The Patient, The Prisoner, & Their Paper Planes

Check/Sneak Out

Today was a beautiful summer day. The sun was beaming brightly behind the bolder clouds, and the birds flew in the blue sky like fish in water. It was all so close, and yet so far, because that world was on the other side of the glass, only three feet away from the girl sick in bed.

Inside the cubed white room where she was hospitalized, Rin remained in bed as she watched the outside. Where she was, she couldn't feel the warmth of the sun on her skin, or the wind in her hair. Only stinging feeling of a needle through her vein.

To Rin, she did not want to waste what could possibly be her last summer. She had to go outside at least once before the leaves start to fall.

She got up from bed while slipping her feet in her soft slippers. She made haste toward the coat hanger to grab her pink blanket and white sun hat with a pink sash. Now that she was satisfied with her accessorized appearance over her dull hospital gown, she opened the screen window and climbed over the window sill, stepping into nature for the first time in three months.

The refreshing air smelled like due and grass. It was pleasant compared to the usual aroma of medicine and chemical sanitations. The light felt warm as it gave her skin pleasure. This sensation she had almost forgotten has reawakened.

She skipped and danced around the clear grassy field, stretching and exercising her frail limbs for the first time. She remembered how she used to dance. It was almost a strange feeling. But with nobody around, she was free to dance however she wanted.

Out of nowhere, a gust of wind swooped down and snatched her hat off the top of her blonde head. She reached out to grab it, but it was too high, flying too fast. Rin tried to catch up to it, at the same time maintaining her pace so that she wouldn't use so much energy.

At the other side of a large hill, there laid a quadratic complexed camp with wired fences and brick buildings and dirt land. Rin had almost forgotten that one of the reasons she was placed in that specific hospital was because her father worked close by. That way, he could visit her whenever he wanted. In contrast to the gloomy, grey area, Rin spotted a white dot floating around near the fence and remembered about her lost possession.

She was about to walk down the hill until she spotted someone walking along the fence from the inside. From afar, she could make out his dark clothes and blonde hair. He stopped next to the hat that was caught in the bob wires and pulled it out. When his head turned toward her direction she swiftly ran back down the hill to hide. Oh no! He saw me! What will he do? If he tells anyone about my whereabouts, the news will surely reach my father, and I may never go outside again.

Fearing consequences after being sighted when not supposed to be, she abandoned her hat and went back from which she came. With her hands rapidly swaying back and forth at her sides, Rin ran back to the hospital, panting hard all the way.

When she finally reached the building, luckily, her room's window was still open, meaning that no nurse has walked inside her room yet. She climbed over the window and closed it before kicking her slippers off and flipping back in bed. She was exhausted, her heart beating so fast as her chest rose up and down.

She laid in bed for few hours while regaining her strength until her nurse entered the room, right on schedule. It was during this time that her nurse would inject Rin's medications and then serve her dinner. She only sees her nurse three times a day.

When the nurse left, Rin didn't touch her food. She shifted on her side to face the window. She hoped that whoever picked up her hat wouldn't tell on her, and would take care of that hat until she would return the next day.