XX - Paige
“They won’t let me out… They won’t let me out… I want to
go home!”
Paige was nearly in tears. The sobbing voice was incessant and the old woman’s tone was so
sorrowful that she could feel it ripping away at her insides with every
moan. There was a hint of madness to it
all, and of futility, but, worse than that, Paige had explored the length and
breadth of the geriatric ward and there was no sign of the woman at all.
Paige thought she could pinpoint the source of the voice,
but, as she had neared the location where the voice reached its maximum volume,
she felt a chill run down her spine.
She had been in a large dayroom at the time, far from the end where a
set of stained old easy chairs sat in the company of a litter-covered
table. The voice seemed to come from a
corner, empty except for a work surface and an overflowing bin. She had run then, and when her nerves had
calmed a little she began searching beyond that room, hoping that it had all
been a strange trick of hospital acoustics, but each ward room was empty and
the further away from the ward room she ventured, the fainter the voice became.
Now she leaned against a wall in the corridor outside,
staring at the door to the dayroom, listening to the old woman wail, “I want to
go home! I want to go home!” Her hands reached into her jeans’ pocket,
slid out the cigarette packet and the lighter.
She fumbled inside, tipped it, the cardboard slipped between her fingers
and the cigarettes spilled out to the floor.
She opened her other hand, let the lighter drop and then raised both her
palms to her face. She let her tears
come, sliding down the wall into a ball on the floor.
“Let me out,” the old woman screamed and Paige could only
scream back at her.
“Stop it!”
Her hands were drenched with tears.
“Shut up, you old hag, shut up! Just stop it, please…”
“They won’t let me out…”
“Why won’t you stop?
Please stop… Please stop… Please..”
And the screaming went on.
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