UCSD Gothic: Run down the path towards the hospital.
The ground is plush and damp, dewy leaf and chewed twig, and your hurried pace stirs up the forest decay until the path spits you onto a gray, asphalt road. You skid to a stop and nearly fall in front of the steps to the campus clinic. Its facade of rotting wood does not deter you; without checking your surroundings, you enter through an office window left open and shut it closed behind you. Hiding beneath a desk, you hear the window rattle and only dare to peek out when the shaking subsides.
The moon bears a full face; its shine is too strong and you cover your eyes, crawling from the office and into the hallway. Thin light filters the carpet floor. Signs warning of medicinal side effects litter the walls. A clock beats time with its third hand. Shadow is night’s guest in this empty building and its only roosts are the corner of rooms or the lobby’s rows of chairs. You turn to search for a more secure hideaway, perhaps a utility closet or a restroom, only to face Mother.
Mother is tall and gracious, the size and awe of her body overwhelming not only the narrow hallway but also any logical reaction. Her figure curved like the sides of an antique lamp, veiled by hair no more transparent than a jellyfish’s veins, each finger of her hand bifurcated into a tentacle. Eyes non-existent, lips like cleaved wafer, skin whiter than quartz’s core. You know in your head that she is of no relation to you, neither blood-shared nor kin-obliged, but your heart screams her name: Mother, Mother, Mother!
You allow yourself to be taken by her. Tentacles wrap around your body and lift you. Your mouth opens to vocalize your fear, the pounding punishment of an anxious heart, but Mother continues her round through the clinic and your mouth gapes at the ceiling moving above at the speed of two continents bound for collision until Mother halts and opens one of the clinic’s rooms.
Inside the room are the usual contraptions of a hospital: sheets and walls more blank than an unfilled notebook, a bed, and its patient. Mother guides you to the patient. It is you but not you — it is your body, motionless and lacking of energy wasted on breath or dream. The moon is now thin, the rim of light’s reservoir.
With a sweep more fitting for lifting one’s skirt, Mother tucks you back into your body. As she smooths the covers over your once-comatose form, you open your eyes to the rising sun, white, blank hospital walls no more as pale yellow leaks into the room. Mother is not there by your bedside but an imprint of her tentacle remains on the linen, and your fingers hover over it to absorb the lingering coolness of her body.
YOU SURVIVED.
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