follow the green arrows

I walked into the office. It was quiet - deathly quiet, which made me shiver slightly as this was a hospital and for all I knew death was lurking around the next corner ready to snatch some poor soul from their bed. I walked up to the desk, dug my hand into my bag and searched around for my wallet with my health card in it as the receptionist sat there waiting patiently - what can I say it's a big bag. Finally I found it, gave her my card, and answered the necessary questions showing in some kind of foolproof way that I was who I claimed to be. We created some small talk as she filled in all of my information. Finally after the admin. stuff was all sorted, filled out and filed, the kind receptionist (who mostly likely wanted to go home since it was 7 pm) pointed to the green arrows on the wall and told me to follow them. They would take me where I needed to go.

Placing my trust in the green paper taped arrows I started walking down the hallway. It was still disturbingly quiet. I walked, smiled at a woman cleaning some rooms, turned a corner, walked some more, turned another corner, walked, turned another corner and finally found the waiting room for the CT scan. The arrows had safely navigated me through the myriad of twists and turns that made up the imaging dept of KGH.

I sat down in one of the chairs in the empty waiting room, looking around a sign caught my eye making me laugh, "The technologist knows you are here, please wait here until your name is called." Apparently, I wasn't the only person who felt that this waiting room was at the end of the imaging dept world.

5 minutes later, the technologist came to get me, breaking the stifling silence. She took me to the CT room, had me lie down, put a blanket around me since it was freezing in there, and then left me to the mercy of the machine that would take countless pictures and hopefully let me know what was wrong with me.

Perhaps it was the elevation of the bed, or of the moving back and forth in and out of the machine but a wave of vertigo hit me and since the rule is DO NOT MOVE, I pinched my arm, in an attempt to cease the dizzyness, until it was all over.

The technologist came back in eventually, saying, "that wasn't so bad at all was it?"
I smiled and sat up, my arm very red and marked from where I had pinched myself for 5 minutes, "You're right, it wasn't bad at all," I replied.

She let me out of the room and I walked back through the silent hallways, still slightly dizzy, with no cell phone reception, until I found the door that led outside. Opening it, I stepped out and took a very deep breath of air, listening to the noise that somehow the hospital had been able to suck out of existence.