Cuckoo's Nest

All hospital rooms are the same.

It's more than just the fading paint, the cold, steel bed, the crucifix on the wall and the bible in the drawer. The scope of this sameness stretches beyond the acrid smell that pervades all hospitals - the stench of Zonrox, vomit, ethyl alcohol and despair.

Time passes very slowly in these rooms, marked only by the comings and goings of doctors and nurses, relatives and friends. They're all properly optimistic. They say, why you look marvelous, you'll be out of here soon, though for some, anything less than we'll miss you is an absolute lie.

The characters who occupy these rooms may change, but they still act out the same roles. When a family is in crisis, everyone becomes a stereotype.

The tired patient tries to smile and look well for her visitors. Even when weak, she is still beautiful. Her ear is a delicate lily, the back of her neck, whiter than limestone. All she wants to do is sleep, be left to heal in peace.

The panganay barks out orders (call your brother, heat this water, stretch your legs, move your ass!), makes and takes calls, fixes her books, arranges restaurant reservations, talks business, death, money. She is an entity unto herself, fully occupying one corner of the room.

The spouse exaggerates his own previous trips to the hospital, to out-do the actual patient. It's the marathon of the aged, the winner of which gets to suffer the most. (Remember the time I couldn't breathe for 10 minutes? Or when I fainted while I was brushing my teeth so that when I was rushed to the ER the doctors thought I was foaming at the mouth?)

The nervous bunso does the menial work (make copies of this, ijo, ask for the bill, buy me juice downstairs while you're at it), while his significant other holds his hand, walking with him from one nurses's station to the next.

The daughter becomes the parent. She helps dress the one who birthed her, fluffs her pillows, steeps her tea. She constantly makes kuwento, believing that small talk will save the day.(She scraped the car, wouldn't you believe, though I can't blame her, poor dear, she hasn't been eating properly and she hasn't slept in weeks!).

Bored grandchildren look around the room for something, anything to do. They flip channels, munch on crackers, read the newspaper, watch a fly crawl across the window. They take pictures of the hospital apparati - the "push" button on the bed, the oxygen and suction gauges built into the wall, the cross above the suero, water bottles in the fridge - with their new-fangled digital cameras.

It's art, they proclaim, oblivious to their grandmother's horror while they snap photos of her arinola, the spinning spoke of a wheelchair, the hem of her duster, that last burst of color vivid against her pale calf.