Drabble: The Ones We Create
Rating: G
Comicverse
Disclaimer: V4V belongs to Moore, Lloyd, and WB
Dr. Delia Surridge thinks about the man in Room 5.
VVVVV
"There's a devil in that man."
Dr. Delia Surridge never has anything to say to that kind of nonsense, so she keeps quiet. In her hands she's holding her most recent notes on the cases in the medical compound, and as always, the ones from Room Five are on the top. Dr. Surridge is quickly losing hope for the other four, but Five is just as quickly becoming the star of the show.
"You don't believe me?" asks the man across the table from her. Dr. Surridge wonders what he's doing here; they're not close, not like he and commander Prothero are close. She's quite certain he knows she loathes him, although she's practiced at keeping it buried under a veneer of professional coolness. She has no use for his type at all and she knows no one else here does either. She knows he's here for no other reason than to excuse the cheque he receives every month. But she keeps quiet.
"I tell you, no human being can look at you like that," the man continues, leaning forward. "There's an evil thing residing in him. I can't tell you how thankful to God I am that he's safely under lock and key."
But, Dr. Surridge thinks, you'd know evil. I know what you do after hours, when you're walking the yard. Not leading a prayer circle. Not that it matters to me at all. You leave my cases alone, and you can do what you like with the rest.
Five does have a way of looking at you, though, she thinks. You could shrivel up and blow away under his gaze if you weren't strong enough. No wonder the padre is so scared of him.
She thinks about letting him know about her plans to let Five have a patch of dirt outside in the yard to plant some roses and vegetables. Just to upset him. It was an odd request, but that was part of why she can't refuse. It's a chance for some kind of reaction, something to reveal what's going on in that damaged mind of his. It isn't what they set out to do at all, but then the doctor isn't quite sure what their goal used to be anymore.
It is disconcerting, that Five had broken three days of total silence with a straightforward request for a garden. Perhaps she should be suspicious. No, that's the Bishop's paranoia leaking onto her. There are barbed wire fences and towers and men with rifles. They are safe.
She'll watch him very carefully over the next few months. There are many things he can teach her, even if he doesn't know it. There are answers there, there is a pattern to be revealed, if she only looks closely enough.
And there are no devils, except the human kind. The kind sitting across the table from her. But there are no devils in Room Five, just a man who's lost his mind, and a most fascinating study of dementia. A long time ago people thought that the mentally ill were possessed by demons, but we're past that now. We know there are no devils except the ones we create.