Flights of Fancy

The flat fan of black hair seems too dark in the sterile white room. Lying on bed sheets that smell faintly of bleach and pain killers, she watches the dull sky behind the window glass. Mouth slightly ajar with words left unspoken, she wills her tongue to bring some color back to her chapped lips. She turns her head over to the other side, the pillow making a soft squelching sound that seems too loud in the tall, mute room. Her empty eyes slowly register a plastic green chair in front of the iron framed bed. How strange, she thinks. All visitor's chairs have been long removed from this room, as they were never occupied. She slides her arm up to the pillow, her bony fingers brushing away thin black hair that had fallen across her face. Examining her chipped fingernails, she dully thinks of what her mother would have said, were she around. She would have scorned her. Made her scrub the staleness off her body until her skin was raw. Tore through the knots in her dry hair, scolding her even louder to block out her cries of pain. She would have shamed her; were she around.
Silence presses against her ears, making the feeling of true loneliness seem all too close. The still, dead air never leaves the room, as if afraid of what lies outside the white door. A white hallway. A white courtyard. A white city. A white world.
Doctors come and go. They sit by the bed, thoughtfully poking their chins with their pens, asking her questions. She stares blankly at the floor, the ceiling, the blue blanket clutched tightly between her fingers. The blue blanket, once a lovingly made gift, now frayed with age and drained of feeling. She stopped answering their questions long ago.
The hours pass. The visitor's chair stands alone, facing the bed on which a frail young body is draped in white cloth. The tender spring sunlight fades, giving way to an early evening. The chair stands, patiently waiting for someone to walk through the door, or for the girl to move. But visiting hours end and the institution plunges into a deep night.
There are no more tears. Everything had gone, forgetting only a brittle shell. Pain, joy, curiosity, love. All of it steadily seeped out from her eyes, running down the worn-out tracks of her hollow cheeks.

(this piece was inspired by the song "The Story Only I Didn't Know" by IU)