I struggle to open my eyes against the pulsing pain in my face. The first thing I see is an unfamiliar smooth white ceiling. Startled, I bolt up in bed and struggled to look around. My movements are restricted and I notice that I am restrained by tethers to the mat. That's when it all comes flooding back to me.
The hospital, I repeat out loud. My movement must have caught the attention of some of the nurses and they come flooding in with warm concerned smiles. "How are you feeling deer?", they coo. I force the most sincere smile I can when I say that I'm feeling fine. Of course you are deer, your father will be expecting you home soon. My father! I exclaim, just a bit too loudly. Is he back in town? Oh, no dear, he's still tied down with work in East Germany, but he sends his best wishes and is providing support so that you may return home soon. My heart sinks at that. It's been over six months since I last escorted my father to the train station. As I'm smelling the engine smoke and feeling the grime of the train station in my memory, the nurses continue to talk as if I wasn't there. They say how it was just a matter of time that I cracked and no woman should have that type of pressure on them. One of the more modest looking nurses chirps in her two cents that "a school is no place for a woman". That's when I snap back into the conversation. What do you mean? I ask, with a sharp bite in my words. If you are suggesting that the simple tasks of reading and attending lectures could do this to me then you must be the delusional one. Each nurse shoots me a surprised and equally hurt look before shuffling out of the room and whispering snippy comments under their breath. I told you she was mad, said one. No, no, all rich spoiled girls are like that. I decide not to pay any more attention to them and flop back down onto my mat. The pain in my face has spread into a throbbing headache, but before I can think about it much I fall back into unconsciousness.
I wake up hours later to a sharp pain in my arm. upon opening my eyes I see an elderly doctor retracting a needle from my inner elbow. He notices my eyes are open and shoots me a quick and insincere smile. She is awake, he exclaims. Miss Saunders, I would appreciate being able to ask you a few questions about your experience yesterday. I close my eyes and try to ignore him until I notice a large amount of shuffling from the other side of the room. What I see is a group of ten or so young men gawking at me. Horrified I look away quickly only to come face first with my own reflection. My skin is deathly pale, there are dark circles under my eyes, but most remarkable is the deep purple and blue bruise which takes up half of my face. The eyes looking back at me begin to water and I imagine what I must look like to the people observing me. To my further embarrassment I notice that there are men in the room who I recognize. The most prominent of which is Sir, Derek Souza. It took so much effort for me to be accepted into St. Josephs University. It was virtually unheard of for a woman to be accepted to study there and I had blown it. Who better to relish in my failure then him, the most cruel man I had ever met.
In my mind I guess I saw this whole situation going in a different direction. Yes, I would be the first woman to have attended St. Josephs University and I would initially be met with skepticism, but I always believed that eventually I would be able to prove myself and earn the respect of the faculty and students. This (up until yesterday of course) was possibly my greatest misjudgment. Professors would refuse o acknowledge my questions, Ignore my input and decline to grade any of my assignments or independent study work. I was denied access to the library, bathrooms and dining facilities, but I refused to give up. I could tolerate being ignored, because after I had proven myself a worthy student, it would all change. It wasn't until I met Sir Souza that I ever doubted myself. One day after failing to get my instructor to look at my research on the connection between folklore and linguistics, I stomped down the curved stairwell and right into his chest. Thrown off balance we both tumbled down a few steps. Aggressively picking up his things, he shot me the most intense glare I've ever seen directed at anybody. It was like his entire face was in a snarl. Before I could even say that I was sorry, he stormed off. I had been treated badly this year, but never so openly and to be honest, it scared me. As I stood to leave I noticed that I was no longer wearing my pendant. It had been a gift given to me as a child by my mother before she died. Since then I had worn it so often that it was almost like an extension of my body. The absence of its weight on my chest made always made me nervous and I began searching frantically for it, but to no avail. Along with it, my papers from this morning were also missing and I came to the conclusion that Sir Souza must have picked them up in his haste.
