The Plain White Room (10 page)

“I think I might go to bed now,” John stood, using his right hand to raise himself up and walked away. Lepus watched him walk down the hall and then disappear.

Behind him there was a scream through the doors, two nurses dragging a tall, dark looking man.

“NO, no you don’t understand!”, he yelled.

“Come on buddy, it’s for your own safety,” one of the nurses said trying to sooth the patient.

Lepus had seen him around before. His beautiful girlfriend had often visited him. Lepus didn’t know his name, but he always seemed well adjusted. When Lepus had first noticed him, one day is sitting in the cafeteria. He had mumbled something about ‘everyone mishearing him’, or misunderstanding the way he spoke. Didn’t make much sense to Lepus. He presumed that was seeing the tip of the iceberg. The sanest parts which seem to float around this area of the hospital. Waiting and watching for their bat-shit crazy selves to come out with a vengeance.

“Listen to me, just listen to me!” Lepus heard the short afro-haired man say over the racket of other patients coming to watch.

“The rhino’s you see, they are everywhere. They are all around, in the streets, but no one seems to notice them! Look, I do not see things, you're just not getting it, they just want everyone to be mindful where they step! THE RINO’S, I’M TELLING YOU, they want to help you! THEY ARE EVERYWHERE! ON SKATEBOARDS…” at this point the nurses had closed the door, having escorted him into HD.

Lepus leant his head against the door and overheard the man continue to yell.

“They’re on skateboards, someone put them there, but no one is paying attention, the rhinos. They don’t want anyone to gets hurt!”

“…and these rhinos… they threatened you?” Lepus overheard a doctor say.

“What? No, what the hell are you on about? They must be on like, steel skateboards, or diamond skateboards; rhinos weigh so much. I mean that’s the point isn’t it?”

“I don’t follow your point, but I’m glad you have started to lower your voice… how long have you seen these.. these zoo animals?”

Lepus didn't hear much after that and decided to tootle off back to bed.

The tall, dark, afro man had deep-seated issues, which he had long, kept hidden from the world.

***

Lepus sat staring out a window in the lounge room of the ward. He couldn’t write anymore; he felt like he was going in circles. Drawing graphs with no relevance to what he was writing.
 

It was night outside, but the moon shone full. Lepus could see the whole yard, a park bench, a distance gazebo and a ping pong table.
 

A sudden noise brought Lepus out of his trance. Behind him, a door to the conjoining ward opened and a patient rushing through. He was a tall, lanky Asian man, wearing a loose light green shirt and khaki pants. His feet were bare and discoloured. Lepus couldn’t tell if they were dirty or if it was something else.
 

“I just want my charger” he barked at a nurse rushing to the fishbowl.

“Okay, that’s fine let's talk. But I need you to calm down” The nurse said motioning downwards with both her hands. Her palms faced to the ground. He disappeared through one door one of the doors and then appeared again from the other door. There must not have been someone in the room between as neither of the doors was locked. HD and LD as there was usually was. That or they were unable to grab the gentleman as he ran through.
 

“I need a to call my daughter.” the man was Vietnamese and spoke with a strong accent in broken English.

“I call her every night,” He said as he walked back out into HD.
 

Lepus turned back to his notes hoping the spectacle was over. But only a moment later the same door opened.  The man was then lumbered out the same door by two of the larger orderlies

“I’m sorry, I just need to call her you see” he was saying to them as they placed him on one of the couches. “Okay buddy,” one of them said as he sat down “We’ve got your phone charging so you’ll be able to call her soon. We’ll bring it out when it’s charged.” they said walking back through the doors.
 

The man sat quietly for a moment and caught his breath. Then looking around the common room. Lepus eased his textbook under his exercise book in preparation to head back to his room.
 

As he began to push his chair backwards with his legs, he heard a voice from across the table.
 

“Hello,” the man said with a raspy voice. Lepus looked up, and the same Asian man was sitting across from him. What Lepus had dreaded happened too fast for him to steal away.
 

“Sorry for the commotion. I am Chong,” the man said putting both his hands on his chest.

“Hello, I’m Lepus,” he said, sliding his books towards himself. He hoped the man would see this and perhaps leave him alone. “Don’t worry it’s fine. There are far worse, and louder things are happening around here.” He said smiling with a bleak smirk.
 

