Like clockwork

It wasn't all totally nonsense though. I could still recognize fear and puzzlement, especially in the faces of the strangers that came to see me everyday in the morning after breakfast, like clockwork. They came in their lab coats and their clipboards full of notes, scribbling while observing me as surely as how one observes a monkey in a cage. Some had kind looks, some blank and some with eyes darting, unsure as to how to maintain eye contact while I peered into the depths of their souls. It was just as much of a two way street as any other regular interactions in the Outside world. Just that in this scenario neither one of us knew how to pretend to be.

The Attending had hid his ID badge behind his tie and I decided that I shan't bring that up with him for by him doing that I knew that he already knew ID badges was my crux issue. It seemed to me that we were going to play a game of chicken about my unrelenting paranoia of badge-wearing hospital employees not being who they were. But as the questions unfolded, my smugness slowly dissipated as I struggled to answer what I think they wanted me to answer, just as I have always did even on the Outside. I was getting all the answers incorrect and I see them, one by one, shaking their heads and pens writhing furiously. This must be how drowning feels like for it was all going wrong, as how everything had before that had me landing in this strange and unsettling place. It was my turn to dart my eyes around desperately, hoping for some clue in the expressions of my captor's lab-coat-entourage. I slowly realized this was another failed day because my chest tightened with a familiar hurt as my breath stuck itself in my throat, festering into a lump bigger and bigger, surely enough to suffocate me. It was pointless. My persona cracked and split even further, like a line running down a wall of old paint that was ready to flake off into dust any second.

The Attending shook his head with finality and like a virus it spread to the others in the group. Pity filled the faces of each person I looked upon, all impervious to my imploring desperation. Judgement never felt as stinging as it did on the Outside as I pleaded fruitlessly while they left, one by one out of my door.