June Writing Challenge

[NickyDude]

Yes, I know the May one is still going until the 10th but I'm setting this now to get back in line with the original "set it on the first of the month". Anyway, you'll have to work doubly hard to do both challenges :p

Location: Hospital Ward
Contains Flowers, Get Well Cards, TV, Curtains, Plaster Cast, Locked Cupboard.

Remember to read the pinned rules. You have until July 1st, and good luck!



Edited By NickyDude on 1180653798

[David Whyld]

Pangborn saw he was in a small room off to one side of the main hospital ward. He did not like it. It was not, he noted, a nice hospital room though as he tended to find himself in hospital wards only after attempts had been made on his life, this had perhaps coloured his perceptions somewhat.

At least someone had been by to see him whilst he slept: by the side of his bed (his cramped bed damnit!) there was a collection of get well cards, ranging from the almost sweet to the downright alarming. The one from his Uncle Egbert, showing a man in a hospital gown being buried alive because doctors had mistakenly assumed he was dead, was a little extreme. There were flowers as well. Wilted and long dead, but the thought was there.

Pangborn’s leg was in a plaster cast which would have made getting about something of a problem. Fortunately he had been placed in the drabbest hospital known to man, so his desire to leave the bed (the cramped bed) and go exploring was mercifully absent. In the meantime, he could lie there, feel sorry for himself, and amuse himself by watching the TV (if it worked, which it didn’t), staring at the curtains which might have had an interesting bit of scenery on the other side but he wasn’t going to place bets on it, and the locked cupboard. Yes, locked. He didn’t see the point of locking it considering it the back of the cupboard had fallen off and was lying on the floor by its side, but at least it showed someone was taking his job seriously.

An exit beckoned to the west, but would doubtless be reckoning fruitlessly for some time given the unfortunate state of his leg.

Too long? Bah! Get yourself a 60” monitor, crank the resolution up several notches and this thing would barely fill half the screen.

[brain in jar]

...You're feeling groggy. As you come to consciousness, the smell of disinfectant pressing through your eyes and nostrils and the feel of a gown made of kitchen paper in your horizontal state, you realize that your incident with the angry horse and Sir Reyous' lancet has hospitalized you...

Hospital Ward
Seems no-one's heard that you're in hospital yet(!) The other patients are getting get-well cards and cheery arrangements of flowers, shaped so as to say "Get Better, Hal, You Son-of-a-Gun! There are even flower-shaped commas. And you? Nothing but a remote-shaped device to call the nurses! But, oh? A plaster cast, solely signed by Sir Reyous ("Oh dear," You think "I've broken my leg, too?! Oh well, at least someone knows I'm here"). The ward, being specifically for elderly patients but, oh well, shares one only one TV, which is currently airing All My Prune Juice, much to the delight of everyone but you. It sits on top of a cupboard, locked apparently since a 70-year old's hyperactive grandkid couldn't open it. Behind the TV a window is partly obscured by a curtain. Designed by William Morris, apparently. Not because you recognize it, but because one of the elderly patients keeps pointing it out. This room is good enough to have exits in all directions, but you'll need to call a nurse to help you get around at the moment.

[IceHammer]

Hospital Room

The first thing you notice upon entering the hospital room is, of course, the patient: Your 'boarder friend Kii-Sa. A quick glance tells you it's probably best not to ask what kind of accident ended with her in a plaster cast and three slings. Knowing her, it was probably something insane, like grinding tank gun barrels or some such.

A look around the hospital room itself shows it to be virtually identical to every other hospital room in existence. This being a hospital, and it being winter, there's a pretty distinctive smell about it. Like all hospital rooms, it feels like a lot of oysters, but no pearls. There's the small supposedly therapeutic off-white curtains over the window, the same locked cupboard full of painkillers, disinfectants, antibiotics, and cyanide.

There's a mound of get-well cards and flowers next to the bed, of course. There's a TV in the room; it's on, but muted. Knowing Kii-Sa, of course, it's playing some rock music video, but she's courteously turned it off for the moment so you can talk.