“Oh, ha-ha, yes,” the thin Asian man said nodding and replicating Lepus’s smile.
 

“You are, um studying?” he man said motioning to Lepus’s books.
 

“Yes,” he said, “Uh ah,” Lepus coughed and leaned over his books to go back to work. “I’m doing my Ph.D.”
 

“Ah, what is this?” the man said pulling his chair in closer.
 

“Um, like a university doctorate.”
 

“Oh, doctor, like medicine,” he said lighting up, Lepus chuckled.
 

“Ah no, not quite. Physics, science. But yes, I will be a type of doctor.”
 

“Aw… yes. I see, I see.”
 

Lepus smiled politely and looked back down at his work.
 

“Me, I’m a shoemaker, best in all Ho Chi Minh City. Oh yes. In Vietnam. Here, I repair shoes. My daughter live here. I move to be with her. Not easy, though. I come here for a bit. Just a little while. Still call her, though. I let you work, yes. Work important. But not all thing yes?” he said putting his hand on Lepus’s shoulder.”
 

“Yes,” Lepus said with an awkward smile.
 

The man sat back down where the orderlies had placed him. Lepus stared into space and spun his pen in his hands for a moment.
 

The orderlies soon came back and handed Chong his phone. He thanked them repeatedly and went to his room to call his daughter. Lepus didn’t notice, though; he sat staring into space.
 

Lost in his thoughts.

***

Later that night Lepus’s car glided past the entry to a pub. Rain pelting down, beating like a drum on the roof “is that the place?” he breathed.

“Yeah, yeah I think so,” Alice replied with pep.

Lepus pulled around the back of the place and parked.

Alice put her head against the car head rest and started into his eyes. Green eyes as wide as could be, she shuffled towards him, “Thank you for bringing me, I hope you have fun.”

“I’m with you, of course, I will” He smiled back, then kissed her. The rain eased to a pitter-patter. Neither of them noticed the sound change.

There was a tap on Alice’s window; then both looked up, and there was a short guy with light brown hair. His hair soaked, as was his jacket, but he didn’t seem to mind. He was grinning from ear to ear. Alice wound down her window, “Hey Lachlan, this is my boyfriend Lepus” Alice said putting her hand on Lepus’s leg.

Lepus leant over and waved “Hey”, the heavens opened once more, and Lepus called over the rain “Get in!” to Lachlan.

“Cheers!” he shouted getting into the back and shaking himself off. His jacket was a light velvet brown. Not particularly flashy but, for some reason, Lepus had the thought that it had been selected with great care and attention. Both when purchased and when selected for tonight. It had an almost vintage look but was quite new going by the tag, which Lepus noticed still dangling on the inside of the left pocket. Now and then, in an absent-minded fashion, the man would take out a lighter, open and close it. Then put it away. It was a zippo withan aged look to it.

His khaki was light brown too, and he often brushed this knee as if there fluff he was trying to remove. He did this once or twice after foundling his lighter and then putting it back in his pocket.

“So have you guys been in there yet?” Lachlan said moving to the middle seat in the back.

“No, no we just go here, is it good?” Lepus said, him and Alice turning to face Lachlan in the back.

“Yeah, yeah it's great, some super good bands. Alice, Jess is looking for you, she thought you were already here.”

“Oh oops, I told her I was coming earlier. I forgot! I’m going to goin.”

“Do you mind if I wait for the rain to stop?” Lepus said,

“Sure!” Alice said kissing his cheek and jumping out of the car.

“I’m going to wait as well; it’s getting a bit loud in there for me. If it’s okay that I stay?”

“Of course!” said Lepus, “So how do you know Alice?”

“Oh I just know her through Jess, I went to school with Jess, have known her for years.”

“Ah, so what do you do with yourself?”

“I’m studying politics at the moment.”

“Oh, that's interesting! I’m studying too, what’s politics like?”

“It’s frustrating; I’ve been studying it for years but this my first time at a university level. The lectures are so biased it's pathetic."

Lupus chuckled, trying to be friendly in his awkward way. "Isn't that to be expected?"

He feared that maybe that was not something he should have said. He was relieved when Lachlan said back, "Oh well I suppose so," smiling. Lepus noticed that he had an innocent way to him, an intenseness also. That bubbling underneath the surface was a child that wanted to yell and scream something at the world. Instead, now being a young adult, it manifested itself as a fidgeting nature. Lepus tried to guess how old he was; he seemed far younger than Alice and himself, but that might have just been his childish nature.

