Time & Space: Chapter 1

I have always felt at home inside a story. Years of getting lost in other worlds like Middle Earth, the Wizarding World, and a Galaxy Far, Far Away have taught me things about myself and helped me understand truths about the real world we face every day. Recently, I've decided that I have my own stories to tell and truths to convey. So, to get me started and keep me going, I'm writing my first novel chapter by chapter here on my blog. Aiming for a new post every other Wednesday, the story will be told in its raw form unfolding before us all in real-time. Be sure to subscribe on the blog main page if you'd like to keep reading and share if you think I'm onto something . Feedback is welcomed and appreciated. Enjoy.

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Chapter 1

There is nothing Seth Kron hates more than mopping floors. Back and forth, dirt turns to mud, blood and vomit blend red and yellow to make orange, and back and forth they all fade as the mop bucket absorbs their color and, supposedly, their filth. Despite the bucket and floor trading clarity for color, Seth could not help but feel like the mess still remained, only now made invisible by having spread it across all the tiles rather than the few it had stained. Seth viewed most of life with the same futility that he felt mopping the hospital floors.

As he returned the mop to the bucket for the last time, he couldn’t help but notice that the sterile white tiles of the ICU floor shone with a sickly orange hue, visible probably only to him. He wheeled the bucket back down the hall, steering with precision to prevent the toxic contents from sloshing out and prolonging his torturous task.

The bustle of a gurney down the hallway caused him to halt his intent stare into the swirling brown-orange bucket and move aside to make way for the frantic nurses rushing the newest ER resident toward operation. At the back of the group, shouting vitals and pumping an oxygen mask with a delicate but firm hand, was Raychel, one of the head nurses on Seth’s usual night shift, and in his mind, the only angel who ever entered this depressing place.

“We need to get three units of AB positive in her, STAT!”

I wonder if she takes charge like that in bed, Seth thought, suddenly blushing and turning back to his less-than-desirable bucket. It didn’t matter though, Raychel was past before he had finished the thought and did not even notice him. “As usual,” he sighed under his breath.

Pushing past the nurses station he had used for cover, a wheel on the mop bucket turned unexpectedly, jolting the bucket and sending a single drop of muck-water sailing onto the floor. He paused long enough to notice that the spot blended in with the faux-marble swirl of the linoleum, and continued his careful trip down the hall.

Someone will be puking there in an hour anyway.

By the time Seth made it to the closet and emptied the bucket, he was so glad to be rid of the thing, he didn’t even mind that the bucket slipped as he poured and sloshed refuse onto his left pant leg. Someone else gets to deal with this shit now, he thought as he stripped the scrubs off from over his jeans. Maybe it will be Donnie…he actually seems to like this job.

Like an answer to prayer, the custodial room door opened and Donnie’s bright, shining bald head entered the room.

“Top o’ the mornin’ to ya Seth!” Donnie chimed as he flung his coat onto the rack with a flourish. “Or the evenin’ I suppose I should say for you, my friend.”

Donnie was one of those people who was so nice and so chipper you can’t help but despise him for it, like being jealous of someone for having something you don’t even want.

“Looks like it might be a long one, Donnie. I had two ‘hurlies’ and a ‘shit-show’ tonight.” Somehow, it made it less disgusting to give pet names to the messes they regularly had to clean.

“I came prepared!” Donnie said as he pulled a large book from his satchel which he had hung on the lowest hook of the coat rack. The book was Gray’s Anatomy, a silver leafed collector’s edition, like the kind that catch your eye on the displays at Barnes & Noble. Waving the book around like a knowing finger he said, “It helps to know a thing or two about what caused it to come out in the first place before you clean it up.”

Seth knew Donnie probably couldn’t understand half the words or concepts in that book, but imagined he probably got a kick out of looking at the diagrams – especially the ones of the naked female form.

“No one can call you a pervert if you’re looking for learnin’,” he would say if anyone caught him in the custodian’s lounge with one of those pages open too long. Then he’d tap the side of his nose with one finger, like a discovered Santa Claus who knows no one would believe you if you told them.

