The Cotton Candy Smile

The antiseptic smell of the hospital was the first thing I noticed when I woke up, a sharp contrast to the sticky sweetness of the cherry popsicle I had before surgery. I was twelve, and my throat felt like it was lined with sandpaper. The surgery had been to remove a growth from my nasal cavity, and the aftermath was a symphony of throbbing pain and a stuffiness that made every breath a conscious effort.

The room was bathed in the pale blue glow of a nightlight, and the only sound was the steady beep of the heart monitor. I needed a tissue, desperately. The nurse call button was just out of reach, and my hand felt heavy and clumsy. I pressed it anyway, a weak, pathetic buzz. I waited, listening to the hum of the hospital, but no one came. I pressed it again, longer this time. Still nothing.

I was about to give up and try to reach the box on the bedside table when the door swung open, not with a click but a soft, silent glide. A figure stood there, silhouetted against the hallway light. She was a nurse, I assumed, but something about her made my skin prickle. She moved with an unnatural grace, her steps silent on the linoleum. She was Asian, with long, black hair that fell like a curtain over her shoulders, and her face was pale, almost luminous in the dim light.

She smiled, and it was a wide, bright smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. ‘You need help breathing, sweetie?’ she asked, her voice a soothing, melodic whisper. I nodded, unable to speak. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a small packet of cotton swabs, the kind that are individually wrapped. She tore it open with a quick, decisive ripping sound, then produced a small tube of something from her other pocket.

‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude,’ she said, her eyes fixed on the swab as she squeezed a dollop of cream onto it. The cream was a strange, iridescent hue, shimmering faintly. She leaned over me, and I could smell a sweet, cloying scent, like rotting flowers. ‘Now, hold still,’ she commanded, her voice firm but gentle.

She tilted my head back and gently inserted the swab into my nostril. The cream was cold, sending a shiver down my spine. As she rubbed it around, a strange sensation spread through my sinuses—a cool, tingling relief that made my eyes water. Almost immediately, the congestion cleared. I could breathe. I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding.

She withdrew the swab, a pleased expression on her face, and tossed the packet into the trash can by the door. ‘There, that’s better now, isn’t it?’ she asked, her smile widening, revealing teeth that were perfectly white and sharp. I nodded, feeling a wave of drowsiness wash over me. She turned and left, her movements fluid and unhurried, as if she had all the time in the world. But something about the way she walked, the way her feet barely touched the ground, made me think of a predator stalking its prey.

I drifted off to sleep, the image of her smile burned into my mind.

The next morning, I woke to the harsh glare of fluorescent lights and the bustling sounds of the hospital. My assigned nurse, a cheerful woman with freckles and a warm laugh, came in to check my vitals. I was feeling better, and I told her about the nice nurse who had helped me breathe the night before. Her cheerful demeanor faltered. She looked at me, her brow furrowed. ‘What nurse?’ she asked, one hand poised over her stethoscope.

‘She was Asian, with long black hair,’ I said. ‘She put some cream in my nose and it made me feel so much better.’

The nurse’s face went pale. She looked around the room, as if searching for something. ‘We don’t have any Asian nurses on this floor,’ she said slowly. ‘Are you sure you didn’t dream it?’

I shook my head. ‘No, I was awake. She was right there, speaking to me.’ I pointed to the trash can. ‘She threw the packet away.’

The nurse walked over and peered into the trash can. It was empty, except for a crumpled piece of paper. ‘There’s no packet,’ she said, her voice tight.

I felt a chill run down my spine. ‘But I saw her. She had a smile…’ I stopped, trying to describe it. ‘It was like a cotton candy smile, too sweet and sticky.’

The nurse exchanged a worried glance with the other nurse who had just entered. They called for a supervisor, and soon I was questioned by a doctor with kind, worried eyes. They asked me to describe the woman again, and I did. ‘Asian, black hair, pale skin. She wore a dark blue scrub, older style, not like the ones you wear now.’ The doctor’s face grew grave. He pulled out a tablet and showed me a photo. ‘Was this her?’ I looked at the screen. It was a staff photo from the 1990s, a woman who could have been the same, but the photo was faded, and her smile was identical, that wide, empty smile. I nodded, my heart racing.

The doctor put the tablet away. He told me that the woman had been a nurse at this hospital, but she had died in a fire that had started in the basement supply room. The fire had been set deliberately, and they had found her body in the room, clutching a small packet of cotton swabs, the kind she used to apply a balm to patients’ nasal passages. The balm was a soothing agent, but the cream she had used on me, they later found, had a substance in it that induced sleep and mild hallucinations.

I was given a thorough examination, and they found traces of the cream in my system, but it was deemed harmless. Still, I couldn’t shake the feeling that her visit wasn’t just to help me breathe. It was to mark me, to leave something behind. The empty trash can confirmed that she had been there, and that she had taken the packet back, as if she had never been there at all.

Over the following weeks, the pain subsided, and my breathing returned to normal. But I never forgot the nurse with the cotton candy smile. Sometimes, when I looked at old photos of the hospital, I saw her in the background, a blurry figure watching from the shadows. And sometimes, at night, when the house was quiet, I would swear I could smell that sweet, cloying scent of rotting flowers, and I would open my eyes, expecting to see her standing at the foot of my bed, smiling that empty, hungry smile, ready to help me breathe again, whether I needed it or not.

The hospital was later demolished, but the memory of that night stayed with me. I grew up, became a writer, and often wondered if I had imagined it all. But then, one day, years later, I was rummaging through a box of old belongings from my childhood. I found a small, faded photograph of myself, taken in the hospital during that stay. In the background, barely visible through the glass of the door, was a pale face with long black hair and a wide, toothy smile. The same smile. The door was closed, but her face was there, as if she had been leaning in, watching.

I don’t sleep with the lights off anymore. And whenever I have a cold, I refuse to let any nurse come near my nose. Because I know that somewhere, in the dark corners of that old hospital, or in the fabric of my memory, the nurse with the cotton candy smile is still waiting, hoping to offer her help once more.