January 31

 

I am in a hospital-type setting. It’s unclear whether it’s for mental health, physical health, or advanced aging. I do not work there, but I am nonetheless in charge of the patient in the room I am stationed in. He is a former grade school colleague and although we were never friends, I still do not question why it is my ‘job’ to police who enters the room. I need to make sure he remains calm and quiet although I’m unsure why he is there. He is fully conscious. There is a knock at the door. I can see through the glass that it is another grade school colleague wanting to come in. I tell her that she cannot, but then I change my mind and give her 5 minutes and no more. She enters the room. She and the patient look at each other but no one speaks. I’m confused as to why she’s there if she’s not even going to say anything to him. There is another knock at the door. I shout to the visitor, ‘Don’t open it!’ and I peek in the window. At first it seems to be another patient – someone I refer to as the ‘crazy guy down the hall’ – but then I realize it’s the doctor so I let him enter. He walks over to the bed and starts examining the patient. While all of this is going on I repeatedly tell the visitor that she needs to leave, that she should already be gone, that she needs to go – now, but she just stares at me blankly and doesn’t move. At one point the doctor turns his head away from me. When he does I notice that he has a skin tag growing from the back of his head and hanging off the skin tag is a pair of clipped mittens. I wonder if I should tell him but then I realize surely he must know that mittens are hanging from him, so I try to act like I haven’t noticed. No one else comments either. I consider telling him that there’s probably someone in this hospital that could snip the skin tag off of him, but I don’t suggest it since I figure that he’s a doctor, and he should know this. All the while, I am still trying to get the visitor to leave while keeping a close eye on the door to make sure no one else enters.