A Sunny Day

Swithun General Hospital was quiet that morning. There were plenty of people in the waiting room, but it wasn't the noisy, busy madness that you expect to see in a hospital thanks to Hollywood and television dramas. People were sitting quietly, chatting with one another, watching the notices as they came up on the old wall-mounted television (its volume set mercifully low), flipping through magazines or newspapers, or simply dozing as they waited for their name to be called and a doctor to see them.

I wasn't sick or injured. I was there to talk to a friend of mine who worked the wards during his leave time. I always told him he was crazy, and that he should use his time off from being a medic to relax rather than go around patching up civilians. "I just feel drawn to it." He used to say. "When I'm in there, saving some one's life... it's like I'm atoning for all the things we've done wrong."

I never understood that until today. If only I'd learned sooner, I might not have so much to atone for.

That sunny day, early spring, in the hospital. I remember walking up to the receptionist's desk and saying good morning to Cathy. She had grey hair and wore large, oval glasses. She always wished me good morning when I paid a visit, and it always felt genuine. She was open and understanding, I got a sense of real wisdom from her even though our conversations were short and simple. I had a deep respect for her. I'm thankful every morning that I haven't seen her or half a dozen other souls I met in Swithun General since the quarantine.

That's one of the reasons I've been avoiding this place. I didn't want to come here. I didn't want to come here and find Cathy, or Dr. Stickman, or Dr. Archer, or Eugine the murse who was always up for a game of cricket when I could drag Tobias away from the hospital to actually enjoy his leave. I didn't want to come here and find any of them dead, lying out in the street or in one of the wards... or worse. Shambling around with that vacant stare and those stiff, halting movements. A living carcass. An undead abomination.

I didn't want to break the hopeless illusion that I'd conjured in my mind of all the people I had ever known in Malton escaping before the quarantine came down.

But I'm here, and I haven't seen anyone I knew from before. I'm supposed to be meeting someone here, but they haven't turned up. I've been here two days and they still haven't turned up. I fear for the worst.

I ran out of bullets on the way here. It's probably just as well. With the dream I just woke up from, I probably would have turned that gun on myself.

That sunny day. Before all this happened. Before everything.