"So when you say you've been studying it for years... ?"

“Well I’ve been studying, just not at university. I started reading when I was young, younger than most. Also, my father is a professor at the University. So I’ve been studying politics most of my life.”

“Ah, so what is your favourite aspect of politics?”

“Favourite?”

“Oh well I don’t know, I mean what draws you into it? What do you find most interesting about it?”

“I suppose that I am drawn to the real world applications.” He said with an air of self-importance. Easing back into the car seat.

“I mean few people or at least not enough for my liking spend  time thinking about the things that are important. Don’t you think?”

“Um, well yes I guess. Do you mean about politics?”

“Well, yes. Everything though, I suppose.”

He pursed his lips and looked down, brushing his coat as he did.

“I don’t think things are anywhere near where they should be. Or could be. Take the…” the boy mumbled as he looked down and shuffled again in his seat. Lepus didn’t catch a chunk of what he said, as he had started speaking much faster.

“…for example now what they’re doing with labour ‘reform’ as they call it is ridiculous,” making quotation marks with his fingers as he said the word reform. Lepus went to cut in, to let him know he had missed a key phrase, but the boy barely stopped for breath. So he decided to just let it pass.

“Yet you talk to anyone on the street about it, anyone, I mean, anyone. None of them knows anything about it. Lepus took an involuntary gulp, but Lachlan didn’t seem to notice. Lepus despised conversations like this. We’re others seemed to trust the assumption onto him that they held similar views to himself. He fell into the category the young man was talking about. He had no idea what was going on with that and now felt the obligation to feign an understanding. He had always stayed away from current events. Preferring much better the purity unemotional science news. Which was only ever exciting to him and the long forgotten history. For the most part, the “Oh I don’t much care for politics” had served him well. Saved him from many passionate looking guestsat parties who he sensed were hoping for a roaring discussion. The kind of conversation which would make him uncomfortable.

He’d  fallen into a trap, thinking this chap would be studying, learning and interested in the past, not the present. From a young age, any curiosity or interest in politics had been met with silence in Lepus’s household. God had a plan, so the comings and goings of the state had little importance, in the opinion of Lepus’s parents. He still remembered his mother's stiff upper lip twitching after he raised a question regarding something he overheard on radio in the street once. He could no longer remember the question or the contentious issue which was raised. Just her lip is quivering as she stared at him. Not knowing the words to vocalise her anger.

Lepus thought it might be safer to find a way to change the subject instead of seeing how long it took the guy to work out Lepus had no idea what he was saying.

“Right, of course. I see” he said nodding.

“I’m sure you’re an expert on the situation, but it’s just history repeating itself in my

opinion… isn’t it?” Lepus said gritting his teeth, hoping that his vague statement struck a chord.

Lachlan furrowed his brow and licked his lips. His back seemed to straighten and then he moved in towards Lepus. At first, Lepus thought he’d made a complete fool of himself, but then he realised the man was in fact thinking for quite awhile about it.

“Yes, yes of course. You’re right, exactly, you know I don’t think I’d thought of it that way.”

He cleared his throat, and his brow returned to its natural position.

“It’s much like the winter of discontent, and we should have learnt exactly what we need to do now from that.

Back in Lepus’s realm of history, he started to cotton on to what the strange man was saying.

“Wait, um, are you a communist?”

They walked towards the back entrance of the hall; there was a wooden shack-like structure covering the back entrance. A tight space, with two guys sitting at a table with a small metal box. Lepus realised this was the only way in. They must have had the front doors shut up, as people were walking around from the front road and then going in.

“Five bucks,” one of the guys sitting at the table said as they approached.

Lepus produced his entry fee. Then he and his new friend both shuffled inside.

The place was small, and there was a tight crowd on the dance floor head banging.

Lepus recognised one of Alice’s friends and walked up to mingle; he felt awkward and didn’t know what else to do. He was never good in social situations with people his age. He always found himself wishing he was reading a book about something mathematical. Something logical and simple. There was never one simple answer with people.

