A Painting on the 38^th Floor

I had trouble sleeping again last night, this hospital bed is quite stiff.  In the daytime the sheets are white and the walls are white and the ceiling is white and everything is white, even the nurses hats and the nurses apron. There is a light above my bed that has a little bulb and the frame of the light too, is white.  Valarie comes in at seven to open the blinds and then I can really see the white and everything is quite bright. But it changes a little, the white changes with the sun or when the sky is a little more gray or when the sun is rising and setting or when the lights go on in this room.  If I were to paint it, I wouldn’t be using white, I would use different colors, mixed with white, so in fact white is never really white at all, it’s just different colors reflecting off of white. I thought about it a lot, the first couple of days, but then I noticed the small wooden frame, the beady childs eyes in the painting, on the wall by my bed, and that’s all I’ve been looking at.

This room is small, big enough for this bed and the sink/shelving unit and a little bedside table with my telephone-in case of emergencies-and my flowers.  The little frame with the painting inside it on the wall is the only thing that isn’t white. Maybe that’s why I’m so drawn to it.  Sometimes I look out the window, and I’m on the 38^th floor. So I’m high up and I get a view of the sky, but sometimes that’s too bright and it’s really not as interesting.  When I go on my daily walks with Valarie I look at the lime trees lining the cement.  Today, they aren’t blowing much in the wind, but I know that it’ll start up and leaves will shake eventually, I’m sure it’s coming. The trees we have back home are much more beautiful but I suppose some trees are better than no trees.  Regardless, I would rather look at the painting on the wall.  It’s a small portrait of four children smiling in raincoats.  Their raincoats are yellow but sometimes they look darker and the kids are looking straight into the frame. It takes a certain amount of skill to master the effect of someone looking at you from a painting. Sometimes, at night I think they are looking at me, I think they’re watching me. It seems to me to be an odd painting to have in a hospital, but it’s the only thing that bothers me about the room.   I can’t seem to stop staring at it.

I have my daffodils from Margaret next to my bed, she visited a couple of days ago.  She gave them to me in celebration. “Take care of yourself dear, you know Christopher cannot possibly do this on his own.  Do tell me you’re thinking of him? He’s being so great with you, and so patient.  And I hear he’s been doing a fine job with the baby!  But all babies need maternal love…”  She didn’t seem to understand that the doctor requested that I stay.  She said the whole thing was nonsense and that I seemed absolutely fine. I’ve been having fits of tears constantly, but I suppose that isn’t much. But in fact, I don’t think I’m getting any better.  Since I’ve arrived here three weeks ago I’ve been spending most of my time in the room. I look at the painting and that’s about all.  I like it much better when Valarie leaves and I can get up to close the blinds.  Then I can concentrate on the picture of the children and it isn’t quite so bright.  I haven’t really made up my mind yet about whether or not I like it, but it seems to be an inevitable presence. At least Christopher has been much more understanding of everything.  He is being quite patient with me.  He brought me a beautiful bouquet of red asters when I first arrived! It’s the sweetest thing. 

Well since I haven’t been sleeping much at night, I find it hard to, with thoughts racing through my mind constantly, I’ve been sleeping a bit more than usual throughout the day.  Sometimes I just lie in my bed and pretend I’m asleep so that Valarie won’t make me go on my daily walk with her.  Then, when she leaves, I get to sit up and look at the painting.  Sometimes I have staring contests with the children. I can stare at them for hours but someone always comes in and interrupts us, so I end up losing most of the time. 

Valarie asked me about the painting again today.  She always walks in on me staring intently at it and seems to find it strange.  She’s probably mentioned it to the doctor by now.  Anyways, I don’t care enough to pretend I’m not looking at it. One time I asked her if she ever looked at it too.  I asked her if this painting was in every room.  “No, she said, just this one.”  The children look too smiley in the picture.   I feel like they are looking at me more and more now. At first, I only glanced at the painting, but hours pass where it is hard to look away.  Only last week, I dozed off with unusual ease but woke up frantically hours later because I dreamt of the children in the picture.  I dreamed I was walking and they were following me, and I kept turning corners but every time I turned around they were still there.  I want nothing to do with them! Perhaps that’s why they followed me into my dream, the doctor said I have to be aware of my dreams, and tell him about them.  But I haven’t had the dream since, I haven’t been sleeping much at all, it’s hard to find that deep sleep, that dream sleep, I’m only half-dozing off most of the time.

