Letters from the Inside

by Rossi
Dear Gayle,
    I don't know why I'm writing this- it's not as if I'm going to send it, or that you'd even read it if I did. I don't even know where you are. You could be dead, except they haven't charged me with murder. But the shrink here says it would be "beneficial" for me to "express my emotions", and I bollixed if I'm going to start a diary like some love-sick teenage girl. So I though I'd write to you instead, putting things down like I was talking to you, face to face. I've never beengood at writing, unless it was music, anyway.
    "Face to face". That's a laugh. They haven't let me see myself since I finally woke up enough to make some sense. Everything is bandaged, from my nose down to my waist. The scary thing is I can't feel much of anything underneath: no pain, no itching, just this intense warmth. It feels a bit like my chest is covered in linament or something, without the smell, of course. It's been two weeks since I came to- and that was a rude awakening, I can tell you. The first thing I see after the accident is a close-up of Dr. Churchill's nostrils, each one a hairy, snot-encrusted cavern. To be fair, he wasn't expecting me to wake up just then. In fact, no-one expected me to wake up at all. I'd been out of it for at least a month.
    I don't remember much of what happened. Just the evening we spent at your flat, and then some sort of explosion. Maybe it's better that I don't remember. I just wish I knew what had happened to you. It's so frustrating- none of these bastards'll tell me anything. they just look at me strangely and change the subject. The shrink, a dozy sort of woman by the name of Dr. Raniga, keeps telling me it's not good for me to dwell on it. "Dwell on it?" How can't I? My whole life, and yours, was changed forever in that instant. What do they expect me to do? Lie back and think of England?
    Typical hospital, this place. Dingy and dull, yellowish walls holding the ghosts of old stains. Worn lino on the floor- I can hear the nurses' shoes squeakng as they come up the corridor. I'm in a room on my own, in the 'new' mutant ward. There are more of them- of _us_ now, and St. Judes finally gave in to the demand, especially with this Legacy thing. I think this used to be the TB ward or something. Sounds about right-lock us up like plague victims...

Read more of Jono's Letters from the Inside