It’s Curtains for You !

I surveyed my surroundings. Unusually, there were no curtains around my bed. I could see a fellow's face in the bed next to me. About my age, I estimated. He seemed to be friendly with the nurses when they came in. I looked at his happy, friendly demeanour but was too weak to introduce myself.

After a while someone was sent to our room install curtains around the beds, to give us each a modicum of privacy. It was the standard cream colour.

"Excuse me, do you have something a little more exciting?" asked my neighbour. The installer stopped what he was dong, looking a bit baffled.

I tried to explain. "Well, we were hoping for something a little more upbeat, maybe with a flower motif. One of the other rooms we had considered had a seascape on its curtains, that looked nice. It would go rather well with my complexion".

"Yes, indeed" agreed my room-mate, loudly.

It took the curtain guy a few minutes to realise we were kidding. Until then he just stood there, wondering whether had mistakenly come to the psychiatry ward instead of surgery.

My bed neighbour's name was Yossi, and it was clear by that stage we would become good mates. When anything untoward or unfortunate happened, we just looked at each other and giggled. It meant that my stay was not too serious and we could laugh off the challenges ahead.

Meeting Yossi was the most positive thing about my hospital experience, I thank God for our friendship. And at the end of the day, we never bothered closing the newly installed, standard, cream coloured curtains.