Faith Marie: Trapped in the Thought of Free – song
The light is warm and yellow. A girl in a knee-level, yellow skirt and hosiery tucks her hair behind her ear and offers a purse lipped smile. She dips her head in recognition before sidling past. She hugs a wood clipboard to her waist, hiding the contents with her chest. She looks around as though the words on the board are important, or secret. Maybe the words are precious, or maybe shameful.
There's a nametag that flashes blind as she looks up, sighing as elevator doors close over her. And she closes her eyes as the elevator goes down.
"Please don't be someone I know." The girl whispers to herself.
She pauses as she moves past a hallway. Inside a man groans on a hospital bed. The face is splotched char-black. The exposed layers of skin are paint-red, like images of brick in old building. She recoils as the long, jagged breath fills the chest that rises slowly, a wheeze that never seems to end, and her eyes close again as the air recedes too much, too long. The open eyes relax until the opal rings disappear, leaving only a chasm or black. She lifts the white sheet, looks up as though to see if someone is coming, and covers the mans face. At his side, she quickly detaches a tube from the man's neck. The crimson gush of the liquid inside it recedes up the tube and out of sight. She presses a red button on the wall, marks something on the clipboard and walks away.
The dark curls cross her view as she looks beyond the veil. Beyond a door, opened by a guard, cold machines, and a staccato scream, groaning and a long cry that echoes. She steps in the elevator again, and looks up at the lights.