EVANESCENCE

a derby of diagnoses

by Regg Canarias

It was just another Monday at the SPMC IPBM. 

Patients are treated like prisoners, they are called by numbers rather than names. I was one of the “number” people waiting for my turn. I arrived at five in the morning, yet I was still number 2. At least, I made it to the top 5. 

As I was sitting at the waiting area along with the mental hospital patients and other non-IPBM patients who are waiting for their radiation exams (ultrasound, X-ray, etc.), a patient was crying on the floor, punching her watcher whom I later learned to be the poor woman's older brother. While he was trying to console her, she yelled, "Fuck you, ang gaspang ng kamay mo! Pala-lulu! (Your hands are very rough. Masturbator!)" The crowd bursted into laughter. But I was terrified. 
 

A few minutes after the woman calmed down, another man arrived and he was classified as in need of emergent care. Due to the lack of spaces inside the mental institution, he sat two meters

on my right side. 

I wasn't as terrified as I was when the woman had a breakdown. The new guy looked harmless, but he was handcuffed. He spoke Hiligaynon. He was accompanied by his brothers. One of his siblings told him to speak Bisaya as they were in Davao. He didn't explicitly agree, but he started pestering the people at the waiting area by asking them, "Hi, gwapo ko? (Am I handsome?)" then he would laugh maniacally. 

It wasn't long before the woman who had a breakdown started harmonizing with him. While the gwapo guy sounded like a broken record on my right, the woman was crying her lungs out on my left. 

What a way to be traumatized in a place that’s supposed to help you deal with traumas.