Woke up in an unknown room with ...

I recalled parting my lips to received her kiss, and then was the moment I felt the most uneasy rising feeling on my lower chest. I opened my eyes and jumped off the couch. I was in a room which looked familiar; yes, its mine or was it mine? Or was it ever mine?

Well, the decor needed some touching up. The left wall facing the outside had a hole in it or was it the hole with the wall around it? Hmmm, I felt like that hole then, all confused and worse was the smell in the building. I stood up with my arms sticking at my sides and holler out.

"Jarvis, I think the shit had hit the fan again." Jarvis was the maintenance person in charge of the building, and while he sleeps, everyone leave their imprint in the sewage pipes causing us who are the innocent, genuine and badly in need users having to tip toed over murky surfaces, or like Diana; she had on those stilts. She calls them platform shoes. That was pathetic as we are supposed to be in the health conscious environment, and we are shaping up to join the other side more with our maintenance.

"Jarvis!" I hollered again. "This is a hospital, Jarvis. We are here to cure and not be cured by your poorly maintained geyser out of the pipes."

Geez, I wondered how I ended up here. I am a qualified surgeon but they dumped me in here in view of this new calamity that would soon end this civilization. Nevertheless, I had my rest and its time to performed my sworn skills to heal or be heeled by the patients.

Good gracious, my doorway had been taken over by part of the ceiling. I knew as there was this ugly ceramic duck of my notable tenant from upstairs now standing on top of the rubble with part of its beak missing. I hated that duckling as much as of its owner. One quacks and the other was more quark than her patients.

But notable disregard for public safety must be reported.

"Doctor Quinn, I would file the report with Jarvis on your overloading of the flooring. Plus my cost to create a new doorway to get out." I hollered back to the tenant upstairs. Doctors we are by profession but I can assure you beneath our white coats and stethoscope, some of us are no better than the neighbour of others. We do discard surgical gloves into the pipes just to taint the reputation of the Maintenance for not servicing our air-cond. I once gave a duck call whistle to her for her birthday with the message; "get shot on my behalf". In retaliation, she sent me a plumber wrench with message; "in case of constipation, just loose the nut.". We never spoke since then.

Well, as a surgeon, I am obliged to be on time. Be it a collapsed wall or parked freeways, let no obstacles stopped the man of medicine in his works. I took to the hole in the wall or was it wall with a hole, and leaned out. I am favorable to have my abode on the ground level, and thus my depth of dropped to the surface was negligible and would not warrant the call for help. But on that day, I was in need as outside my hole in the wall or ....nevermind, it is still a hole; I found my window sill bombarded by waves of tyres; used ones with the threads missing.

That was it. I was to filed a complaint against Jarvis for major negligence. How can he have tyres left in our backyards? Then was truly unbecoming as a hospital. It was then I saw Jarvis passing near by window.

"Jarvis, my good man. Pray enlighten me how did these miscreants of the urban living folks ended up in my backyard?" I stood there pointing to the stacks of tyres there.

"Aye, Doctor Percy. We had some loads that came in when the solar flares dried up the pool, so the Council decided to dropped these in there to filled it up. You know like what they did in those landfills; this one named as tyres filled. Who knows with the solar flares, we might even get to recycled them for other uses." I hate the wink in his eyes. He had mistaken me for a rubber man with him and I am not. I am a straight aced male with a build inclination towards only feminine gender with Ducky above disqualified.

"Well, Jarvis. You can dipped yourself in those '.....rubbers but I am in need to report to my post for I have a major surgery coming up." I proceeded to lower my dignity and climbed out of the window like a fleeing Casanova, or in my case, a need to find the next available toilet. We may be having solar flares but I got cubits about to dislodge from my south-end.

"Why the hurry, Doc? Them all dead." Jarvis pointed to me as I approached him. I looked to where he was pointing at; there were piles

of bodies lying in the building seen through the collapsed wall sections. By golly, they all looked crisp and well done if you ever appreciate your steak that way.

"The solar flares hit us just now, and crisped all them souls. Me too, as I was bended over clearing the murk from the pipes. I swore I never felt such a heat up my back since Jordan dunked a heap on me back in the 90's. Well, I guessed it took us all in its merciful way." Jarvis showed me his south-end. It was burnt crisp too, and according to the logic of living tissues, he should be dead by now. I looked down at my own hands; they looked like over fried chicken parts minus the skin.

"Ain't nothing to worry about, Doc? We are all dead. Crispy, crunchy, you can named it." Jarvis was smiling despite his barbecue coating. "I knew that one day, I would be going to hell, but I never reckon it was so hot."

Then I recalled it all.

I am no Doctor. I am an inmate of the asylum. I only pretend to be one as it was all I ever wanted to be. I hated the one upstairs because she was the real doctor with the ceramic duck on her desk. She was one who treated me. I am the one who keep on stuffing up the sewage pipes with rubber gloves.

It all came back now. I was in an asylum.

But the solar flares. Yes, the flares, oh, those were real. Everyone had evacuated but no one cares about us. We are the 'cuckoo birds'; who cares about us. Only doves like Jarvis. He stayed back to cared for us. He filled up the pool with tyres so we would not drown when we swim. Only Jarvis cared about us. He stayed with us till the end. Till they dropped the bomb on us. It was not the blast that killed us, but the heat that tore off our skins and flesh, and then our lives.

God, ain't we thankful? We get to die so soon. Do you know that the survivors of the blast have much more to suffered than us. Unlike us, they would feel all the pain. So tell me, God. Did you foreseen this when you gave us the brain to think. If not, then you are worse off than myself. I may be crazy but you are mad to allowed this to happened.

Later, I was more than mad. They don't have bidets up there.