- Dec 19, 2004
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The sky tilted, subtly off-kilter.
It was happening again.
She closed her eyes tightly for a moment, hoping the nauseating wrongness would be gone when she opened them. But, as she blinked back the sharp headache, she was greeted with the same vision. Thick, pulsating purple clouds had replaced the high cirrus wisps backlit by a setting sun.
There was no sun. There were only the swollen bruise-hued glowing clouds.
She choked back a sob and forced her face into expressionlessness. Please, not this time. Please, no one notice this time. She forced her eyes downward, and stared intently at her socks.
The proctor shot a suspicious glance at the woman. Lank dark hair fell over pale eyes. Long arms wrapped themselves around knees that jutted like sharp sticks against the thin grey robe. He jotted, stylus rasping against the plastic panel of the PDA, making note of the time and of the withdrawn and remote state of the patient this time. A survey of the enclosed garden showed that the others were behaving normally. Normally, he thought, what an inadequate term for the sad, broken folk who stared vacantly at nothing much.
The dull quiet was broken by a long sharp buzz from within the ward. As if summoned, the early evening wind ruffled the grass, the hair, and the long gray-white robes of the patients as they slowly stood up on cue. From long habit or short, all found their assigned places in line before the open door. The proctor strode past the wavering line waiting to enter the building. When he reached the doors, he nodded at the young man at the head of the line and ticked off the identification code on the screen. The breeze quickened and grew chill. Impatient, the proctor checked off the codes as the line slowly snaked through the door.
One patient seemed oddly anxious to get indoors, shifting weight from foot to foot. A flicker of curiosity crossed his mind when he realized it was the woman with the pale eyes, the one who had caused so much trouble the day before. Her eyes slanted off to the side as she drew near. She seemed almost aware of the doorway, unlike the others.
He should notify the ward doc, but he knew it would tack at least an hour onto the end-of-shift reporting. He hesitated, watching the patients file along the corridor and enter their rooms. She wasn’t causing trouble. It wasn’t like the doc would help her any. His stomach chose that moment to rumble, pushing aside doubt. He and his next-shift counterpart exchanged roles with a nod, and he hurried to the ward desk to get the upload and reporting out of the way.
It was nothing, he assured himself, nothing but a random firing of neurons in a dim corner of the woman’s hindbrain. If it had been anything more, she would have raged again, like they all did, poor kids.
**********
I wrote this a few months ago, and it stirred an idea for a different story, possibly using the same character. But, I'm not sure this bit will make it into the larger story, now. The working title of the larger story is "The Gideon Effect".
It was happening again.
She closed her eyes tightly for a moment, hoping the nauseating wrongness would be gone when she opened them. But, as she blinked back the sharp headache, she was greeted with the same vision. Thick, pulsating purple clouds had replaced the high cirrus wisps backlit by a setting sun.
There was no sun. There were only the swollen bruise-hued glowing clouds.
She choked back a sob and forced her face into expressionlessness. Please, not this time. Please, no one notice this time. She forced her eyes downward, and stared intently at her socks.
The proctor shot a suspicious glance at the woman. Lank dark hair fell over pale eyes. Long arms wrapped themselves around knees that jutted like sharp sticks against the thin grey robe. He jotted, stylus rasping against the plastic panel of the PDA, making note of the time and of the withdrawn and remote state of the patient this time. A survey of the enclosed garden showed that the others were behaving normally. Normally, he thought, what an inadequate term for the sad, broken folk who stared vacantly at nothing much.
The dull quiet was broken by a long sharp buzz from within the ward. As if summoned, the early evening wind ruffled the grass, the hair, and the long gray-white robes of the patients as they slowly stood up on cue. From long habit or short, all found their assigned places in line before the open door. The proctor strode past the wavering line waiting to enter the building. When he reached the doors, he nodded at the young man at the head of the line and ticked off the identification code on the screen. The breeze quickened and grew chill. Impatient, the proctor checked off the codes as the line slowly snaked through the door.
One patient seemed oddly anxious to get indoors, shifting weight from foot to foot. A flicker of curiosity crossed his mind when he realized it was the woman with the pale eyes, the one who had caused so much trouble the day before. Her eyes slanted off to the side as she drew near. She seemed almost aware of the doorway, unlike the others.
He should notify the ward doc, but he knew it would tack at least an hour onto the end-of-shift reporting. He hesitated, watching the patients file along the corridor and enter their rooms. She wasn’t causing trouble. It wasn’t like the doc would help her any. His stomach chose that moment to rumble, pushing aside doubt. He and his next-shift counterpart exchanged roles with a nod, and he hurried to the ward desk to get the upload and reporting out of the way.
It was nothing, he assured himself, nothing but a random firing of neurons in a dim corner of the woman’s hindbrain. If it had been anything more, she would have raged again, like they all did, poor kids.
**********
I wrote this a few months ago, and it stirred an idea for a different story, possibly using the same character. But, I'm not sure this bit will make it into the larger story, now. The working title of the larger story is "The Gideon Effect".
