Lullabye
The smooth blue light of the PICU was seeping through the viewing window into the dark corridor, casting a clear reflection of the woman standing in front of it. Her face was tired and vacant, as white as her shirt with gaze fixed on a bed inside. Her hands were clenched at her arms around the elbows as if they were carrying her weight, pushing her up to keep standing for hours and hours more than she already did. When a man standing a head taller approached her silently, it didn't prompt a flinch, nor a budge to break the transfixion.
Looking at her, it was hard to keep an unbroken heart. The fair strands falling on her forehead were lifeless and messy. The blue of her eyes were dull and still rheumy.
Tucking his hands in his pockets, the man stood next to her. He was going to catch her if she collapsed but knowing how stubborn she was, it wasn't going to happen anytime soon. For the same reason, he didn't tell her to go home and rest, or even to sit on the bench by the vending machine.
She was out of his reach. Trapped in the gale of her soul, one that sealed more tears inside than the ones shed outside. One that prevented her from taking a good breath. A storm of fear, guilt and desperation. She was out of his reach and if he couldn't reach her, no one could.
"I remember the day I first met you." he said softly, with a voice of a low, soothing register. "You were barely an adult, younger than my sister but you were the first person that looked at me without eyes of pity since my mother's death."
If he couldn't reach her, no one could.
"And you wanted to build a fort to live in." Only her lips had moved and the sound that came out was grave and brittle.
"And you brought every sheet and pillow in the house and let me live there in the living room for...?"
"Three months." was the answer to the intentional question. Once locked down, it was hard to pick all those
"Three months and sixteen days and not even once you asked me when I would move to my room." He could only guess how painful it could be for the woman. He was far from being a parent himself but he knew what it felt to lose someone and how it was to fear so deeply about losing someone.
"You were happy there." Her voice was still coming from a land far away but it had that pinch of warmth in it. A strand she was trying to hold onto so that she wouldn't slip into the darkness behind her.
"And you made those horrible biscuits. I put them in the balcony when you weren't looking and even the birds didn't eat them. Then there was this time..."
They stood there, in front of the viewing window, looking inside with his arm curled over her shoulder. He talked about her stories, fruit salad, Paris, music, her piano.
For hours.
He didn't let her slip.
Not while he was there.
The smooth blue light of the PICU was seeping through the viewing window into the dark corridor, casting a clear reflection of the woman standing in front of it. Her face was tired and vacant, as white as her shirt with gaze fixed on a bed inside. Her hands were clenched at her arms around the elbows as if they were carrying her weight, pushing her up to keep standing for hours and hours more than she already did. When a man standing a head taller approached her silently, it didn't prompt a flinch, nor a budge to break the transfixion.
Looking at her, it was hard to keep an unbroken heart. The fair strands falling on her forehead were lifeless and messy. The blue of her eyes were dull and still rheumy.
Tucking his hands in his pockets, the man stood next to her. He was going to catch her if she collapsed but knowing how stubborn she was, it wasn't going to happen anytime soon. For the same reason, he didn't tell her to go home and rest, or even to sit on the bench by the vending machine.
She was out of his reach. Trapped in the gale of her soul, one that sealed more tears inside than the ones shed outside. One that prevented her from taking a good breath. A storm of fear, guilt and desperation. She was out of his reach and if he couldn't reach her, no one could.
"I remember the day I first met you." he said softly, with a voice of a low, soothing register. "You were barely an adult, younger than my sister but you were the first person that looked at me without eyes of pity since my mother's death."
If he couldn't reach her, no one could.
"And you wanted to build a fort to live in." Only her lips had moved and the sound that came out was grave and brittle.
"And you brought every sheet and pillow in the house and let me live there in the living room for...?"
"Three months." was the answer to the intentional question. Once locked down, it was hard to pick all those
"Three months and sixteen days and not even once you asked me when I would move to my room." He could only guess how painful it could be for the woman. He was far from being a parent himself but he knew what it felt to lose someone and how it was to fear so deeply about losing someone.
"You were happy there." Her voice was still coming from a land far away but it had that pinch of warmth in it. A strand she was trying to hold onto so that she wouldn't slip into the darkness behind her.
"And you made those horrible biscuits. I put them in the balcony when you weren't looking and even the birds didn't eat them. Then there was this time..."
They stood there, in front of the viewing window, looking inside with his arm curled over her shoulder. He talked about her stories, fruit salad, Paris, music, her piano.
For hours.
He didn't let her slip.
Not while he was there.