[MrPetrov]

Paderborn Emergency Collection Point - Ward C

Things must have gone bad pretty quickly in the little Paderborn hospital. Once the vast machines of the State had ramped up to face the crisis, too little and too late, of course, the National Guard station down the street became a place to collect refugees and the dead. Pretty soon there wasn't much difference. The ones who still hoped to live, early on, came to the hospital. As a result, the contents of Ward C are a little microcosm of the end of the world.

This little ward, barely a dozen yards long with a ceiling so low that you can reach up to touch the cool, cracked bricks, is jumbled with dozens of flimsy metal-framed folding cots all knocked askew and toppled over onto one another. The dead are spilled out on the floor in dozens. Some are wrapped in sheets, more or less, but most of the bodies lie pale and naked on the tile, curled up into the burn-victim's fetal ball that is the final mark of Langerhans A, better known as the Chicago Fire or just plain old lague, on its many victims. The pale, wasted flesh that litters this nameless grave has mummified in the long Arizona summers and the air is heavy with the dust of old, forgotten deaths.

The ward is lit by a high, tiny window at the far end of the ward which was long ago shattered and the cheery yellow curtains on either side blow spasmodically in the wind of a coming storm. They are ragged with the years and would have fallen long ago save that they are stapled directly to the cinderblock wall.
This same wind stirs the dry stalks of weedy flowers that have overgrown the sill and spilled their dead and drying heads down the wall like men peering into an abyss.

A heap of furniture partly blocks the doorway, no doubt hastily cleared away to admit the dying, and the shattered screen of an ancient television set peers like a blinded eye out of a cabinet of wire mesh that leans drunkenly in the corner. A fat brass padlock depends from the hasp on its front, rocking gently with some unperceived vibration. A sack of mail has been stuffed underneath the cabinet and the USPS seals still adhere doggedly to the seams. Doubtless it is full of old bills and mail-order catalogs from another age. Maybe even a few get-well cards to cheer the blinded eyes and rest the broken backs and rotting fingertips of the last survivors.

The corpse nearest you is that of a little girl. Dry heat and years have made her face into a mask of leather and age and there is no glimmer of bright beauty in the empty sockets of her eyes, but blond hair still clings to her shrunken scalp and the tiny pink bows which made pigtails of it are as bright as the day she died. That's the power of modern plastics, you suppose. Most striking, though, is the plaster cast on one tiny arm. You can still read the writing on it, all sorts of wishes for health and quick scrawled in the many and varied hands of children with the indifferent penmanship of that bygone time of keyboards and cellular telephones.

---

How's that for long? :laugh:

[David Whyld]

Long? That? Bah!

[Essande]

Hospital Ward

You have awoken in what seems to be a hospital, if the room's all around pale complexion is anything to go by. You are currently lying on a bed with an exceedingly thin mattress. The pillow is suffering from anorexia as well.

Unfortunately it does not appear you will be able to leave anytime soon as a thick, plaster cast is weighing down your leg. It, like everything else in the room, is a stark white. This includes the flowers that are in a vase on the window sill. If it weren’t for the breeze moving the curtains into your line of view you might be able to identify what type of flowers they are. The very same breeze keeps knocking over the few “get well” cards you have received while you were comatose. There is also a rather lengthy letter on the small table next to your bed from your father preaching against the motorcycles and how next time you wipe out you might be dead.

Across from you is a squat, sturdy looking cupboard. It is most likely locked but you cannot fathom what it could contain as its sole purpose seems to be supporting a tiny TV. While normally the sight of a television would bring you great joy this one is an eyesore. The black box is a stain in the pristine white of the room. If that weren’t enough the screen is visibly dusty. Odd, as everything else seems to be immaculate.

Had you couches you may be able to escape through a open door to the west.

[Bazly]

The following is my entry to the writing contest. This is my first submission ever, so please tell me what you think!

