The Plain White Room by Oliver Phisher Read Free Book Online Page A

Morell
    Lepus sat in the television room of his hospital ward, fevering away at his notes as usual. He was oblivious as the other patients and staff glided around him. His eyes strained. He felt almost as if he was asleep, drifting in and out as his mind raced. Concentration snapped, and he was back into reality. He looked around, and the room had emptied. The only other people awake were a frail looking Asian girl and a young man staring at the television screen. The girl lay crouched in a lounge chair. Her eyes fixated on a bible. Lepus leaned forward, curious about the boy, as he seemed enthralled with the television screen. Even though only the credits of a show were on the screen. Lepus then realised the thin adolescent was staring out a nearby window.
    His head turned and cocked, as he noticed Lepus watching him.
    “How did you get here?” he said, his voice strained.
    Lepus shifted in his seat looking around, seeing if there was anyone behind him, the strange man might have been speaking to.
    He was a tall, skinny young man. Around eighteen or nineteen, and his stubble was patchy and unkempt. But his eyes were a kind, dark brown. He sat upright, straight in the chair between the empty couches. This amplified his almost military stiffness. His knees were sticking out due to knowing how tall he was. So there they both sat frozen in awkwardness his question hovering unanswered.
    Lepus’s anxiety began to build. As he struggled to think of a way he could respond. He just wanted to restore the status quo. Allow himself to delve back into his little world of equations and graphs.
    “I don’t think we know, I … I don’t believe that we are you see.” He said a desperation in his voice.
    Seeming more like he was looking past Lepus instead of at him. “I’m not complaining or anything, I just. We aren’t where we think we are, once you realise. You, don’t even realise anyway, you can’t." There was a long pause, as Lepus sat feeling like a deer in headlights.
    “Do you have a guitar?” he said without warning, looking at Lepus.
    “I’m trying to learn the D chord. It's difficult. I don’t think there are any guitars here.”
    “Right, ah I’ll try and see if I can find one,” Lepus said trying to be empathetic. He stood up and walking away wondered if he would be able to not return without the man noticing. Was he perhaps catatonic? Was his lucidity honly fleeting?
    ***
    Lepus sat as far from the entry in the cafeteria as he could, on the brink of his mind, the end this thesis. Soon will come the long, arduous task of editing, re-editing, and rewriting. Then the fact checking, Lepus sighed, with the weight of future tasks. It felt as though he has been at this point forever, or at least since hisarrival at the hospital. So strange, how many times he seems to be having deja vu recently. How many times he could have sworn he had already written this last sentence. His pen scratched over the words; And I believe I have shown enough evidence here, that this is the case. Then, as stipulated earlier, we could improve the particle separation method currently. This would increase efficiency, and reduce costs. A man shuffled in from the other side of the room, and Lepus looked up to observe him. It seemed as though he didn’t see Lepus. Not a large man, he was young but had had an odd life, and did not have the healthiest of diets. His quiet calm nature had a certain beauty to it. He sat down at the piano, still thinking that he was alone in the cafeteria. Lepus wondered, on the edge of his seat, if he was going to play a note or two. To cause a horrible sound to resonate throughout the room. This was the first time he had seen him in the ‘Low dependency' ward. Dave’s hands launch onto the piano. They pounded and flung on only the black keys, as he played the most beautiful melody Lepus had ever heard. Lepus’s jaw loosened, as he stared as the young tubby man’s hands moving up and down the piano, still