Dante's Hospital
The rich live; the poor wish they were dead. The world had long moved on from the trivial traditional beliefs of family. Parents get divorced, children get abused, children get neglected, adults have affairs and second wives, custody cases, and settlements. Messy. That’s what families are. Messy. Uncontrollable and ungovernable is the traditional home, each household its own legislation outside of the State. So, modern society eradicated it.
Oh, those who can, do. Those who can afford a room in the towering crystal apartments that loom over the city, or otherwise a closet in the slums, are free to live their lives in tense solidarity. Those who can afford it buy their privacy. A strong door to shut away all the cameras and headlines that come from every intrusive picture and news report. Pay your rent, shut your door, and turn the lock! Turn a blind eye to the collapsed middle class, and be wary of your place! Fall too far down the social ladder and you might as well accept your damnation.
Don’t worry! The healthcare system has been revised and incentivized! Rewired and inspired! No more will petty cash and wellness checks be sent out for the sorry suckers struggling in this economy. No more will there be wailing in the streets, discomfort for our citizens, and an imbalance of status! Welcome to the new age, where society takes care of you.
Instead of the grueling streets, we give you harsh fluorescents and linoleum! We give you grandeur marquees and a thousand floors! Squint at our blinding flashing lights, and read, DANTE’S HOSPITAL. Ah yes, the hospital. A staple for modern society, the hospital has become for some what church once was. The eyes that saw it first constructed have long since closed forever, but the hospital remains. Some have called this hospital the heart of society, caring and bleeding out for us all. Others call it the mouth, ever speaking, ever lying, and eating up whoever dares to be cared for.
How does the hospital take credit for solving the economic crisis that swept the nation and threatened our livelihoods? Well, by scooping up the impoverished right off the streets, and affording them a place to stay, a place to be fed, and cared for. With no money to pay the hospital back, the hospital is more than generous to allow them to live there eternally, with a condition. Of course, with such resources spilling into billions of patients, there must be some compensation. Otherwise, the institution would collapse! There must be some oil for the machine, which not only runs, it charges!
While the rich pay for their privacy, it’s how the poor pay! In exchange for a comfortable survival, you become the object of projected entertainment. A life of luxury is never without cost, and there are sacrifices we all must make. The hospital recognizes that labour without pay is slavery at best, torture at worst. Thus, each patient is therefore employed at the hospital to promote a sense of community, wellness, and contribution to the betterment and progress of society.
What might this job be, you ask? What a wonderful and exciting question! With the deterioration (for the better) of the family ‘unit’, the question of humanity’s reproduction became unanswerable and complicated. With the threat of societal collapse, the hospital elected to provide a solution that took the situation out of the hands of the people, who had got us into this mess to begin with. By removing reproduction from sexual pursuits and pleasure, it became a product of production (reproduction, you understand). The modern woman cannot be bothered with such drastic life-altering decisions such as childbirth, ruining her body, and imposing financial demands. Thus, it seemed simple, really. The patients of the hospital would fulfill their duty to society and receive compensation for their services by doing the dirty work of doing the dirty.
So ladies and gentlemen, spread your legs for your kinsmen and your country! Compensation comes in collaboration, and what is a hospital if not the collaboration of patients and doctors for the betterment of society? The raunchy sexual identity of human pleasure combined with the marvel of science that is pregnancy, and none of the bleeding heart responsibility of motherhood. Baby in, out, and gone! Rinse and repeat!
Yet, there is always a ’but’ to the equation. But what to do with the children? We cannot orphan them anymore than we can allow them to be mothered by their biological carriers. These ‘parents’ could hardly take care of themselves; they cannot be taking care of other children. Especially not when they are needed to return to their cycle of childbirth as soon as physically allowing. So, a glaring reality came to light.
A distinct separation between classes, meaning those out and those in the hospital, that demanded to be bridged. Those of the upper class could afford not to care about the tedious toils of the disparaged. Much less, any child. The question begged and foamed at the mouth of how to provoke empathy and attention? How to connect the two worlds, and provide a society that would accept and adopt these productions as their own children, and raise them to meet the principles of civilization? Of course, we must shove this problem in their face, in such a way that they believe that it is out of the kindness of their hearts that they care. Let the upper class come to the solution that has been laid out for them, and let them believe they’ve come to it willingly, and on their own.
