Page 481 - Under the Cover of Darkness

frame. The patient was) at SUCH slow motion, it actually
seemed like an optical illusion. If I closed my eyes for
several seconds at a time, when I opened them, I had a
game to tell whether they'd even moved. (Don't worry; I
incorporated this strategic eye blinking into my medical
condition. I learned some amazingly, convincing, Drama
techniques at The Abbey High School - ironically, none
of them in Drama Class. Then the elderly patient piped
up "Ooh I don’t know whether I'm the Hare or the
Rabbit!" (Eh?!) And the nurse, without skipping a beat,
responded "You're the Tortoise, Shaniquin love." (The
elderly woman wasn't really called Shaniquin. I changed
the name for privacy reasons & I didn't want to be
accused of "Culture Appropriating" by calling an elderly,
British lady Doris or Coral or Ivy when she could just as
easily be called Kylie or Britney or Chardonnay )

I don't think the patient could have grasped the fact that
the nurse was sort of correcting her back to the
traditional "Hare & Tortoise" fable because, still in her
slow motion style, the smile slowly melted off her mature
face like a wax mask worn out in the sun and was
replaced, just as slowly, with a lip curling, eyebrow
lop-siding, face pulling back expression of contempt and
confusion I've ever seen - especially from a front row,
captive audience bed! It would've made a brilliant time
lapse photo series. In the end i found out the elderly
patient was only twenty-two when she'd come in through
A&E!! (That explains the 2 foot, too short Snoopy
Pyjamas she wore and the mini, pink Barbie hair brush
stuck in one of her grey pig tails I suppose.)