The children have little eyes, they’re so small compared to the great white walls and the window but they’re all I seem to look at.  They won’t stop looking at me.   It’s been three weeks since she was born.  I was supposed to only stay here for two, but the doctor says my “symptoms” are still prevalent.  I think I am going to get up, to get out of this bed, and try to take the picture off of the wall.  Last time I did it, Valarie was coming in with my soup and my crackers and my chocolate pudding and she yelled at me for trying to take it off the wall.  I told her I couldn’t stand to look at it anymore, that the children were making faces at me and she told me to hush up and eat my pudding.

 “You keep staring at that painting and I’m going to tell the doctor!” she said

“ No no Valarie you can’t! I want to look at it! I love looking at it!”

 “Then why were you trying to take it off the wall?”

“I just wanted to see it close up, that’s all.” 

“Well the paintings are fixed onto the wall so that they aren’t moved.”

 “Well that sounds awfully absurd to me.”  I didn’t touch my food that day because I was trying to make a point to Valarie, to show her I’m annoyed, since I’m sure she could have asked them to take it down for me so I could look at it. 

Of course, I don’t want to look at it up close, I want to get rid of it.  All day long and all night long, the little eyes look at me.  I couldn’t even handle it if it was one child.  Why couldn’t they have given me lily pads or trees in autumn?  My friend Marcy stayed in a hospital sixteen miles away and they had painting of snow covered pine trees.  All there is besides the little brats is white.  When I stare at their little rain jackets long enough all the shades of yellow mold into one. There isn’t a mustard, a pale yellow, a lemon color, a yolk yellow.  It’s all the same monochromatic yellow, all fuzzy and out of focus.  But that’s only if you look long enough.  Most of the time I can barely look away from their faces, their heads of hair and their smiles.  They are untouched all night long, I can barely see them but they seem still. But then in the day when its brightest they make faces.   I don’t know what I’ll do if they don’t go. 

In two more weeks they are letting me out.  It’s been three now since she was born, but they want to be sure I am completely ready.  Christopher hasn’t mentioned her on the phone, he knows I want nothing to do with the baby.  I don’t want to hear about the friends that have stopped by, the family calling long-distance, the cradle’s colour.  In fact, that’s enough of that.  Today the wind is swinging more than usual and the leaves are off balance.  There is too much going on outside, too much movement, but still, the children don’t want to look outside.  They aren’t interested with the branches or the clouds.  They want to keep staring at me all day, and they do what they please.  All morning long they’ve been gazing intently at me, and I’ve been staring straight back.  But oh how I wish they would stop, they are starting to scare me a bit.

I don’t know what it’s about.  I don’t know if they’re trying to stake their claim on the place, the room, the hospital, but they must know I’m leaving.  I’m sure they’ve stared at hundreds of women like me, but their little demon eyes don’t leave me for a moment.  They don’t go away.  I’ve tried so many time to shut my eyes, and then open them again, hoping that they’ll appear smiley and nice, but they don’t.  They never change, and they never go away, it’s driving me mad.  The wind is howling again.  

I don’t know what I’ll do.  I know its only weeks left, but I don’t think I can be with them anymore, they’re no friends of mine, they’re imposing and I wish they would go away.  Valarie does nothing to comfort me, but then talking to her makes me realize I shouldn’t mention anything of the painting to Christopher because he won’t understand either.  I love him dearly and I know he’s been so busy with the baby and everything. He’s coming to visit next Sunday, and then the following week I’ll be home with him.  Going home seems too far away to think it’s actually real though, I don’t know if I’ll really make it.

All thoughts excluding them are vanishing lately, the little threatening, teasing, black dotted eyes will not go away! They stare, endlessly, as if there is nothing else to do! No one else to bother! I’ve tried talking to them, several times, but it changes nothing.  Well, that’s not true.  One of them blinked, but I’m not even sure if he did.  I don’t like talking to them too loudly though, because I know that someone might hear me, and come in, and Valarie would probably wonder who I was talking to.  I know that she won’t take the painting down for me but I really don’t know what else to do. If they don’t go, I’ll have to.  It seems I’ve tried everything to escape them, but it is impossible.  When the wind is loudest, they make their ugly faces, and I whisper at them, mean things, so they’ll stop.  But they don’t, and it’s exhausting, frankly. 

I don’t know why the paintings are stuck to the walls and why the windows are locked except between noon and two o’clock. I do think that will be my only way out.

I think I’ve had enough of them looking at me, they won’t leave me alone and I’ve had enough.  They’ve clearly decided they are not leaving, so I will.  It’s really my only option.  Valarie’s just left the lunch tray by my bed and unlocked the window.  The keys clanked while I feigned sleep and her tattered shoes have left my room. Now, I just have to open it a bit more but I should fit quite nicely.