Remember, as we stated before, the patients of the hospital have already waved a right to privacy. Though, whether the phrase ‘waved’ or ‘had pried from their grip’, is more accurate, who is to say? Regardless, to provoke empathy from those who could afford to turn a blind eye, we must give them something watchable. Something that projected damnation and provided some recourse. Something that satisfied the vulgar sex appeal, and provided high stakes for action, with compelling and likable characters to root for. Or hate, either way, whatever keeps the screens on.
Thus, the patient’s reality of ‘work’ became something for entertainment. A fight for favoritism in a production that pitted women against each other. The more likable you became, the more care you received. Time to rest, adoring attention, sweeter words. Dislikable, and you fell into a cycle of pain and humiliation, all projected for hateful voyeurs to criticize and love simultaneously. Best of luck!
Vulnerability ceases to exist when a camera and lighting are examining, broadcasting, and showcasing your body in high definition! If the audience doesn’t see your sex appeal, you’ll be damned! Are you conscious of every inch of yourself as you approach your partner, every breath, every glance? Hope your fears don’t hinder your performance. At least act like you’re enjoying yourself, or we’ll gut you in the ratings.
Don’t focus too much on who you’re with, or who is watching. You can’t see the cameraman for the glaring lights, nor does it matter. Your partner doesn’t know your name. You’re both just two out of thousands. Complete the transaction and swallow down the bile in your throat, only to vomit it up later when finally, no one is watching.
For a glorious nine months, the journey of pregnancy and the medical science associated is documented and filmed to both inform the watcher, and provoke sympathy for the mother’s conditions. Edit and cut the journey, frame it to portray these women as angelic warriors for their people. Make the women of high society adore them so much they’re almost sick with jealousy. Romanticize and glorify this life, bombard the media with the pregnant martyr. Focus on the idea that the audience is providing love to the mother, support in these trying times, rather than participating in, and enabling the violation of, their existence. Every viewer believes the patient’s life is made better because they care, when rather, each new pair of peering eyes further pushes the circus act of degradation.
I suppose this is where I come into perspective. Having used the encapsulating we throughout, I now avow to my identity, and therefore take claim and confession to the reality of it all. This is a testament and tale of what I have borne witness to. This is the lament of a woman in ‘care’.
Sun blinding my eyes, I missed the dreary overcast clouds, and raised a shaky hand to shade my face. I do not remember how long I’d been walking down this sorry looking street. It seemed that my consciousness began as the soles of my shoes slapped the sidewalk. I remember knowing I was dirty, much like the crumbling buildings around me, with their overgrown yards and broken structures. I seem to recall knowing, though how I knew I had mere minutes before that sinister black car would turn down my street and invite me to be ‘cared for’ I cannot explain. Somehow, I knew resistance would be futile. This is what always happens. One always thinks, but it will never happen to me. And then, when of course, it does, it seemed childish to think otherwise. Of course, one might think. Of course this happened, and of course it happened to me. Perhaps this is what made my resignation to the insincere smiles and groping hands easier than my bosom buddies.
Fluorescent lights and linoleum floors enclosed me. As soon as I stepped across the threshold and became another name on the list of patients, I sacrificed my identity. I am both the cage and the caged. Myself is caged within this body, and my body is caged within these mazed corridors and camera angles.
I had the pleasure of meeting a young woman, crisp as her features may be, her name exists only in my memory in a foggy and garbled series of syllables and sounds, undecipherable now. I will call her ‘Jane,’ as she fades away with all the other ’Jane Does.” I remember her tired eyes and freshly washed hair, which stuck to her pillow like octopus tentacles sprawling out. There are wildflowers in a plastic vase on her bedside; only four, and drooping. There is a half drank glass of water on my own table. I will not drink the rest.
No less than ten children have been borne by her; she hasn’t looked a single one in the eyes. I remember her sigh of exhaustion as she smiled at me. I remember her. I remember I had no words for her. Her third trimester belly seemed ready to pop.
“You can put that change back in your dresser, there’s no use counting it.” Her smile turned rigid with her words.
“I’m saving it,” I answered quietly.
“I know. I’ve got a bit saved up too. There’s no use, really. You’ll never save enough to leave, and if you did, it wouldn’t matter.”
