Shape of the Sun

Strength from an unexpected place

Shweta took in her new surroundings. She was the only one in this ward, unlike the last one, and this one was clean and airy. She would have liked to thank that male doctor...if she still had the desire to live. The present Shweta felt very tired, really, and had spent the hours since she had regained consciousness wishing that the police hadn't managed to fish her out of the river after her suicide attempt. In addition, all these people insisted on having her talk and do things that she didn't want to do. She hated it, she hated all of them. Except one. There was still one that she slightly liked.

At this time, there was a knock on the door and one of the nurses went to open it, revealing the only doctor that managed not to irritate her. His name tag had the bold letters 'Dr. Rajkumar Reddy' written on it, which was confirmed by the middle-aged doctor from earlier. Unlike the others that had attended to her since she got here, he emphasized her comfort over any sort of standard procedure.

And now, he was looking at her like he's just found out something disturbing, a pad half-filled with notes in hand. And she was right. Rajkumar felt very disturbed. Very.

He had been in his office, steadily emailing off write-ups when he had gotten another email from the doctor who had last attended Shweta before him. Apparently, it was some added observation from his notes that his assistant omitted typing into the in-department filing system before sending it over the first time. First, Rajkumar was grossed out that he had such an incompetent colleague, who left such important matters in the hands of others. In his opinion, each patient deserved a level of attention and care, and it was a doctor's duty to input that into their services. In addition, he couldn't help scolding him for sending such sensitive information in an unencrypted email. Whatever happened to posting it in the patient filing system, where he could securely receive it?

But all his complaints disappeared after reading the email's content. His colleague believed that Shweta had suicidal ideation, an observation that had crossed his mind earlier when he'd first seen her. It troubled him that such a young patient like her had experienced such level of trauma that led to this and Rajkumar didn't hesitate to shut down his desktop and hurry over to her new ward, wishing that he hadn't left her alone with all these staff that acted as rookies. If anything untoward had happened during the transfer, it would have been terrible.

But thankfully, everything went smoothly, and he had confirmed from the desk nurse on this floor that Shweta was checked in. Now, he was finally here.

And Rajkumar, for the first time in all his years of practice, had no idea of what to do.

In the elevator, he had written down some questions that he needed her to answer so that he could scale her suicidal probability levels, and confirm the observation. But right now, Rajkumar didn't think he quite needed them anymore, because he was looking straight at her, and a look at her soulless eyes on such an expressionless face told him that he was likely too late by a lot. And truthfully, he had only one more thing to do, before he went out and wrote up his recommendations for her training regime and for the police personnel. He had only one job - to evaluate for signs of abuse and prepare a plan that would best fit for the healing process, while aiding law enforcement. There was only one question, and he was done.

"Could you consent to having a rape kit done? The police are quite aware that this is a criminal investigation." He'd thought it was only hard the first time. He was wrong.

Shweta peered at him for a moment, and then back to the ceiling. Her voice, the first time that he was hearing it, was hoarse but still firm.

"I was raped. Many times."

The air of finality in her voice, confirmed by the lack of emotion made him wince. Many of his patients who had been victims of any sort of trauma, usually uttered such statements with some sort of emotional breakdown that made it easier for him to find an opening and observe. But here, there was no such thing, and it made it quite difficult to word the question that followed.