A faceless aide rolled me over and slid the sheet out from under me. I lay looking at the floor where it met the pale green walls. When she rolled me to the other side I saw a woman in the other bed. She was reading quietly, flat on her back, the book held with both hands above her nose. When I was in place on my back again I felt thin plastic crackling beneath the bedsheet.

At some point a man came in and stood at the foot of my bed. He stared at me for a moment and then spoke. The buzz in my ears had receded and I could hear him, but fuzzily. His voice had the effect of being overheard, just that blur of volume and clarity that would occur if he were speaking to someone else entirely. He introduced himself as Dr. Bump. He looked so fierce when he spoke the name that I grinned. He was annoyed.

“What made you do a stupid thing like that?”

I grinned blankly.

“Wouldn’t your father let you use the car that night?”

His scorn was heavy. I thought of his daughter immediately and then it occurred to me that he must not have read my chart if he thought I was still a chubby teenager. He was lined and pale. His eyes seemed lidless, uncovered and angry.

“And like all of them, you did a fouled-up job. Aspirin in sufficient quantity acts as a stimulant, which, combined with the depressants you took, the alcohol and whatnot, was simply canceled out. You were nowhere near dying. Not for a minute. But I’ll tell you what you damned near did. You came close enough to making yourself deaf for life! That’s what aspirin can do!”

I felt myself blushing.

“I can’t seem to move my legs,” I said.

“Sure you can. It will just hurt for a few days.”

“Have you got a daughter?” I asked in my friendliest tone.

“Yes. And do you know what I’d do to her if she ever pulled a stunt like yours?”

I smiled, anticipating.

“I’ll tell you what I told your mother when she asked me if you should see a psychiatrist. I told her, ‘If my daughter ever did what your daughter just did, I wouldn’t send her to a psychiatrist, I’d bend her over and blister her bottom with a hairbrush.’”

I laughed delightedly. The only way to disarm the old clot. I looked forward to his coming again so I could impress him with my intelligent good humor, but I never saw him again.

Good humor had taken me over. I laughed at nothing and was impulsively courteous to the aides. An odd repose had penetrated my entrails and permeated my every system. I slept and ate and lay watching the walls and the window and listening to the activity in the corridor.