Well I didn't get out.

I'm not in my own room though which is a mix of blessing and curse. I think I'd go spare to back in there again so soon but when being on an open ward you certainly need to leave your privacy at the door. There are some interesting characters in here too and I have taken to giving them 'prison names'.

"Toenail" is next to me. I cannot see much of him but I can hear him cursing occasionally from the other side of the curtain, what I can see if his foot and he has one massive nail on his big toe. The rest are all trimmed.

Over in the corner we have "Waterman". He's been sitting out in the open for the last few hours trying to coax the tiniest amount of pee into a cardboard pot. After a while the nurses drew the curtain around him but not before a young lady, visiting someone else, had to ask him if she could borrow his chair. She didn't seem to know where to look and he answered politely as if he wasn't cupping himself with one hand and tappng on the box with the other. Behind the curtain there have been continued mutterings of "come on, come on" until recently a celebratory "oo that's it" seemed to signal the end to his plight.

In the other corner sits "Phones" a quiet unassuming guy who asked me to help him move his television earlier. Always seems to be wearing headphones.

Opposite me is "Common Chris". He actually sounds quite well spoken but, according to the name writing above his bed the H has been dropped so it's just Cris.

I have no idea who the last member of our team is. Visitors have come and gone but he is yet to emerge from behind the curtain to my left.

I don't know what they make of me, the new boy, I am certainly a few decades younger than most in here. I guess we'll all bond over the weekend. I hope there's no initiations or anything. Taunting in the night that kind of thing. It was only last weekend I watched Shawshank again and the tactics are clear in my mind.

I am on an IV drip of antibiotics now. Samples of pretty much everything have been taken today and somewhere in this building some microbiologists are riffling through my fluids trying to discern what is wrong with me.

Until they do I am stuck here. Judging by the bleeps, snores, and other bodily noises I am hearing right now I think I am going to be very grateful of my noise cancelling headphones.

I may even wear them to sleep.