“Sure, Donnie,” Seth muttered, trying now to hurry about his end of shift duties and be rid of Donnie’s toxic positivity. Seth always hated talking to Donnie. He was the kind of person you could never really get to know. Though, Seth thought he had a hard time getting to know anyone. Besides, Donnie was weird.

He closed his locker and fished for his headphones in the front pocket of his grey messenger bag. Finding them in a tangled mess, he made for the door, deciding he would have to go about detangling them outside to avoid spending any more time near Donnie’s never-ending-conversation trap that could spring at any moment.

“Hey, you going to the Christmas party tomorrow night?” Donnie hollered after him as Seth’s back foot cleared the threshold.

Damn it.

“No, I – er – have plans already,” he lied, frantically trying to come up with what these plans might be.

“Oh…important plans?” Donnie asked with a pause, as if he knew the plans were a complete fabrication. “Because I wanted to go, but I got scheduled a double header.”

Of course you did, Seth thought. Susan probably did that on purpose so you wouldn’t be able to attend. Susan was their shift manager and was also throwing the party that night. No one really liked Donnie all that much, for no reason other than he was too friendly and it creeped everyone out. What a weird thing to be disliked for, Seth thought with a twinge of guilt at realizing he felt the same way.

“Uh, sure, I’ll take your second shift,” he said, apparently guessing right at Donnie’s meaning judging by the look on his face.

“Really?!” he blurted, beaming. “Are you sure it’s no trouble? I don’t want to mess up your plans!” he said almost faster than his excited tongue could keep up.

Donnie was already shaking his hand vigorously by the time Seth said, “Yeah, no problem at all. See you tomorrow night,” and turned letting the door close on Donnie’s childish grin.

Damn it, he thought, immediately regretting his contrite benevolence. I can’t seem to stay away from this place.

Seth had started hating his job around the second time he had to scrub a dying person’s bodily fluids up off the floor. The first time wasn’t so bad, he had thought, but the second time had come approximately thirty seconds after he had finished the first, and was caused by the same person, in the exact same spot. Realizing that a matter of seconds was all that had separated him from being covered in toxic waste, Seth determined then and there that no amount of money would be enough to make this worth it. Especially not the meager wage of a hospital custodian.

He walked through the staunch white hallways fumbling with the knot of headphones and occasionally dodging rushing nurses and wailing patients.

Seth was not a particularly clean person himself, evidenced by the ever growing stack of dishes in his sink, and a Tupperware growing mold in his fridge, but at least he didn’t hide it. The façade of cleanliness was what bothered him about this place. White walls and white tile illuminated by sterile white lights set into a white ceiling, the color of purity. Only, he was responsible for cleaning the place, and new better than anyone how much worse white contrasted with the stains of dirt and grime.

Not only that, but it seemed the only thing the hospital believed in faking more than cleanliness was happiness. He passed a print of an oil painting depicting close ups of spring flowers, he didn’t know what kind. It was the kind of painting no one actually likes, but everyone thinks everyone else will enjoy.

As he reached the next painting, an impressionistic scene of a young ballerina en pointe, which was strategically placed a few, less happy yards from the last, he had to stop and move aside as a screaming woman - maybe a less fortunate ballerina - was wheeled past in a gurney with a shard of bone protruding from her leg and blood spraying from the artery it had severed.

No amount of department store artwork could hide what this place was.

The pause had given him enough time to pull the last entangled earbud free of its snag and he placed them snug in each ear, deafening himself to the torturous sounds of the ER. Desperate for a pick me up, he pressed play without selecting choosing a song and the long, sad wail of a harmonica flooded his head. Tom Petty’s You Don’t Know How It Feels scrolled across the handheld screen, just the kind of song he was looking for.

Oldies like this one seemed to give him a morose sense of hope. He thought there was something comforting in people decades ago feeling shitty about the same kinds of things he felt shitty about.

5:05am, December 24th, flashed above the album artwork. Only eleven hours and fifty-five minutes until he had to be walking back into this sick place.

Merry Christmas to me, he thought, as he stepped through the sliding door into the freezing wind.

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