Johanna curled in a corner, while her plate-sized eyes counted visitors coming in and out like red ants. She was diagnosed with an itching heart and suffered from daylight nightmares. The mirroring tiles revealed her wrinkling nose as she rubbed her swollen cheeks. 

The nylon stopwatch around her wrists showed the rate of her skipping heart, instead of the ticking clock. The pink yoghurt they served her tasted strange due to the sour milk that she craved. “They burned my lips with bubbling tea in china cups,” she mimed, sipping her boiling tears. Soon she pressed her eyes at a dead tree drowning inside the swimming pool. “Is it growing upside down?” she asked.  

Like seriously, the root-like branches were facing skyward, but she spotted floating leaves in the water. Johanna was booked at the 19th floor of the cloud-touching building, and the jumping water became her TV.  Little did she know that a battery-powered pump was teasingly pulling the foamy water upward. She blinked at the water rope-skipping the wall and frowned at the mountain up in smoke, as the clouds crowned the blue mountains. 

“Why is the water crawling up the wall?” she asked the blue overalls man fixing a spinning glass door. Then she stepped into the shower, and before she could open the tap, the water automatically splashed on her face, and she slipped. 

The patient looked around but couldn’t find the tap screw.  Her temperature shot to 100 degrees because she couldn’t find the toilet’s flush. She clicked the light switch, hoping it was a flush. Suddenly, she stepped outside the toilet and the bloodied water flushed. 

This time, she whispered to the nurses that she had passed out blood. “Where’s the blood?” said a badged nurse, toying with syringes. Johanna pointed at the flushing toilet, and the nurses blocked their giggles.  That night, the twinkling stars were replaced by red-hot coals. 

“The gods had set the city on fire,” she cried, peering through the tainted window. She ran to the reception and asked, “Are we in heaven?” The question scared the pop-eyed lady, and soon she dialled 911.  In a blink, the blue caps men handcuffed Johanna. 

Finally, a nurse pierced a needle in her cheek. After two weeks, she woke up at the village and everything went back to normal. “I was at a place where the calves follow the cows day and night,” she said about the taxis in town.