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In The Windmills Of Her Mind

Chapter Eight

Lovers walk along the shore leave their footprints in the sand, is the sound of distant drumming just the fingers of your hand?

She sat in her hospital bed, the sheets soft and smooth against the harshness of her skin. Doctors and nurses came and left, she didn't recognise any of them and nor could she remember them. As they entered and checked up on her she watched them with her mouth open, her eyes wide as she tried to picture these people, as she tried to picture her life – but it was still blank. As they came and left, she counted, she ran her fingers over her skin, the tips of her fingers falling into each groove, into each cut and into each scar, they scraped over every scab and bruise, past every stitch and every bandage, they carefully touched each burn. She looked at the casts which encased her and the bandages that covered her and she didn't know. She didn't know how this had happened, what had happened to her, she couldn't even remember who she was.

She leant her head back against the metal frame that the bed was attached to, she felt soft tears rolling down skin that she had no attachment to. She felt her mind grieve for her body and her body grieve for her mind, she felt two things that were so unattached pining for one another. Her body needed her mind and her mind needed her body – but there was nothing there, there was nothing to attach them.

So she sat and wept, she wept for the body she no longer knew, the mind she no longer had, and she wept for the silver key that hung around her neck, the key that held something very precious behind its lock but she had no idea what. She wept for everything she was and everything she'd lost, she wept until she had no more tears to cry, and then she shook.

Mary leant against the doorway and watched her patient as she wept for herself, the girl didn't speak, there was only one word she would utter over and over again, a simple word that held no meaning to anyone but herself. Mary shook her head and felt her heart ache for the girl; she didn't even know her own name. It had been days since she had awakened – weeks since she'd arrived. She no longer was attached to cables that monitored her heart; the tubes in her nose had disappeared along with the drips that scared her trembling hands. She was now just a girl, a girl all alone in the vastness of the white sheets – and it petrified her.

Mary had noticed one thing though, whenever she lay in her bed her mind was somewhere else, and her gaze was always averted to out of the window. When night time came, she dragged herself from her bed, leaning carefully on a crutch to support her leg, she dragged herself over to the window. It was how she spent every night, on the chair beside the window gazing at the sky, there was something about the stars that amazed her. Something about the boundless sky and millions of stars above her, she longed to reach out and touch them, her scared hands reaching up to the sheer blackness of the sky but never able to reach. Then her hand would fall away and rest on her necklace, the tiny key that hung around her neck is what she clung to in the night when she watched the skies, waiting, hoping – but no one knew what for, and neither did she.

She never slept. She just sat. If she slept then the nightmares would return, then the pain would shoot through her once more, then the injuries would throb with memories – and so she sat awake. Her eyes heavy with sleep but never faltering, her eyes would become blood shot as she just watched the stars shooting overhead – and so she waited.

Mary had seen this and watched her as she looked out on the gardens. She walked into the room

'Hello sweetheart' she called out – the girl didn't move when she spoke, she was too busy watching the bird that flew by, so easily it escaped this place. Mary walked up behind her and gently placed her hand upon her shoulder – the girl flinched in reaction and Mary instantly removed her hand.

'Sorry' she murmured. It was in moments like this she realised everything the girl had been through – how totally abnormal she was, it was moment like this that she remembered why she was covered in scars and as thin as a child of war stricken lands.

Mary watched the girl as she studied the outside world,

'Would you like to go outside today?' Mary asked softly. She got no reply except for the faint nod of her head. Mary smiled to herself and took that as a yes.

Soon the girl was bundled into a wheelchair for she was too weak to walk long distances on her own, a blanket was tucked around her legs and her arms rested on her lap. Her bruises still marked her, it seemed that every day she was here the darker they became, but the girl didn't mind as she traced her fingers around their outlines.

She parked the girl next to a bush of beautiful red roses, she ran her fingers over them feeling the velvet of their petals underneath the rough skin of her fingers. She ran her hands down the stems, their sharp thorns cutting into her and her blood running freely down their stems. She watched the flowers as she gently stroked them – then her face fell into agony

'Rose!'

She shivered as she felt a voice screaming in her mind, fighting through the darkness that marked her to reveal a truth that burned her.

'Rose! No! Don't touch her!'

The screams of a man tore through her mind and she dropped her head into her hands as her fingers rested on her once bloodied temples. She shook her head as the screams filed her

'Please no' she whimpered.

'Rose…Rose…oh I'm so sorry Rose, please Rose…don't give up'

She lifted her head and looked blankly ahead, her hazel eyes burned once again as pain tore through her

'Sweetheart? What is it?' Mary asked worriedly as her hands clenched into fists crushing the petals of the flower within them.

'Rose' she whispered.

'Pardon?' Mary asked.

She trembled as her fists clenched hard, the voice in her head was fading again as the fog that filled her mind set in again

'Rose' she murmured again.

And for the final time the voice screamed

'Rose'

And then they both fell back into the darkness in which they hid.