Hospitals are not as frightening as people say, not unless you are going to the ICU. Mayokun took the stairs up to the fourth floor of St. Barth’s hospital. No matter how many times she visited, there was no getting accustomed to these cold, concrete slabs of stairs. She held on to the concrete stair-banister, panting, as she pulled herself to the landing.
“God”, She wheezed, “I hate this place.”
The air carried the smell of cheap antiseptic and freshly prepared pharmaceuticals. She could taste the bitterness of the chalky-white pills at the back of her tongue. She gagged, then took a deep breath.
“Ok, I can do this”, She muttered to herself.
She started down the hallway and kept to the right, following directions to the ICU. Nurses walked by in a hurry, technicians in white lab coats breezed by. Prospective patients and family members holding yellow slips of paper, looking frazzled and tired dotted the hallway. The hallway opened up into a small, sunny alcove with a desk pushed against its back wall.
It wasn’t Bimpe behind the desk.
The new receptionist eyed her…