The next day while I was eating my packed lunch out on the grass, an enormous shadow enveloped me. His height must have been masked by the stairs the day before because when I realized how tall he was it alarmed me. I had never seen a person so tall or broad in the shoulders before. Most academics at this school were wiry with profuse facial hair and beady eyes which would dart frantically behind their glasses. Not Sir Souza though. Everything about him was blunt and aggressive. I gaped at his piercing green eyes until I noticed him shaking papers in my face. Are you even listening? He barked. I must have picked up your papers when you attacked me yesterday. I chocked down my immediate thankful response and settled for scoffing at his comment. You think I attacked you? For what? The pleasure of your company? Surely you don't think that highly of yourself, I said. Feeling more then a little smug at the wittiness of my comment I let a smirk crawl halfway up my face. Suddenly his irises enveloped the green of his eyes and he flung my papers over head. After he had stormed off I collected the pages, which had rained down in every direction. My eye caught on something unfamiliar which was written on my work. Every page, paragraph and sentence of my work had been critiqued, and not favorably...After the first few lines of self esteem shredding critiques, my eyes were too blurry to continue reading. I sunk to my knees and took in quick deep breaths. Once I had composed myself I skipped to the very end, where Sir Souza had written a short comment. Miss Saunders, there is absolutely nothing redeemable within this research. It is my opinion that you don't have the intellectual capability to perform in academia. Honest and to the point, it was absolutely true. I kneeled there for almost an hour absorbing every word of it. For the rest of the day I noticed him every where. Always with a look of condemning judgment, his eyes would stare right through me. Now, just two days later, those were the eyes which were locked onto mine from across the room.
Damn...
So, here I am. My hair is un-brushed, my face and arms are bruised all sorts of inhuman colors and I'm strapped in my under gown to a hospital mat. I couldn't possibly look worse, or have a more inappropriate audience for it. What are they doing here, I ask while pointing to the mob of my classmates. I'm looking desperately at the doctor for some kind of explanation. He puts on his patient voice as he is addressing me. It's the soft, slow tone you would use with a child or a frightened animal. A good friend of mine is an instructor at the University and asked if I would be willing to show his class around the sanitarium wing of the hospital, he explains. I hope you don't mind, I thought it would be nice for you to have your classmates visit.
Nice, I repeat. I can't help but have a bitter expression at that. Now, if you don't mind Miss Saunders, your condition is one of paramount interest and we need to ask you some questions about what happened yesterday. This is the part where they all take out their notebooks and pencils, like I'm some sort of lab animal about to be dissected at their educational whim. The class looks at me expectantly and I realize that this will have been the first time any of them will have listened to what I have to say, so I begin with, "it started after lunch…"
Due to an earlier confrontation, I was feeling a little flustered when I arrived at my science lecture. It had occurred to me as I was entering the lecture hall that I had yet found my necklace, which I had lost a day before. The necklace has always been very important to me. I used to have nightmares, but my mother had given me the necklace as a charm against the things which used to frighten me. When she died, I began wearing it every day to remind me of her. As I started telling the story I began thinking of my mother. The way she used to hum as she walked, or how she smelled that day we went out to the beach…
What did you see? Asked one of the boys. What?...In the classroom, what did you see that caused you to go hysteric?
Oh...Like I had said, I was a little flustered from an earlier confrontation and coupled with the loss of my necklace, I was feeling pretty off. During the lecture I thought I heard a man talking over the professor. He wasn't saying anything in particular, just mumbling to himself. When I looked up to scold him he looked really surprised. He asked very excitedly if I could see him. I refused to acknowledge him because I thought it would interrupt the professor, so I ignored him the best I could. However, this only enraged him more and he began screaming nonsense at me. When I looked over at him again he had burst into flames. I was so afraid, that I fell backwards, yet the man seemed not to be in pain at all. He kept walking towards me urging me to listen. I ran from the room, but he followed. I sprinted up to the bell tower where I saw a woman sitting in a chair. When I called out to her she looked over at me and I noticed that her neck was completely broken and jutting out from the skin underneath her throat. I screamed for someone to help, but the creatures enveloped me. I remember trying to get away from the flames by crawling out onto the window sill, but I lost my footing. I remember feeling an enormous pressure wrap around my arm as I jumped. There was a moment of weightlessness where all I could feel was the momentum of the jump. As I looked down to see the pavement below, I suddenly swung back towards the building. My last memory was the impact of me hitting the outside of the window.
I looked up as I finished my story to notice the doctor and my classmates vigorously jotting down notes, all except for one that is. Derek stood there in the corner of the room with his eyes directly on me and an incredulous smile peeking on one side of his mouth, as if to say "what a whack job". It was then that I had realized my mistake in telling my story uncensored. I had only confirmed their suspicion that I was crazy. This wasn't a group of my peers coming to visit me in the hospital, it is just a class and I'm the specimen. Even if I was released from the hospital there was no way they were going to let me come back to school. The doctor, who's name I still didn't know is asking me specifics about the nightmares I used to have as a child, then pointing out to the class that this could be an indication that I had a history of mental illness. If you'll excuse me doctor, I said, I would like some time alone. He looked reluctant, but ushered the students from the room anyway. Before he closed the door I called out that I would like a nurse to visit again. Again? He repeated. Yes, I said. I was a little rude to the nurses before and I would like to apologize. Miss Saunders, I regret to tell you that there have not been any nurses on this wing of the hospital for nearly ten years…I, or my assistant will be back soon to meet any needs you might have and with that the door clicked shut.