“Why wouldn’t it matter? I don’t want to be condemned here forever.” Bitterness bites behind my words.
“Do you think you’re the first to suffer here? Please.” She pushed herself up to look me better in the eyes. “Sweet girl, they’ll ruin you.”
“Not forever.”
“Let me guess. You, defiant and young, believe that just because no one else has left, doesn’t mean you can’t? Aren’t you just young, bold, and better than us? Do you think the rest of the women in this hospital are weak, then? Do you think that you are better than us? That we are just somehow devoid of passions or complacent in our circumstances? That we didn’t want to leave enough?
“Do you hear how vain and vulgar that is? Well, if you want to play god, go ahead and save us all when you do. I mean, we just didn’t try hard enough, is that it? You let me know how easily you can look someone in the eyes and act in such a way when you’re cleaning yourself up after a faceless stranger just ravaged you for peering voyeurs. If you can look anyone in the eyes at all.”
Crass, but not cruel, her words sunk into my skin and crawled around like bugs. I had the urge to scratch it off. I had given myself a safe little savior complex in a hospital of martyrs. Something deep and sickening sat in my chest, weighing me down to sleep.
If the men were wearing masks, I might’ve seen some humanity behind their eyes. Then again, maybe my monstrous notions would be confirmed. I saw her legs open, and offered Jane some dignity by looking elsewhere. I do not think she could see me beyond the nearing and rolling camera, projecting her contractions and wails of childbirth. A pair of bleached teeth recite the medical technicalities of what the audience might witness. A beacon of a spotlight is poised for the pop, and a scream erupts from Jane’s agony. Whether childbirth or hatred, I cannot be sure.
The doctors cheered for themselves afterward. They told Jane her performance had improved. That ratings went well. She’d sweat too much, however, and prettier pregnancies received more attention. Six weeks of bed rest.
I walked behind her as they wheeled her back to her room. Seeing her lying on her back, as they rolled her ‘bed’ to her room, I thought of a corpse being carried in a casket. Oh, can you grieve someone who has not yet died? I grieved her then. I grieve her still.
The doctors are having a conversation. I sense the vulgarity in their words, and even the pitch of their voices make me sick, so I turn my attention elsewhere. Water damage in the ceiling, scrubbed tile that never looks quite clean, the unsettling sound of unseen people. I can hear phones ringing, echoing through these walls and reaching me. I can hear the laments of the women, I can hear the constant reply.
The helpline. The number is handed like a golden token to every patient upon entry, with the glorious promise that help is only a call away! Furthermore, it intends to bypass the doctors’ and nurses’ ranks, reaching the big man himself: our lord and savior, the Director of the hospital. The man who supposedly owns it all! With petty complaints or thoughts of suicide, his ear is open to every voice, every time, all at once! So they call…and they call…and they call. Desperation is a mean mistress, it makes you beg the hand that takes away from you. Always, always, the automated reply after the click of the line: “Remember we are always here to help you, and nothing is ever wrong! Please call again, and remember! To always, always, be grateful.” The sickly sweet cheerful voice chases me down the hall. I cannot unhear it.
The dark rings around Jane’s eyes when they lifted her into bed made her seem even more ghostly. Shaking and sighing, I saw a glimpse of defeat in her eyes. Perhaps this is why no had left; no one had won. They beat you down until you lie there and take it. They drain you of your life for entertainment and call it compassion.
Jane winced, clutching her side. Her lips pinched together, face concentrated, until whatever stab of pain subsided. Her free hand stroked her wilting flowers. I ask her a horrid question, I should have swallowed it back down, but I asked her, horridly, if she was okay.
“I’ve done this plenty of times,” she said, picking at petals, “I’ve gotten a little less shocked by it. Doesn’t change how it is, but in my mind I pretend it does.” She thinks for a moment, nearly pulling the bud off the stem. She tugs, threatening to, but releases, letting it droop. “I think they’re going to kill me.”
My eyes widened with alarm, and Jane chuckled softly. “No, no. Not like they’re going to kill me, like a crime. But, like this is going to kill me, and it’s going to make one hell of a plot twist. Or maybe no one will care…maybe someone with a better body and less self loathing will capture the audience’s attention and won’t care to–” here she erupted into sobs, ripping her throat and shaking her shoulders.