Lepus felt a pang in the bottom back of his skull. The pain was dull at first but then started to throb and get more prominent. His vision started to blur, and the crowd dancing behind March Hare seemed to contort and become more colourful. He tried to pin his eyes on March Hare; he hadn't noticed before his soft brown hair, covering his body. Had he blocked that out? No, it wasn’t there before. Lepus felt constricted and looked around with a terrified look on his face. Was no one else hot and feeling constrained?

He looked back at March Hare and saw long floppy ears peek out from underneath his beanie.

Now that he knew that had not been there before. Slowly the young bearded man had transformed into a tall, delicate looking rabbit. March Hare turned, unaffected by his change. He nodded, winking at Lepus.

Lepus took a step forward, trying to see better from across the room. Knowing that his eyes must be playing tricks on him. The lights of the band, the dark room, and the crowd all culminating in an illusion. He felt his arm pulled, however, and turned as Alice moved him next to her. Motioning with her head to where Alice’s friend Nikita was in a heated, Nikita waved her arms in the air. Screeching over the punk-rock music,

“Stop calling yourself a lesbian if you still ride dick, you little shit.”

The tall girl Nikita had been directing her screams at said something that was inaudible to Lepus.

“Okay yeah,” the tall girl said back in a millisecond when the music took a dip in volume. “but a gay girl with a trans girlfriend is still gay.”

“So she's confused… big deal,” said a stocky guy with long black hair, placing his hand on Nikita’s shoulder. Even in the dark light, Lepus could see that Nikita’s face was red and that she was panting furiously.

Nikita’s hand movements and speedy ranting jumped back up. “A trans girl identify themselves as straight males, for the most part. Unless they like vagina and dick, but regardless. They class themselves as males, not females so, if a 'lesbian' dates them, she's not exactly a 'Lesbian'.”

Lepus froze, he had somehow now merged into this passionate discourse and had no idea what to do. He felt like a fish not just out of the water but off the planet, just floating in space. He wished he had stayed in the car, made the conversation about Marx dragged on. He didn’t know anyone that spoke like this, Nikita he had rarely spoken with. He wanted to turn and walk away.

“Well I have to say,” said the tall girl, “What Kiara, what!?” Nikita said cutting her off.

“I think it is that black and white, I mean, I do believe in being bisexual, but in the end, you prefer one over the other… well” said Kiara.

It seemed more evident now that this conversation was not wrapping up. A large guy in the circle of people listening was trying to defuse a possible fight. He laughed again, retorting “I know several guys that take dick when they get drunk. Even though they’re straight.” He then seemed to see someone he knew. Putting his hand on Kiara’s arm went to walk away. Alice tugged at Lepus’s arm, he looked at her, trying to convey confusion. What did she expect
him
to do?

Nikita seemed to give up and throwing her arm back stated “Not that black and white for me, so. Meh.”

Leading the tall girl away. Nikita turned to Alice and Lepus as they started moving to the door. Alice leaned in close to Lepus, her arm linked in his and whispered something he didn’t hear and laughed. He chuckled back, not taking his eyes off the door as the started walking faster. When Nikita caught up, she said,“I'd never consider myself a lesbian. Because I can say with pride, I like cock and cunt.”

“Mmm how lovely,” Lepus said, smiling.A portly guy with a big woollen jumper yelled at them as they walked out, “Serious. How does someone 'slip up'? That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard!” Nikita flipped him off, and it became more and more apparent to Lepus he had dodged quite the bullet coming in late.

As the got into Lepus car, Nikita continued to rant, “So, I take it we are going? Ha, accident! Oh, I was just walking, and this dick was just, there, and then my vagina started 'slippin’ up' on it. I DON'T UNDERSTAND I'M NOW SEXUALLY CONFUSED BECAUSE I FELL ON A DICK"

Alice rolled her eyes, smiling at Lepus, “Nikita, we ah… get the point, honey.”

Nikita didn’t hear her or ignored the comment, “Fuckin' cunts leaving' their dicks layin around.Get your dick out of my way and maybe I'll stop sitting on it, stupid fucking Hayden.”

“Ah I thought his name was Mischief,” Lepus said chuckling. “Why are you angry at the other guy?”

Lepus looked back in the back and realised she was completely unconscious. “Wow,” Lepus said to Alice “She doesn’t seem drunk when she’s yelling at someone. Until… passed out” Lepus laughed and looked at Alice. She muttered “Yeah”, but also had her eyes closed.