FADE IN: To hallway inside a hospital.
INT. Establish Hospital nurses desk in hallway – Night
Two nurses running inside a room to the sounds of screaming
INT. Girl laying inside hospital bed screaming hunched over the rolling tray on side of bed. Girl sweating and delirious.
Alexis (Narrating)
So I sat there, on the edge of that hospital bed screaming at the top of my lungs, my upper body leaned over the rolling tray that food is usually on. I had no clue what was going on, all I remember was two nurses running into my room asking me
Nurse 1 (Woman)
Honey, Honey, are you alright?
NURSE 2 (MAN)
Do you know what day it is?
ALEXIS
No response (screaming has stopped)
NURSE 2
Do you know where you are?
ALEXIS
The hospital.
ALEXIS (CONT’D)
Yes, once again I was in the hospital and coming to my senses. I realized what happened to me. I was stoned out of my mind. High as a kite on the beach in the summer. I had no control over my body. Wait, that was it, I had no control over my body. I don’t remember much of what happened after I came back to my senses, but I knew the hospital was the last place I wanted to be.
NURSE 1
Honey, did you realize you were speaking in another language? Do you know what you were saying?
ALEXIS
What did she just say, I was speaking in another language?
ALEXIS (CONT’D)
Umm, I’ve spoken in tongues once at church.
NURSE 1(Laughs)
Honey I’ve done that at church and that was not what that was. It’s ok now, just get some sleep.
Alexis throws her head back on the pillow. She is wondering what has really been happening to her all this time. It was like waking up from a bad nightmare and having someone tell you all your actions in your sleep.
ALEXIS
(Raises up in her bed to talk)
I needed the hospital, and the hospital needs me. I needed someone somewhere to decide they care enough about people and medical conditions to help me understand what was happening inside my body. I needed a man or a woman one day to decide they wanted to be a nurse to help me when I was not strong enough to help myself. I needed a janitor to come in and help me change my sweaty bed sheets when the morphine made my body lose control. But what I really needed was for someone to spend the night in the hospital room with me to make me feel less alone. But those days were over. And there I was alone, with no control over my body, stuck in a hospital bed waiting for someone to tell me my blood levels were high enough so that I could go home. But the truth about where I was in my life was that I was having a horrible divorce. My love affair with the hospital had finally ended. I hated her, and she still wanted me. But I needed her, and she needed me, but I hated her. Which means if I hated her, at some point I had to love her
THE HOSPITAL ROOM NOW CHANGES INTO WHAT IT USED TO LOOK LIKE FOR ALEXIS AS A SMALL CHILD. ALEXIS IS STILL IN THE HOSPITAL ROOM NARRATING HER STORY. SHE IS STANDING WITH A HOSPITAL GOWN AND AN I.V. POLE WATCHING HERSELF AS A CHILD WITH A ROOM SURROUNDED WITH PEOPLE FLOWERS, BALLOONS AND GIFTS. DAY.
Alexis is in the room watching herself play with a yellow power ranger doll her uncle brought her.
ALEXIS
At some point in my life, I was in love with the hospital. I was in love with how she worked her magic powers and got everyone to come see me and be concerned about me and spend the night with me. She could never cook, but as long as someone brought me food instead, she didn’t mind. But now, something in here had changed. The thought of her made me itch. She had lured me in with gifts, and love, and time, only to find out that she was really a house of horrors. But I needed something that was in her that no one could give me. Medicine. Deadly miraculous medicine. Medicine that stopped the pain, IV fluids that helped me get oxygen to my lifeless blood cells. But the promise of rest, oh she could have kept that lie! Every time I closed my eyes, she was sending someone in my room. Nothing she showed on T.V. was remotely nice, and I got to the point where no amount of entertainment she brought made me happy. I hated her, but I needed her and she needed me.
Alexis (child) is staring at the yellow power ranger doll and watches as the face of the doll turns into demon. There is screaming again the in the background. The walls in the room turn black, and all the people disappear. The balloons begin to pop, and the room swivels back into the hospital room Alexis is currently in.
INT. Scene goes back to the hospital room that Alexis was in at the beginning of the story. Alexis is back sitting on the bed sweating. Night.
