Opital Time

“What’s the time?” The little girl with the pink cast on her arm tugged at her mum’s sleeve, threatening to spill the coffee that was in a Costa cup but had made the woman wince.
The girl didn’t look impressed with the answer. “Is it 3 O’clock outside the Opital too?”
The woman scratched her head.
“Of course. Time is the same in the hospital as it is everywhere else.”

I’ve been spending more time at a hospital than I’d like recently and I agree with the little girl. There is such a thing as Opital Time and it doesn’t obey the same rules as normal time.

When I’m in the real world people ask me questions that seem reasonable enough. Questions like, “When is your mum coming home?” “How long will it take to recover from the operation?” and “When is she seeing the doctor?” I have to say that I just don’t know. I could ask (if I had a voice) but questions about time are met with a shrug.

I wonder if we should send Dr Who in to investigate the time-space continuum in hospitals. If there ever was a wrinkle in time a hospital has to be the place for it.

“They ask such strange questions,” my mum was telling us. “They asked me how far I had to walk when I was at home. I told them it depends on where I’m going.”
I knew it. It’s not just time, it’s also space.
“When they were checking my brain they asked me to count backwards in the months.”
“Count?” I asked
“12, 11, 10, 9...oooh, I can do a maths question.” My sister got excited.
“No, like December......”
“November?”
“Well, I think I must have brain damage because I can’t do it. The months never go backwards.”
They might do in hospital.