X

I understand that the reason I hate the letter x is very petty but in my defence, shut up and let me explain.

When I was a kid, I had accidents quite a lot and ended up in hospital. I usually went into the same X-ray room every time. One of the first times was when I was ten and I ran into a steel pole while playing in the playground and cracked my head open. I got taken to the hospital, had an X-ray, and they asked my Dad if instead of stitches they could use this special glue to glue my skin back together. They said they were concerned because it would leave a scar down the middle of my head where hair would never grow again and they had to ask his permission to do it because it might “mar his beauty”. Dad pissed himself laughing. I had the glue.

Anyway, this was my first encounter with the wall decoration inside the X-ray room in the children’s ward. The decoration was an animal A-Z and the name of each animal was written really small next to each one. A is for Aardvark. B is for badger. C is for Cat, etc. They went with the most obvious ones that kids would know. It wasn’t as if they were going to do “D is for Degu”, of course they went with “D is for Dog”. As I lay there on the X-ray table, I looked through the animal alphabet and saw Z for Zebra at the end, but a few places before that at the letter X, there was a blue rat-like creature. I squinted. I couldn’t read what X was for, and before I knew it, the X-ray was over and I was being ushered out of the room, still wondering what animal began with the letter X.

I forgot all about it until a few years later when I was in hospital after an accident during a rounders game. Someone had stepped up to bat, swung it back, and the bat flew right out of his hands, flew through the air and hit me in the face. Mum collected me and took me to the hospital. I went into the same X-ray room, and again was reminded of the strange blue rat creature that apparently began with the letter X. Again, before I knew it, the X-ray was over, and I was being taken away while Mum fussed over me, and I forgot all about it.

Another year or so later and I was in hospital for a dislocated knee which had somehow happened when I bashed my knee on the side of the sofa while attempting to close the curtains. Again, I had a limited amount of time in the X-ray room and kept being distracted by the doctor who was trying to position my knee in the right place for the X-ray. That and it was dark so I couldn’t squint at the word next to the blue rat thing.

I should also point out here that all the other animals were the right colour. The Zebra was black and white. The giraffe was yellow with brown spots. The elephant was grey. Why the hell was this rat thing blue?

I was a very shy and nervous child and I didn’t want to distract the radiographer and didn’t feel able to just ask what it was or waste time getting close to the animal that began with X.

I started googling animals that began with the letter X and couldn’t find anything that looked like a blue rat. Google just threw up a bunch of different species of birds and fish. All far too obscure for a simple child’s decoration that included all the obvious ones like C is for Cat. If they didn’t go for something more obscure like C is for Chameleon then they wouldn’t have gone for X is for Xingu Corydoras (which is a type of fish and looks nothing like this blue rat thing). Maybe it was a fictional creature from some children’s book I’d never read? I couldn’t find anything.

I dislocated my knee a couple more times over the years, but they did the X-rays in the adult wing this time so I never got to see the decoration again.

Many years later, they were about to shut down the hospital. I don’t know why. It was a perfectly good hospital. It was the hospital I was born in, but apparently it had to go. They’d also be shutting down the local A&E department and turning it into an ‘urgent care unit’ which was a shame. I wasn’t really thinking about that wall decoration by that point, I was more just annoyed at the fact our town was about to lose an A&E department for seemingly no reason at all and the nearest one was now going to be ten miles away in another town.

Fortunately however, I had one last opportunity to solve this mystery.

On the way home from a particularly tiring day at work, I skidded off my bike and dislocated my knee again for the third time as an adult. Dislocated knees had became so routine for me at that stage that I knew exactly what to do to get it back in again.

(Warning this next paragraph might make you feel sick, but I’m including it because who knows? Maybe you’ll need to know how to do this one day.)

So I’m on the floor, knee bent, the kneecap underneath my skin poking out at one side, the joint can’t move. I breathe really deeply, calm my nerves, relax my muscles and wiggle my foot ever so gently so my bent leg will slowly get towards the ground. Not so hard that I might break something, but just enough movement to give myself the chance to pop the knee over the socket and back into place.

*disgusting paragraph over*

Anyway, so lying on the pavement, I called the ambulance. I called my partner who came to wait with me and collect my bike. The ambulance came and the paramedic had a long conversation on the phone because I told him I really didn’t want to go all the way to the now 10 miles away A&E department that night. The paramedic got off the phone and told me I was in luck. The radiology department at the soon to be demolished hospital was still in use and he could take me there tonight. I’d probably be home within a couple of hours.

I didn’t know it as they drove me there, but I was surprised to find them taking me to the same X-ray room I’d been to so many times as a kid. And the wall display was still up. There it was: A is for Aardvark. B is for Badger. C is for Cat.

I was tired from work and having to reset my own knee, so I sat back and let the radiographer do his job. He came over to me at the end and asked if I was okay.

I sat up, breathing heavily and gave him a very serious and haggard look.

“I have one question,” I said.

I pointed at the blue rat thing on the wall in the corner of the room. I took a deep breath. My entire life had been leading up to this moment.

“What does the X stand for?”

He smiled and giggled.

“Oh, it stands for Xtra large mouse.”

I was so disappointed after all that time that I didn’t even care about my knee anymore.

A twenty year long mystery and THAT? THAT was the answer? Are you fucking kidding me?