2021 riverrun Final PDF

The Little Things You Notice
Tatianna Obert
S
he woke up the next morning and couldn’t figure out what time it was.
She looked around for a clock but couldn’t find one. Her hair had a nasty
snarl near her temple that her fingers couldn’t tame, and her spit
tasted bitter. She had no toothbrush and her nipples felt chafed from
the scratchy, semi see-through scrubs they give you to wear. She didn’t want to
leave the room but staying there wasn’t very appealing either. There was a knock at
the door, and she invited whoever in. She still had no idea what her roommate even
looked like. A nurse shuffled across the floor wheeling a portable vital reading machine
behind her. “Good morning,” she said quietly, even though it still felt too loud.
You said that you had poor body image of yourself because of me. I am not
willing to accept responsibility for that.
They made her play bingo. She always hated bingo, but this one was exponentially
worse. The fat, sweaty man sat two people down from her at the end of the
table. She could hear his wheezing breath in her ear like a constant reminder of
where she ended up. He walked in here on a cane. His sides bulged so far from the
chair that people had to walk to and around the other side of the table to get anywhere.
“B-6,” he called. She didn’t have that one either. It was in this moment that
she first noticed the nurse in the corner. They must watch you. Waiting for you to do
something that isn’t normal. Playing bingo is normal, but acting like it isn’t fun is
not. She couldn’t bring herself to smile though. She had just enough energy and focus
to force herself to sit there between the elderly lady, who was so enthusiastic
about bingo that she must have been in there for a long time and the boy about her
age, who wouldn’t say a word to anyone and kept his head bent forward. The prizes
were bottles of shampoo and tubes of toothpaste. The nurse wrote something on his
clipboard and scuffle away.
55