The Red Room - By Rosie Lee

Written By: Rosie Lee

Category: Personal Essay

Competition: Global Poetry and Creative Writing Competition 2026

In the evocative personal essay "The Red Room," Rosie Lee delicately unravels memories of a childhood hospital stay. This poignant piece is part of the Global Poetry and Creative Writing Competition 2026, showcasing Lee's ability to capture the raw emotions of a young child navigating fear and confusion in a sterile, unfamiliar world. The essay delves into the vivid imagery and complex emotions that linger from a child's perspective, offering readers a window into the delicate interplay of imagination and reality.

About the Work

Rosie Lee's "The Red Room" is a compelling narrative that explores the intense emotional landscape of a child's experience in a hospital. The essay is imbued with vivid imagery and a hauntingly introspective tone as it contrasts the sterile environment of the hospital with the warmth and familiarity of home. Lee's narrative style captures the innocence of a child's imagination, while also conveying a profound sense of vulnerability and resilience.

The Red Room

Original Submission by Rosie Lee

The Red Room

by Rosie Lee

The walls are bleeding.

They’re not supposed to do that. But they do it anyway. The walls don’t care what they’re supposed to do or not. The walls just bleed.

Red runs down them, like the sweat down my back. It goes drip, drip, drip. And whenever you think it’s about to stop, it rushes back with full force.

The Room is stuffy. White. Cold. Empty.

The Nice Nurse Lady and the Frowny Doctor scurry back and forth, back and forth, between the half a dozen cots in there.

The red on the wall matches the one on my arm. In a silly way, it’s pretty. Mama calls me silly when I do silly things. Like when grease gets on my cheeks when I eat. Like when I spill the water I dip my paintbrushes in. Like when I walk out of her closet, wearing her scarf as a dress. Red used to be my favorite color. It was bright and bold, like me! It’s the first word I learned in English. I learned it long, long ago. The first three words I learned went like this: Red, one, two. I learned it with neon flashcards and bubbly letters. I learned it during a different time. I learned it while at Home.

I try to distract myself with the coloring sheet that the Nice Nurse Lady brought me the first day here. The crayons barely work, though. As always. The colors always come out smudged, and it’s yucky when they overlap. I don’t like it when they do that.

The Room is nothing like My Room.

My Room has a bunk bed, which I share with my little brother. I’m in the top bunk, and he’s in the bottom. I’m in the top because I’m older and can climb up. My little brother’s still a baby, so he sleeps at the bottom. He doesn’t argue with me, because he hasn’t learned to talk yet! I hope it stays like this forever.

The Room is boring. Plain. Dry.

It’s quiet in the loudest way. I hear everything, but I don’t. It’s like when you’re underwater, and you can’t really hear people talking, but you know they’re there. You can see the blurs of their figures and the warbled voices they speak in. Drowning, that’s what The Room feels like. But no fish are swimming by, no jellies waving back to me. The sheets—ones on the bed, not the ones I color with—are scratchy, as they scrape across my supple skin. They’re wound so tightly into the sides of the cot that Baba had to yank it hard to get it loose enough to be comfy. That’s when I first got to this place. That was two weeks ago.

It smells like how pennies would taste. Not that I’ve tasted a penny before. Mama says that you shouldn’t put little stuff in your mouth, like LEGOs or coins, because you might accidentally swallow it, and if you do swallow it, you have to get it removed through surgery, and to do surgery, they have to put you asleep, and to put you asleep, they have to stab you with needles, and I really don’t like needles, so I won’t put little stuff in my mouth.

The Beeping Sound is the loudest. Beep. Beep. Beep.

It’s coming from the strange-looking box next to me. It jumps with the words of my heart. I don’t like it. The Beeping Sound is different than the Microwave Beep that beeps when I heat up instant ramen in a cup. The Microwave Beep means that something yummy will be going into my tummy soon. The Beeping Sound, though… I think it’s counting down to something. It sounds like a timer on a bomb, right before the explosion. I know what that sounds like because I watch a lot of movies. I watch a lot of movies because there’s not much to do here, in The Room.

