Break Away

I came out of the bathroom with the slightly embarrassing wet marks on my school shorts, which I was trying to hide behind my schoolbag The pull down towel was too high up on the wall to reach the shorts. I had tried to take them off to dry them on the towel, but with only one useful arm, it was a bit hard to manage to put any pressure on the cloth. These were the old pull down loop of towel. Where you had to grip both sides and pull the length of fabric down. Then the soiled part would retract up into the back of the unit.  It would have been great to have one of those air-blower wall mounted units. Particularly the ones where you could  turn the nozzle around and have it face down/up. But they were yet to come into use back then. How did we ever manage, young people must wonder? Oh, that’s right. Things took effort and we did it. Just like cleaning. It isn’t that hard to wash and clean things.

As I stepped out there was the nurse who had wrapped my arm in the new cast. I suddenly felt that the entire front of my shorts were not only wet, but shining fluorescent green as well. However she appeared not to even notice. “Do you know how much a taxi home would cost you?” she asked. “No”, I said, knowing that they were for very special occasions (see blog 14^th April, 10^th July 2012) “I’m just going home on the bus.” She showed some real concern. “Are you sure you don’t want us to pay for a taxi home for you?” She must have noticed my wet shorts after all? Was she worried other people might? I just wanted to get outside in the fresh air and hopefully they would be dry in a short time as I walked to the bus. I had never thought it was guilt from the way the doctor had just treated me. (See blog 21^st /22^nd August 2012). “Oh, no!” I replied. Dreading explaining to my mother why I had taken money from a poor nurse just to get home (I believe I knew my mother had worked at some time as a nurse/hospital worker in the past and wouldn’t have earned very much). “The bus stops right outside our house. Thank you.” I smiled pleasantly then stopped to think for a moment. “Oh, will this be just the three more weeks or is it going to be another five weeks?”. I asked the nurse. She smiled. She was a very nice nurse. “No, you’re starting from scratch again”. She said, then continued, “The five weeks start again, I’m sorry.” I must have looked a bit disappointed. “Okay” I said and left the hospital. I nodded to the receptionist at the doors and quickly left for home. A fresh new plaster for everyone to draw on. I wonder what masterpieces they would create this time?