The Nonsensical Ramblings of the Terribly Ill

There is a lot of things I like in this world. Fat rain as it falls into puddles, creating bubbling pavement cauldrons that try to find their way towards the drain. The smell of rain as it hits the hot tarmac in the height of summer, that nothing else can seem to replicate. Yes, for some reason a lot of them are rain related. Reading inside with a cup of tea as the rain patters against the window, light fading as the darker, greyer clouds roll in, determined to bring in the storm. The way that rain, despite its inanimate, natural state, can be unpredictable, changing in an instant, from a soft drizzle to a torrential downpour that can flood an unprepared town. I wish I could still see it.

I’m a very important person. But even we become ill, become torn down by nature itself. We can’t be in a regular hospital, surrounded by those people that would become enamoured with us, who would succumb to our celebrity: instead, we are forced to be alone, imprisoned by our own celebrity. I’m sure my team must have campaigned for a room with at least a view. But alas, the lack of a window is a small price to pay to not be swamped by adoring fans in the height of my recovery. It is simple, yes, but enough. A bed, a desk, papers for me to write my thoughts ready to publish in all the trash magazines when I am fully treated for my illnesses, and a thick, double locked door to prevent the surprise entry of anyone too obsesses with me to be stopped by reception.

Being swept up within the entertainment world, I don’t try to concern myself with medical terms, and even if they are my own problems, I do not wish to wallow and drown myself in the pity of them. Obviously knowing this from either their own extensive research or previous admiration, the staff do not even try to bother me with names of diseases and syndromes, much preferring to give me the space I deserve as someone constantly in the public eye, only occasionally giving me sideways looks, needing to stare at the star they so desperately want to ask their burning questions to. But sometimes, I let my brain wonder, and imagine what it could be: which is very unlike me, might I add. And when I think about it enough, I wonder if it could be muscle related. I mean, who wakes up with straps around their wrists for a blood disease? If it is epilepsy, I would like that to be kept in the dark, both from me, and my followers. I don’t think I could bare the notion of them thinking I could lose control of myself, even for a minute.

I look at what I’m writing here, and I think about what great material this is for something, being the creative that I am. What about an autobiography, a memoir? I wouldn’t be short on buyers, those people with those burning questions finally receiving that titbit of my life that they so desire, my childhood memories, my favourite colour. Its orange by the way, that beautiful amber of the sunset as it dips beneath the horizon that I am waiting to see again. Hell, they can even find my love of rain, towards the back when others will have stopped reading, giving up satisfied from their questions being answered. Rain belongs at the back. The front is reserved for the trauma, the neglect. Each creative has to suffer for their art, because that is how you reel them in.

I have to acknowledge the persistence, the dedication of the staff here, to pretending that they do not house the rich and famous at their most vulnerable, that they do not care for those they wish to swamp with paper for autographs and lavish gifts. When asked, they deny the presence of them, even the faces of those with power and influence, telling them that they aren’t who they say they are. I know this because I have been a victim of this, this that borders between protection and hate, and I cannot begin to decipher which of these is intended by the nurses and doctors that treat me here. Is it jealousy? Or is it because we do not know which staff could work for the media, planting microphones and secret cameras as they deliver our meals and administer our medicine?

I knew this happened once. A new man came to bring my medicine, said his name was Adam. Comes in all shy, hair covering his face, gushing at achieving a lifelong dream of meeting a celebrity for the very first time. But I knew that wasn’t my usual medicine. The way he handed them to me was suspicious, it was far too slow, as if regretting what he was about to do. As if he already regretted that he was about to poison me. One of the pills was slightly off, the wrong shade of blue. I don’t like blue. It reminds me too much of sadness and betrayal.

In, what was much more diva of me than I usually allow, I threw a fit. This man was trying to kill me, possibly make it look like a suicide, and I had to let my dutiful caregivers rectify their mistake of employing them. And I let them know this mistake, as loud as my voice would allow, bellowing through the halls so that all that could hear would know that this man was hear to murder us, those that accumulated the power, the wealth, the status. I was told to calm down, but they eventually heard me. And when they heard me, they dragged me off of him, and took him out of the room.

I didn’t see this man again, and I hope that I never do. The world does not need the jealous or the hitmen. They need those of us who entertain, who are loved by the people. And when I finally leave, after the years of being here, I can return to those people, and spread the joy and positivity that lives and breathes within my work.

I just hope that they don’t scream this time.