I'M NOT ADRIFT | Eminem

- Detroit, October 1991 -

Warm colored sphere lights illuminated the walk way into the hospital.
It's October, I'm clinging onto my knit sweater desperately. Chilled air still slips in like the spam emails in your inbox. You don't notice until it gets too much. I'm cold and it's overwhelming.
I'd like to be in the hospital now.

When we do get inside, I stare at the large stained glass window on one of the walls.
The ground floor has higher ceilings, more detail put into it's presentation.
It's the type of window you'd see in a chapel.
Jesus with one hand up, the other holding a cross.
A dove is above him, 'light' cascading down from its figure.

I have a sense I've seen the window before.
I don't dwell on it but I get more nervous with each day as the settings of my dreams become real places I visit within a few months.
I've been told by a friend that she thinks I'm psychic.
Not a good thing to tell a psychotic person.
But I guess I feel like I psychic if my dreams predict where I'll end up in a month or more time.

Oh well, mom flagged down a sign directing us to the ER.
It's a floor up. We search for an elevator.
I feel a sense of urgency... a sense that I'm escaping my body against my will.
I can't do much about this feeling, but my body twitches and tics anxiously to express the odd feeling.
It almost feels as if I'm high when I get like this.
I feel like I'm floating.

"There's a Starbucks in here somewhere, we can get something to eat while we wait."
America's healthcare system for people who aren't insanely rich is a very poor institution.
Luckily my parents are on the more comfortable side when it comes to money, but I feel guilty about this trip regardless.

When we get into the Emergency Room, it's stuffed with people, either concerned mothers of infants, elderly people warding off the flu or random hypochondriacs.
That aside, say for the odd rich guy whose probably just been stung by a bee and had a weird reaction, all the people in here are here as a last resort.
You can't waist money on nothing or even something serious if you can't afford it.

Mom looks around awkwardly, turning to the security guard and asking how the situation works.
We don't seem to rushed or urgent, so he just looks at me with a tilt to his head.
I'm twitching and flinching at nothing. He raises an eyebrow and tells us to take a ticket from the machine and wait till they call our number.

We get number 64.
The digital sign above says the number 42.
We know it will be a wait, just depends how long.
There's only one nurse at a desk in the whole ER.
So yeah, it might take a bit.

Mom thanks the security guard, slips the ticket into her puffer jacket pocket before ushering me out of the crowded room.
"Alright let's go get a snack" she suggests, and we walk the quiet and dimly lit hallways of the seemingly endless hospital.
Eventually she finds a sign that directs to the Starbucks.
It's up another floor, so we get on another elevator.
"Hopefully by the time we get back they'll have gone through a fair amount of people" mom thinks out loud, looking at the metal doors.
Hospital elevators are quite spacious.
You could fit a twin bed and then some in here.
Well they do... those rolling hospital beds.
Anyways, I skipped around the elevator like an elementary school kid.
I hoped it would get some energy out of my frantic body.
It doesn't really but I enjoy doing it for some reason.
I may be sixteen but I have the charisma and energy of a five year old who had a sip of coffee against their mother's permission.

We get out on the floor of the Starbucks and lucky enough it's right there when you walk out of the elevating metal box.
We slip inside and wait behind a pregnant woman and her friend... or girlfriend... I don't know.