ALEXIS
Deep inside I knew, if I wanted to be free from her I could. Maybe if I drank enough water, took my medicine, got enough sleep, maybe just maybe, my blood cells would behave, not sickle, and not cause me to be in so much pain that would have to see her again. But there was another sad sad song playing in the background, something that I did not want to admit. I was addicted to her. This addiction surpassed love, hate, and all forms of godliness. I actually liked going to the hospital, I actually liked being sick. I liked the attention, I liked the medicine, I liked the care however short lived. I liked all the plastic packets that needles and I.V. bags came out of. I liked the rush of morphine flowing through my veins and the slight discomfort I felt when it did. I liked the phone calls, text messages, I liked the times of justifiably feeling sorry for myself. What I did not like was the tremendous amount of pain sickle cell caused my body. There were times I had crisis so bad, that no matter how much morphine I got the pain was still there.
INT. Alexis walking her way into the emergency room of a hospital hunched over and screaming, telling the triage nurse her problems. Alexis is holding her back but can’t sit down. Show faces of people in the e.r. looking at her screaming. Alexis trying to hold her head down to not look.
ALEXIS
And that was it, the reality of the prison cell I was sitting in hit me, I didn’t want her anymore. I did not want her anymore because eventually, everyone was used to me being sick. Everyone knew I was going to get out eventually, and so everyone went on with their lives. Me being sick no longer brought my family together. And that was what made me decide I had had enough of her. But I did not know how to function without her. I had spent so much time being sick, who was I outside of being a sick child? Part of my identity was stuck inside the word Sickle cell patient, and it from birth was stuck inside of me. And so there I was, in the middle of the night screaming from being high off of morphine because of the pain of Sickle cell anemia had me back in her arms, hating and loving her, the hospital at the same time. I hated her, but I needed her, and she needed me.
INT. Hospital room. NIGHT.
ALEXIS
There was nothing I could do for myself to get rid of this disease. Of course I could take my medicine and stop feeling the pains of this disease, but I could not get rid of it. But sadly, I don’t think I wanted to get rid of it. See, sickle cell made me different from all the rest of the world. It gave me a social and political platform to stand on besides being a black woman in the south. It gave me a voice, it gave me a reason to talk. It gave me a reason to talk to people to try and show them how much they should value their health. It gave me a reason to be different.
Alexis rolls over and looks at the clock. It is 5:45 A.M.
ALEXIS (CONT’D)
Pretty soon, someone will be walking in my room to check my blood levels. Then after that, the doctors all dressed in white will come and stand and the top of my bed staring at me. They will either tell me I am staying here another day, or they are ready for me to go home based on my blood levels. Then someone will call me asking for my breakfast lunch and dinner choices. Then my nurse will come in. And next thing I know it is eight o’clock in the morning and I haven’t had any sleep.
ALEXIS (CONT’D)
There was a time in my life where the hospital and I were having frequent one night stands. I would get sick, she would invite me to the e.r. And then I would get treated like a drug addict. I couldn’t believe how inhospitable she was being. It was the first time in my life I got a smack in the face that my disease didn’t make me different. Just because i didn’t come in the door screaming and shouting didn’t mean I wasn’t hurting. I had just learned how to be quiet when I walked in to not draw attention to myself and make my pain any worse. But she kept me in her e.r., on several occasions never to see upstairs like I wanted to. They claimed I couldn’t go up stairs because my blood levels didn’t indicate the severity of my pain.
NURSE 1
What is your pain on a scale from one to ten ?
ALEXIS
They would ask.
But then when they take a look at those blood counts and see they aren’t low enough for them to admit me, I knew I would be having a one night stand in the e.r., never to spend the night. But somewhere in here, things changed. Sometimes, you have to stop feeling sorry for yourself, no matter how scary change could be.
Alexis gets up out of the bed and gazes out of the window. She turns to go to the bathroom and looks at herself in the mirror.
ALEXIS (CONT’D)
So I have decided not to feel sorry for myself anymore, no matter how scary it is for me to imagine myself without sickle cell. The truth is no one really cares anymore, I am no longer a child, and I guess that means I have to change along with everyone else.
Alexis walks out of the bathroom and walks out of her room into the hallway with the I.V. pole in her hand. The nurses at the desk smile at her. The sign of a healthy patient who is ready to go home is the one who walks down the hall.
NURSE 1
I see you are feeling better today.
INT. Alexis is walking down the hallway as it turns into a beacon of light. END.
