

                The shrink didn’t look up. He could feel the sweat bead up on his face, which was probably getting redder by the minute. His ears were hot and he felt a little dizzy. His pen didn’t want to stay in his hands. He was writing too fast. Slow down. Normal people don’t write that fast. Normal people also don’t feel up unconscious murders. I need to poop.

                The door opened up and the nurse walked in with a metal fold out chair. The shrink turned his head, still bent over the table, writing about a TV show he had seen last week on his notepad, and tried to put on the best smile he could muster. He had to look nature. You’re smiling too much. His face twitched.

                The nurse gave a half smile and his eyebrows pressed together, “Here is your chair.” He tried to study the shrink’s face and asked, “Everything alright?” His eyed the patient on the bed. “Anything happen?”

                “Yes,” the shrink quickly replied. Then he thought about it and corrected, “No! Maybe?”

                The nurse gave him a nervous smile and said, “Ok, well, if you need anything you can press this button,” he motioned to the small black one on the wall next to the doorframe, “and it will patch you in to the front desk. If you need to leave, the code is 448512.”

                “Sounds good!” confirmed the shrink.

                “Ok, well,” said the nurse who was turning around to push the code to the door. “Are you sure you’re ok?” he asked.

                The shrink stood up strait, pushing his shoulders back, time to look like a responsible adult now, he told himself. “I’m just fine,” he replied. He had given up on his fake smile. It probably look more like his had constipation than it looked like he knew what he was doing.

                “Ok,” the nurse said, smiling weakly. “Well like I said, just ring if you need anything.”

                “Will do,” confirmed the shrink.

                The nurse then turned his back and punched in the code and with a buzz, the door opened up. He walked back out into the hallway and shut the door behind him, the buzz sounded off again.

                The shrink let out a deep breath. He got away with it.

                He looked back over at the subject. Just one more thing to check.

                He grabbed his camera and walked over to the body. He should be waking up soon; he thought to himself, the anesthesia has been turned off for a while now. Oh well, he’s strapped down. Now to check to see what’s in his pants.