TOGETHER
My eyes peeled open revealing the streams of blazing sun filtering through the slits in the window. I felt patches of warmth on my face mirroring the rays of light; a map of sun danced. Beneath the coverlet, I extended my arms and legs in a stretch to awaken my limbs, twitting my wrists in an isolated and insect-like fashion.
BEEP BEEP BEEP
Piercing. I squeezed my eyes shut. My hands bolted towards my ears to protect them from the pain. I should be used to the alarms by now; I’ve been here for four months. Four months, seventeen weeks, approximately seven alarms a day (I counted). That’s eight-hundred-and-thirty-three times I have concaved, eight-hundred-and-thirty-three times I have attempted to disable each one of my senses, eight-hundred-and-thirty-three times someone has attempted to end their world. Every time to the same degree of profundity.
BEEP BEEP BEEP
Still, the tinnitus in my ears tease the frequency and my body closes in on itself like a roll of film protecting itself from any tinge of light.
BE-
Finally, silence. It seemed more than silence. In such a great contrast it was such pure, earnest nothingness. Shaking, I threw my legs over the side of my bed and stood. I traced my eyes around the room, my familiar room: the window covered with a grate - allowing only air in and out, the empty chest of drawers, and the nook between the wall and the desk – a space which I fit neatly into when my thoughts got too big that they had no more room to bounce in my head; when they got stuck.
In therapy today, we were looking at goals. We were each asked to write down our respective goals for our lives. I kicked Eve playfully under the table with my soft and gripped sock covered feet – it’s hard to think about our goals when we see a life with no future. The way I see life, there is past and there is present – I don’t want a future. The past is the depths of the ocean; still, untouched. The present is erosion; inevitable. The future is unpredictable and fluid. I could measure out every ingredient of a recipe with the upmost precision and with a set of scales disclosing tens and hundreds of decimals, but the bread would still be ruined if someone set the temperature of the oven wrong or I kneaded the dough for too long. There are too many things out of my control. I like to have control. I need to have control.
I lay in the corridor with Eve, our legs rested up against the wall. I placed my heel in a hole in the wall which was at the perfect height. I dragged my heel in and out of it, feeling the rough edge of it scrape against my foot with each movement. Dispersing from the lounge, I heard the radio; the staff loved to have the news on incessantly. I absorbed each story like an impressionable child. The words chipped away at my mind, spreading their dreadful seeds. I turned to Eve, noticing how her strawberry blonde hair seemed to absorb the sun. ‘Do you want to die?’ I’m not quite sure why I said it. I guess she just doesn’t seem like the kind of girl to want that; none of the alarms were ever for her and she always seemed so optimistic.
‘Painfully.’
When she answered I stilled my foot, still hitherto brushing on the wall. It was almost as if I wasn’t expecting her to hear my question at all. I turned to face away from her.
‘Painfully?’ I replied, ‘As in you want it to hurt or you want it desperately?’
‘I want it so bad,’ and with this I could hear a quiver in her voice; she had begun to cry. An air of silence proceeded this. All that was to be heard was the low hum of blended words coming from the radio.
Then the radio stopped.
I swung my legs over and sat upright. Silence in this part of the ward was unheard of. Eve seemed to share my confusion. I stood and extended a hand to help her up. Together we walked to the lounge, it was half past six – dinner time, but it didn’t smell of food. As we walked through the ward, it soon became apparent no one was here. Every room was strangely clean. Where cards and pens usually lay were clean tables. Where patches of blood once lingered on the walls, there was nothing.
I looked across at Eve. She had a solemn look on her face as if she had just received terrible news. I felt the blood exit my face. After a few more agonising moments of silence, we, without speaking, collectively decided to turn on the radio.
This is an automated recording, seek shel-
I turned it off. I couldn’t listen. I knew what they were going to say. And by Eve’s countenance, I knew she too knew.
Following a few seconds where we gazed at each other before looking away in loss, we resumed our spaces on the floor, my foot placed back in the hole in the wall. It felt like maybe the world had already ended. I’ve always felt the act of doing easier than the absence of doing something, despite whether the thing is good or bad. Perhaps this is why the silence unsettled me so much.
I stood up. I extended my hand toward Eve, inviting her to join me. And in the silence, we danced. In spite of the absence of music, we danced. As rhythmic as the alarms, we danced.
‘I’m scared,’ I said.
Eve looked at me in my eyes, as caring as a mother and took hold of my face with both of her soft hands. ‘Everyone’s world ends eventually, this wa y we
ge t t o
do i t
together.’
Francesca Beyer, 17, Wiltshire - England ✯
“Francesca Beyer, 'just' a girl whose desires are nothing more than to forget about her experiences is hospital.”