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Gray Dreams on Gray Beds

By Sean O’Reilly




The group then passed into the next room. Our footsteps echoed in foreboding synchronization, taping through the hollow tiles on the floors sending eerie reverberations cascading off the walls in the small cold room. The room was almost as hollow and empty as the feelings of those stricken in the room. All it contained were two small gray beds that were side by side only about four feet apart, a small cabinet that lay abandoned in the farthest corner, and posters that depicted the human anatomy littered the otherwise blank white walls.
Two nurses stood smiling serenely at us from behind the bed on the right. The one closest to us began to speak in a blandly cheery voice,
“Is everyone in?” she paused briefly, “Hello and welcome to the termination room, one of the most important rooms in our entire facility. This is the room in which we discard of our undesirable subjects.” That statement passed from her lips and into my consciousness and was comprehended but the message seemed so bland and evoked no emotional reaction. The rest of the group behind me seemed the same. The concept of taking their lives seemed to slip by us.
“And this is how we do it.” The nurse raised her hand brandishing the injection needle clutched between her pale spider leg-like fingers. The brown translucent fluid inside the needle shook menacingly at the turbulence.
“This poison is actually quite similar to the poisons that Nazis used to gas the Jews. But we inject these poisons into the blood stream as apposed to inhalation.” She turned to diagram of the human anatomy behind her and began to describe how the poisons in the gas chambers would work. My attention began fade from the woman speaking and drifted down to the bed in front of me. It was well tucked and neat but it seemed filthy. The dim-gray fabrics emanated death and sorrow. It was then that I realized why these grey beds stuck out so much in my perception of this small room. The walls were dimly lit and unclean as were the tiles on the floor, but the beds were the only things that were truly and purely gray. Everything else was a sickly pale including the nurses and their uniforms as was their hair, stripped from its youth. They’re smiles like the needles they held and numb to any suffering to which they bare witness.
“We inject the poison here,” she pointed to the diagram, “in a vein in the left arm. This way, the infected blood can move to the heart the quickest.” The nurse continued explaining while the nurse who had remained in silence since we had gotten here. She simply stared and smiled at us with a zombie like intensity, the small nurse hat on her head tipped slightly to the side.
The nurse on the left continued to explain the poison’s affects, “…the poison will spread through the blood. When it enters the lungs the breathing of the person will become shallow due to the damage to the alveoli tissue…” she continued the description like a prepared speech with an alien perkiness as artificial as the hollow smile of a child’s doll. “…every nerve or muscle will begin to deteriorate as soon as the infected blood is absorbed as oxygen. The brain thinks that there is a drastic chemical imbalance and begins producing futile chemicals and signals the pulse to increase exponentially. This defense mechanism ironically just speeds up the poisons affects because the toxins circulate even faster.” She paused to giggle at the body’s ignorance only damning itself further. Meanwhile, I was so numb to their cruelty, as if my mind had been coated in cotton as a sense of security. I could only think ‘It would suck to be them.’
“…the poison then reaches its prime target, the brain. The brain cells absorb the toxins slowly they stop reacting and shutdown. The person is conscious the entire time as their mental functions dissolve one by one.” The nurse giggled again as if another’s pain was humorous. Not to my surprise, several of the people in the group behind me joined her in snickering.
She lifted the needle that was still in her hand again, “Well, I think you have a sufficient understanding of how we kill our undesirables here, but…” she pushed down on the flat end of the needle in order to squeeze out the air in preparation for an injection. Some excess poison spurted sinisterly out of the end of the needle, “How about a demonstration?”
“You.” She said as she extended a finger pointing directly at me. “Please, come over to this bed, lay down, and give me your arm.” She said in the same kind and inviting voice with which she had greeted and lectured us.
I stood stationary and I began to quiver lightly as my heart growled like thunder in the back of my head with every pulsation. I began suck air desperately into my clenching lungs. I stepped up timidly to the gray bed. My thoughts were racing but then I realized what I was doing ‘What the ******** is going on? We don’t need a demonstration. Why me? Do I have to? I don’t want to die here! Not like this! I can say no, why can’t they use some one else for this?’ It had all seemed so dull and meaningless until I had been thrust into the line of fire. Now, nothing else mattered beyond staying the ******** away from that bed. I had felt so detached from those whom I perceived to be the victims of this execution. It was simply not my problem; so for lack of perspective I didn’t care, which clearly explained the calm demeanors of those in the group of which I used to be a part. I had been separated from them in essence. I was now a victim whom they looked upon is just some one other person and that their being will remain intact.
I now stood next to the bed, my knees just short of buckling, and my heart slamming violently against my ribcage. I stared blankly at the nurse who seemed to tower over me. I stared desperately scraping into my soul hoping she would release me, for her to liberate me and tell me it was all a sick joke and that I could go home and live, was all I craved. Life had never seemed so precious then when it was threatened so bluntly by a needle.
“Please lay down and it will all be over soon.” She spoke again in an untouched kind and innocent tone. My mind kept screaming. ‘You don’t have to do this at all! Should my death be as meaningless as this?! Can’t this fate be spared?! This isn’t necessary you dumb sadistic b***h!’ My body still refused to respond or revolt in any way. Her stare was unrelenting like the artificial glare of the puppet she was, and who can deny a puppet’s demands.
My body slowly rested itself upon the bed. In doing so, I rustled up the dust and smoke of the screams and sufferings passed. The cloud of smoke lingered around my head and I winced as I heard their final shrieks in black blood lust that split through my flesh and I began to choke on their torment.
I felt the nurses cold hand curl around the inside of my arm. This was the end, ‘Nothing beyond this point matters’ I thought. I could suddenly see time in a flash, it all became tangible. Instead of looking behind me as I floated in time to look upon on my life, desperately searching for some proof that I existed or some justification of my existence. All I could was look forward to the two-way mirror that stood before me. It eclipsed anything they may have been ahead of me. I did not squint for a glimpse of what lay beyond the mirror. I knew that it was nothing more than a dark abyss of meaningless at which my perspective would cease to exist.
I stared at the corpse that was my reflection. Its eyes were nothing but black pits, empty of feeling. I lifted a hand and placed it to the mirror as did the corpse. Our hands connected but I only felt the cold glass. My arm began to sting and I pulled my hand away quickly. There was a blood stain where my hand had been.
I whirled my head around to see the needle piercing my skin. The nurse pushed on the end of the needle and the cruel brown liquid slid into the needle and slithered into my vein and I felt the toxins pulsate into me. I turned back to the mirror just in time to see my crimson blood stain turn to gray.