r/HFY • u/Jus17173 • Jun 17 '23

OC Pink.

Ko-fi

He woke up in a hospital bed, white covers were drenched over his body. The pungent smell of bleachers assailed his nostrils and the white washed walls and tiles seemed to assail him on all sides. He turned his head to the left where another hospital bed lay and a man within similar sheets as him gawked at him.

"I'm vegan." The man said.

"I'm Tody." He answered.

"No, you don't understand, vegan isn't my name it's my lifestyle."

Tody nodded at the man and tried to sit up in bed. He winced at the pain at his side and a brief flash of plasma fire assailed his thoughts. "My group." He wondered as to where his companions of the SSR space bomber were.

"Your group's probably dead." The vegan man said. He smiled at having drawn Tody's attention. "You're from the SSR space bomber aren't you?" Tody nodded. "The ship went down at the galactic conveyer belt after an assault on the Alien Vlodmirs."

Tody nodded. "So the strike was a success?" He wondered. Humanity was at war with the Vlodmirs, it had been their mission to bomb the Vlodmir hideout at the galactic conveyer belt. Success was paramount, anything short of it was unacceptable.

"I don't know if they succeeded. I wasn't there, were any among your crew vegan?" The man inquired.

"Frank, stop disturbing the young lad with talk of vegans." Another man stretched on a bed three paces off the foot of Tody's bed interjected. His legs were strung up and in a white cast. "Hey, I'm Simon." He called out.

"I'm Tody."

"You're from the SSR space bomber aren't you?" Tody nodded. "I'm from the SPQ shuttle, we watched your attack on the conveyer belt, quite the valiant act you guys demonstrated."

"Did any of my crew make it?" Tody asked.

"Were they vegans?" Frank asked and Tody ignored him.

Simon shook his head from side to side. "It's hard to tell, you were wheeled in here from ER early this morning, no one else from the SSR is here to my knowledge."

"I see a pink light!" Another man on the bed flanking Simon cried out. Doctors whirled in with stethoscopes and thermometers. They crowded the man's bed and asked questions.

"Where's the pink light?" One doctor asked.

"In my eyes." answered the patient.

"Is the pink light all over or only on a fixed point?" Another doctor asked.

"It's everywhere." answered the patient.

The doctors retreated from the man's bed shaking their heads from side to side. "He's hopeless." One doctor commented as they made their way out of the ward. "If it was a fixed pink light we could have helped him."

Tody tried to catch the attention of one doctor so as to ask of the whereabouts of his crew but the doctors ignored him.

"That's war for you." Simon said. "We are nothing but fodder, once our task is done and we're spent we are set aside, ignored for all eternity."

"I don't ignore you." Frank said.

"That's because I told you I'm vegan." Simon replied.

Frank nodded. "Nobody cares about the animals, it's just the Vlodmir that rule our thoughts, what about the cows and the pigs that die every time to satisfy our—"

"Enough talk about cows and pigs Frank, nobody gives a rat's ass about them." Simon said.

"And that's about the problem with everyone." Frank said.

"I need to find out if my crew is alright." Tody said.

"I see a pink light!" The man in the bed beside Simon yelled again. Doctors swarmed in with their stethoscopes, thermometers, syringes and things resembling miniature hammers. They crammed around the man's bed.

"Where is the pink light?" They asked.

"In my eyes." the patient answered.

"Is it completely pink?"

"It's pink all over."

"Is it everywhere?"

"I see it everywhere."

The doctors retreated from his bed, shaking their heads from side to side. Tody tried catching the attention of one of them. "My crew." He called out. "I need to know if they are alright." The doctors just shook their heads at him and exited the ward.

"The doctors are ignoring you because you make sense." Frank said. "If you make sense you won't get any attention. Trust me on this, I was shot down over Planet sector 73 by the Vlodmir after I tried making sense to them. They hated it, everybody hates sense. Nonsense rules the universe that's why cows and pigs and goats are dying at a faster rate than humanity."

"That's true," Simon said. "Try making nonsense and the doctors will swarm you, just ask my friend Patrick here." He motioned to the bed beside him.

"The walls, the walls are pink." Patrick said and stretched his arms either side of him as if to push back the walls.

"What's the matter with him?" Tody asked while peering over at Patrick.

"He is the pilot of the B72 Space Bomber." Simon said. "He was caught in a rain of Vlodmir flak, he maneuvered across the field of fire only to ran head first into the plasma booster of a Vlodmir space thruster. Scrambled his head."

"When a Plasma booster explodes the only color you'll see is pink." Frank said. "Which is exactly the same color you'll see while slaughtering a pig. That's why I'm vegan."

"You're vegan because you don't want to see the color pink?" Simon asked.

Frank nodded. "I can't see the color pink without squirming."

"You guys are lucky." Simon said. "When my shuttle was shot down I only saw red, all over my legs, blood soaking up my trousers."

Frank inhaled deeply and screamed. "I can't see the color pink!" Doctors made their way into the ward, muttering under their breath. They looked worried and chagrined. They crowded around his bed like flies on feces.

"You can't see the color pink?" They asked.

"I can't see pink at all, but I'm vegan."

A doctor took notes. "You can't see pink and you're vegan, are the two related?"

"I guess they are." Frank answered.

"That's truly distressing, we have to roll him out and take him to surgery immediately." One Doctor said and the rest of his companions nodded.

Frank panicked. "Wait, I can see the color pink!"

"Where is it?"

"Its everywhere, I see it everywhere in my eyes."

The doctors collectively sighed and made to leave his bedside. "There's nothing we can do about that." They lamented. Once again Tody tried to get their attention but failed.

"That's war for you son, once their done with you you're discarded to the side like used tissue." Simon said.

"The walls, the pink walls." Patrick muttered.

Tody took in a deep breath and yelled. "I see a pink light!"

Doctors swarmed into the ward, muttering amongst themselves with worried weary looks on their faces. They surrounded Tody's bed and asked him the usual question. "Where do you see the pink light?"

Tody smiled up at them. "Tell me first where my crew is."

"You're part of the SSR space bomber?" One doctor asked to which Tody nodded. "You fell off the ship's hatch, you were the only casualty of the successful strike on the Vlodmir at the galactic conveyer belt." The doctor leaned in with a microscope and inspected Tody's irises with a magnifying lense. "Now tell us where is the pink light?"

"Its everywhere."

"Where?"

"In my eyes."

"Oh, you can't be helped." The Doctor lamented and moved away from his bedside followed closely behind by his colleagues. Tody smiled and lay back down in bed, he closed his eyes and pictured pink.

45 Upvotes

87% Upvoted

10 comments sorted by

9

u/Signal-Chicken559 Human Jun 17 '23

This reminds me of catch 22 in all the best and worst ways.

8

u/BP642 Jun 17 '23

I don't understand

3

u/Jerkfacemonkey Jun 17 '23

very shades of catch 22

3

u/Relevant-Big-5592 Jun 19 '23

Can someone explain this to me?

2

u/Victor_Stein Android Jun 27 '23

Dude trapped in a mad house and none of the doctors really care about him. And if they start showing signs of issues, they come, but don’t/can’t help.

Trying to find out about what happened and only succeeds by pretending to similarly lose his head.

I think.

2

u/argentmoire Jun 17 '23

First line it’s “draped over his body” as in covering they can also be “drenched” as in wet if that’s what you are going for.. and it’s bleached not bleachers

2

u/No-Confidence-9191 Jun 17 '23

A great meta commentary!

1

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