Gates and bars, doors and chains adorned her
home… no it was a solitary confinement, a cell. No light, no not a single ray
did she ever allow into the room. Not even the ‘wardens’. The corridor was also
dark so no light filtered in when each meal was brought in. they left the same
way, barely touched.
She
didn’t need any light… she had no sight. Hear her… ‘Hmmm’, she just sighed.
That’s seems to be the only sound that was ever heard from the room. Wait, she
also made a beautiful euphony whenever she bumped into the only piece of
furniture in the room, an old rickety one, she would sleep on nothing else
probably the floor. In the dead of the night, mutterings could be heard, who
was she talking to? After each session, silence ruled the air.
Today, she ate a little more, agreed to take a
bath and allowed human contact. Her skin was pale from years in the darkness.
Her hair was curtain-like and fairer than her skin. She had asked for a
stylist. ‘Please do send in the psychiatrist. I’d like a word with him’, she
said to whoever came in with lunch.
*******************
‘Sir, patient 040 requested for a
psychiatrist…’ the Rookie Warden began. The director looked up from the screen.
‘Finally, he realizes I have been here for the past twenty minutes’, the Rookie
thought within. ‘Go over that again’, he demanded. ‘040 requested a shrink,
sir’. ‘What are you waiting for, the
apocalypse? Don’t be the oaf you are. Get the shrink in by tomorrow and get the
heck out of my office!’
The
Rookie scurried for the door, ‘Hitler, Napoleon …the world’; he heard the
director mutter to the television set. Half way down the corridor, his lips
settled in a smile. ‘Me, an oaf? Wait till he finds out how moronic and stupid
I find him be, he is such a galoot’, he told the deaf cleaning lady.
*******************
‘What
is today?’ she asked. Her voice was
coarse and hoarse as she struggled to coordinate her vocal cords. Dr. Scythe
tried not to get irritated but didn’t sound cheerful as he told her, ‘25th
of July…’ She raised a skinny finger to her lips, ‘I don’t care to know the
year. It’s of no consequence’. The room was poorly lit and the stench oozing
out was offensive. She had insisted on having the session in her room. As he
moved uneasily in his seat, he hit his foot against the stool on which the
recording device was placed. She didn’t want him taking any note.
It’s been eight years since had willing
engaged anyone in a conversation. Eight years since the police walked in on
her. She was bleeding from both eyes with an eye ball on the floor. Her father
and brother laid dead just eight step away from where she knelt with a knife in
her hand.
‘I
am happy today, doctor… so happy.’ She began, ‘after now the world would make
me its heroine’. Dr. Scythe had to agree so as to keep her talking. Besides,
every patient is allowed to indulge in their own fantasy. ‘Then start the
recording’. After a fit of cough, she continued, ‘dinner that evening was like
every other. It was the best meal I had made ever since mama died. Father never
kept any money aside for housekeep, not even feeding. I had to leave school and
started working three jobs. Some days I worked till I couldn’t feel my fingers
anymore. What well-paying job could a girl of sixteen get? I was just a young
teenager. I longed to go back to school, have first date, first beer and all
the firsts… I wanted to knock on the neighbors’ door and tell someone what they
did to me each night. Not just them alone, their friends what did I get? “Get
away you whore, you’re tainting the very air I breathe in, how many banged you
the previous night?” They knew what was going on but no one seemed to care’.
She
stared at nowhere. Tears like balls played down her eyes as she relieved each
memory. Scythe placed his hands on hers, a comforting gesture. On impulse, she
broke the contact. ‘The touch of a male human repulses me…’ She sniffled a
little. ‘I killed them doctor, I put the bullets in their heads and backs. How
did I feel? Elated and relieved’. ‘I am not a coward… I am a survivor of incest
that began at the age of ten and child prostitution following Mama’s death’.
Her
face broke into a grin. I did everyone a favor. I got rid of the worst
creatures that ever crawled the face of the earth. I’d kill them over and over
again. Dr. Scythe finally found his voice, ‘how did you then lose your sight?’
he couldn’t help asking. This time she didn’t grin or smile, she laughed. ‘I
didn’t lose my sight, I gave it up. I couldn’t go on staring at the soulless
bodies of those two. It was my second act of bravery. It was worth it, I got to
be my own heroine…’
The Rookie gasped where he hid to listen to
the scoop of the year. He thought he could sell the information to a newspaper.
The approaching foot step of the doctor sent him running down the hall. ‘Who
was there?’ she asked. He told her that he didn’t see anyone but promised to
lodge complaints.
‘I’d like to check on you the day after
tomorrow. Would that be okay with you’, he asked. ‘Do as you please, I’d always
be within these walls. I’d still be here’. He nodded then raised his hands to
wave her goodbye but quickly remembered that gestures as that meant nothing to her.
‘Goodbye ’, she said.
******************
The
rookie sat at the reception desk with his head bent. He was in another world.
The rapping of the table sent him standing at attention. It was Dr. Scythe. He
had come to see patient 040. He was led to her room and left alone at the door.
He wasn’t greeted by a poorly lit room, not even that awful stench, the room
was painted and clean. There was no sign of her. He hurried to the reception but met no one.
He looked out the window and saw a little crowd gathered. He went out the door
to find out what was going on. No one was willing to break the silence. He looked
to the right and saw a grave stone… ‘Patricia Adams…’
He heard the wind whisper, ‘I am a heroine’.
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