The Nice Nurse Lady always tells me that it’s okay to cry. She says that little kids cry all the time. I’m not a little kid, though—I’m already four. And that’s what I tell her.

I’m four! I say, holding up five stubby fingers. That’s plenty old!

The Frowny Doctor is very different from the Nice Nurse Lady. He scrunches up his face when I cry, so I’ve learned not to cry around him. I don’t want to make him frown more than he already does. He looks a bit ugly when he frowns. I wanted to tell him that, but I didn’t, because Mama says it’s rude to call people ugly, even when it’s very true.

The Frowny Doctor doesn’t ask when he grabs my arm. He doesn’t ask when he pinches down on my wrist enough to make it hurt. He never asks, and I wish he did. I watch the skin turn pale and taut, so much so that I look like a ghost. I’m as white as the walls that have blood running down them. And like the walls, I bleed, as he pricks into my veins. Mama tells me to take deep breaths, but I can’t. My lungs feel stuck, like they’ve forgotten what to do. I nod anyway, pretending to heave my chest up and down for deep breaths, so she won’t worry. I stare at the tiled ceilings, hoping that if I don’t look at my arm, maybe it won’t be real. My eyes blur, and I blink really fast so the tears don’t spill over. I am four. Four is old enough to be brave. Four is basically a big kid. I am four. Four. One, two, three…

By four, he pulls out the needle. He peels a Band-Aid with only one hand and presses it to the tiny opening. I wince, swallowing hard, swallowing back tears and whimpers.

He’s a liar. All of them are. When they say, it’ll hurt only for a second, that second lasts an eternity. When they say, it’s time to draw blood, they stab me with sharp edges instead of handing me a crayon.

I know now that walls don’t bleed. But four-year-old me was not the same me that I am now. Back then, I did not know why the walls would bleed. But it wasn’t the walls bleeding, it was just me. It was the tainted reflection in the window panes. It was the frigid white curtains and hospital cots. It was the IV bags that swayed whenever I shifted my arm.

I know now that he wasn’t lying. He just didn’t know how long a second feels when you’re four. He didn’t know that adults measured time differently. He didn’t know that pain dragged one second into many others.

I know now that the red wasn’t on the walls. It was in the plastic tubes. In the latex gloves. In the pointed syringes.

The red was in my head.

The walls were white. They had always been white.

The Beeping Sound doesn’t care what color the walls are, though. It simply goes on and on, ringing in my ears and pounding at my head.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

Baba comes back to pick Mama and me up.

你可以回家了, the Nice Nurse Lady says with her usual gentle smile. You can go home now.

家？ I repeat. Home? 真的嗎？Really?

真的, the Nice Nurse Lady promises. Really.

And when I step in the doorway as I leave The Room, I look back once more. The Frowny Doctor is still hurrying between cots. The Beeping Sound continues at staggered intervals.

Red was once my favorite color, you know. It was bright and bold, like I used to be. But by the time I left, I didn’t like red so much anymore.

And worst of all…

The walls are bleeding again.

About the Competition

The Global Poetry and Creative Writing Competition 2026 by Hashtag Kalakar is a prestigious platform celebrating the art of storytelling and poetic expression. This annual event invites writers from around the world to submit their original works, offering a space to showcase diverse voices and unique perspectives. It fosters a community of creativity and literary excellence, encouraging participants to push the boundaries of their craft.

We extend our heartfelt gratitude to Rosie Lee for sharing "The Red Room" with us. Her essay is a testament to the power of narrative in capturing the complexities of childhood experiences. We are honored to feature her work in the Global Poetry and Creative Writing Competition 2026, and we look forward to seeing more from her in the future.

About Hashtag Kalakar

Hashtag Kalakar is a creative platform dedicated to providing artists, writers, singers and other creative talents with opportunities to showcase their work and reach wider audiences through competitions, features and creative initiatives.