This Is So Very Wrong

I wake up again a little after noon. My window is fogged up. I open it about halfway and smell the cool air, thick and wet. There is a steady, refreshing drizzle. On my desk, next to the window, is a crowded jumble of papers and books, pens, empty coffee cups, loose change. My journal is slim and black. It rests on an empty corner of my desk. I lean up against the windowsill and thumb through my journal. I'm looking for the last entry, about three quarters of the way through the book. I'd written a note to myself, not even a week ago, a list of symptoms that I was ready to ignore. The early morning memory of blood-stained urine is strong as I re-read the entry.

This is wrong, I tell myself. This is so very wrong.

With that, I am out the door, walking back down the narrow hallway. I'm still not convinced. There is one simple way to prove that it was a delusion, the bloody urine, earlier this morning. My bladder burns from the half-bottle of orange juice. Without question, I tell myself as I stand above the toilet, definitely, absolutely, if this is bloody again, then I will go to the infirmary.

Bloody it is. More blood than anything. As if I'd swallowed red food coloring by mistake, as if the whole thing was some elaborate practical joke. There is no pain. It does not sting or burn. But blood pours out of my body in a way that it should not.