valorous idylls chapter 14

Franks And Beans

Sharing a room with several other patients at the Short Stay Trauma Unit in the Franks Ward.
There's a Granny I'm not too fond of as she glares and mutters remarks when I recurrently use the shared toilet.
I've already discreetly asked a nurse could I use a more remote toilet out in the corridor.
The nurse laughed and said: "Ah they'll just have to get used to you. We're all in the same boat."
Which cryptic remark intrigued me greatly.
The way she said it suggested to me the Eagles song: "We are all prisoners here of our own device."
I return to bed smiling.
There's a young mother who slipped on the mountains while playing with her infant child.
She's a teacher and speaks with a trendy city accent.
There's something very appealing about her aside from the accent.
It is a quality germaine to herself and to her personhood.
I've no idea what it is but I know I like it.
I'm thinking her husband is a lucky man.
Anyone married to this lady has won the lottery of life.
Between the jigs and the reels she tells me she hasn't slept for sixteen days.
The doctors have given her pain killers but she still seems to have a lot of pain.
I'm wondering could she really have been awake for sixteen days. Is that possible? Maybe on the medication.
Across from me, there's a family man who fell down the stairs at his house.
His teenage children cluster round the bed and clearly adore him.
The doctors have reassembled his leg with a metal frame around it.
Steel fixing rods seem to lead through his skin into the bone.
He says he has no pain in his leg, that they've controlled that, but that the pain in his chest is excruciating.
There's another guy with some sort of a handicap who is the soul of the place and who is also surrounded by a family of love.
There's a woman who's got an arm injury like mine which she incurred like the earlier mentioned guy by falling down the stairs at home.
None of them can believe that a day ago they were walking around hale and hearty.
They're all blaming themselves for their woes.
I'm sitting here quietly, shaking my head and saying softly to myself: "It's not your fault lads. You didn't ask for this. You are not to blame."