Wonderoom

Memories of being a candy striper. Not stripper.  Shut up.  Sitting in the hospital basement,  watching over the hospital library, writing a science fiction story about a spaceship captain, female of course, to pass the time.   The captain and her hapless crew encounter a planet run by a murderously insane computer who decides it likes her.  Been done before, but I was fifteen, what can I say? Yes, I wore the candy cane stripes and wandered the hospital delivering flowers and books.   I don’t remember much else except I had to deliver flowers to a room where a patient had died.  Awkward. All elbows moment.

There I was, delivering things and returning to our tiny library base in the bowels of County General, planning the fear and danger of a woman on a planet light years away.  This was during my Carl Sagan/Cosmos phase so I had a habit of looking at the stars every night, trying to imagine worlds circling, cue dramatic music.  Thinking… I might be looking at a black hole-why not? It’s black and a hole.

I spent a great deal of time in my early teens wishing myself somewhere else. The method of transport varied greatly.  Various fictional escape vehicles to choose from: magic rings, hidden doorways, pesky destinies catching up with you.  My favorite for a while was John Carter’s: you just sort of stare at Mars and next thing you know you’re there.  Why can’t things be simple like that?  The world and beyond was much more mysterious for me back then, and I miss that.   I know that Mars is a barren world where the closest signs of life are nodules in rocks that may have been bacteria, and scientists chase evidence of liquid water as elusive as that word right on the tip of your tongue. Venus would bake the flesh right off your bones.   The real solar system is so…absolute. Uninviting.  Devoid of hidden kingdoms and plucky heroic leads.

So after the homicidal computer had eliminated most of the crew, I’d get flower duty again, rolling my cart down the sterile hallway (not really sterile, but that wouldn’t come out for years).  Carnations were a favorite, not much in the way of roses.  Roses I guess are for romance, not pain and death.   It wouldn’t really become clear to me for many more years how much suffering and desperation is hidden inside the rooms of your average hospital.  Covered in a sheen of caring, flowers, magazines.  And there I was, passing the time in the hospital, a summer lark.   Smiling, delivering, not feeling particularly useful, planning my getaway to the stars, to somewhere else.

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