"Your head spins for a moment as you try and regain your focus. Everything is black for a moment, until the darkness fades and the room before you comes into view. Still feeling disoriented, you try to figure out where you are. Then you smell it. The smell of amonia, disinfectant, and blood. Of course... you're in a...

Hopsital Ward

This room is strange twist on reality that gives you a uneasy feeling just thinking about.

In the western half of the room, everything is a charming white colour. White wallpaper, white square ceramic floor tiles, and a simple white painted ceiling. There is a door to leading out of the room, centered on the western wall, also white, and beside it a small white cupboard. The cupboard is a white cube pushed up against the western wall, and has a silver numeric combination padlock on it. On top of the cupboard are two get well cards, which appear to be for you.

Panning east from the western half of the room, the entire image becomes rather disturbing. In the center of the northern and southern walls, the wallpaper stops. It appears as thought someone ripped down all of the wallpaper in the entire western half of the room. The ceiling matches this, the entire western side of the room having a brown cieling, instead of white. The western walls are a disturbing vision. They are a sickly green colour, although it's hard to notice because the walls themselves are covered in dried blood, and large dark marks that are stains either from water, or some other substance.

Like the western wall, the eastern wall also has a door in its center. It is a strangely shaped iron door, covered almost entirely of rust. Toushing the rusted door knob with your bare hands could be risky. About a foot in front of the door, a black telivision is sitting on the floor. It is bent out of shape, and the screen has been smashed. Strangely enough, although there appears to be no cords attached to the telivision, sparks are flying from the broken screen, and you can hear a static noise coming from the speakers. Also, on the southern wall on the west side of the room, you see a red bed-side table, with two more get well cards on it. These two cards are labelled as being for "Hell." Above the table, mounted on the wall is a large plaster cast. The cast is covered in markings, all of which appear to be just scribbles from a black marker, except for one discernable phrase that reads "In the belly of the beast, my flesh rots. Are you happy mom? Are you happy now?" You get the shivers just looking at it.

On the northern wall, on the west side of the room, there is a large open window, but looking through it you see nothing. All that you can see out the window is black. On the window frame are what appear to have once been curtains, but really are just torn up shreds of fabric hanging in front of the window. Below the window, lying on the floor, is a pile of roses: some pink, some red, and some black. The roses are covered in a red substance that you can only guess is blood."

[David Whyld]

I think... good grief that's long! You'd need a pretty big monitor, or a pretty small font size, to be able to fit all that on one screen.

[Bazly]

Haha, I'll try to take that as a compliment!

[MrPetrov]

I see a future in which contest posts are rated by completeness (read: length) instead of style. Before long I'll be consulting my Webster's to get a better word for brown.

And the commas, oh, the commas. Perhaps even, dare I say it, a semicolon?

Good post, though. Bazly. Keep it up.

[IceHammer]

Coming from David, it probably is.

[NickyDude]

I may have to bring a rule in about word count. :angry:

[Bazly]

I see a future in which contest posts are rated by completeness (read: length) instead of style. Before long I'll be consulting my Webster's to get a better word for brown.

And the commas, oh, the commas. Perhaps even, dare I say it, a semicolon?

Good post, though. Bazly. Keep it up.

Hey, you be careful there. A semi-colon can only be an appropriate replacement for a comma in certain situations.

Thanks though.

[Mystery]

Small particles of dust swirl about in the scattered blades of sunlight that penetrate through what is left of the vinyl blinds that once controlled the amount of natural light allotted to the room. Jagged glass shards jut out from a locked cabinet that still stands on the eastern wall near a small portrait of wild flowers, which contains a partially in tact plaster cast along with the faded scribbling of long forgotten well wishes contained in a couple of get well cards. Perched high in one corner remains the shell of an old twenty-seven inch television set, tangled in the scraps of a dividing curtain that once separated the room into more private sections.


X_x sorry...haven't written much of anything in the past couple of years.