The "neighbour" kept drawing on his face.
"Relax, you big baby, I'm trying to make you look cute....be grateful....considering the fact that you look like the before picture of a makeover video.....I mean that fondly, you have your own dead bird in the dumpster charm."
Through primrose tufts, in that green bower, The periwinkle trailed its wreaths…
She smelled as sterile as she looked, like freshly washed clothes and simple scented glycerine or a brand new piece of parchment, but not human, she was well taken care of, same way a trophy on a shelf is.
For thou art with me here upon the banks, Of this fair river, thou my dearest Friend.
She held his face, he could feel the coarse bandages, she had already touched his scar, meaning her cells were probably in there anyhow, they'd navigate through any bacteria.
"My cells are within you...as for this marker....the ink is Water based instead of harsh solvents....Biocompatible pigments....Antimicrobial additives to reduce infection risk....Dr. strange had them made for me since I used to suck on old marker tips when I was new here...hoping the toxins would kill me one day...."
She drew hearts and stars on the side of his face, and wrote a big fat "E" on his temple and what she wanted to be a butterfly, but alas, it looked more like a phallus near his jawline, all this around the lovely word that was "Jaundice".
“Thou hast not lived, why should’st thou perish, so?”
She seemed to be done with her "artwork" so she simply booped his nose.
"The main focus of my cells is your ankle at the moment, but they'll reproduce and such, not in a large quantity, they'll be like a better version of white blood cells...they'll make sure that no harmful things done to you can last a very long time, although, they can't stop scarring."
Courage, my friend; ’tis not too late to build, To build, I mean, your soul; to clear away, The debris of the past, and stand upright…
She was quiet for a bit....and then she removed the barbed wires on his hands with her own, her hands bled, bandages turned red, yet not a scratch more came to him and not a sound from her, she simply handed him the apple and the water and adjusted the paper bag over her head.
“Magnified apples appear and disappear, Stem end and blossom end…...."
She checked his pulse again.
"Like a bird that had been shot, and was fluttering still…..one day...you will breathe....akin to a blank page, waiting for a new story.”
Very calmly, she distanced herself and knelt near the vent. Taking the cover off as blood dripped down her hands...What hands are here? Ha! they pluck out mine eyes. Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood, Clean from my hand? No…
The unicorn stuff toy was still limp in Jason's lap, with a a pair of initials on its back, 'E.R'.
"What.. are you even drawing?" Jason asks, squinting at her in the dim light. Her eyes are almost like bulbs, poking through from the bag like a flashlight, or maybe some ghost.
Is she a ghost? Jason wonders. Maybe, the way she's nameless and faceless and weird and kind. Kindness has always been a thing that takes its time to arrive; never given in this asylum. But the way she seemed to care enough to heal his ankle– growing better by the moment, tears draw in his dull eyes.
Or maybe an angel, he thinks. Not some strange spectre. More like a phantom or something God–sent, as much as he's never really taken up that religious crap. The way she holds his face is softer than anyone else, but it still makes him flinch. A dog backed in a corner.
"You sucked on markers." He replies, slowly. " 'n here I thought the sepsis would kill me." His words are variating, dull and soft. Lively and dead. A fight between a Knight and a Bird, either struggling to win.
He frowns at her prose, trying to focus. The buzz of the flickering bulb above him reminds him of her eyes, still staring.
"My ankle.. 'll really heal?" He murmurs. Jason knows about chronic pain from injuries, as well as disabilities from them. Surely, he'd thought he'd never walk on it again. Maybe not, now.
His face tightens as she pulls off the barbed wire from his knobby, mangled hands. His brows knot as he looks to her, blearily.
The apple she's set in his hand shakes with his tremors, and his hands tighten on the water and the fruit. He tries to hold on to it– water, real water– he can't expect that it's not poisoned but it's not brown, or muddy, and the apple is fruit. Real fruit. No drugs or maggots or mold and just holding it is breathtaking.
She pries open the vent and he smiles. Maybe God isn't real. But she's still an angel.
