Hope's Hospital

Raped

It was barely a morning when Rosalyn entered the hospital. Her huge pregnant body caused her to trouble moving around, and she was wearing a gigantic shirt, but her huge stomach was still very much noticeable under it. But the long scars that disfigured her otherwise beautiful face drew a lot more attention than her pregnancy. It was shocking that you could also see more scars peeking from her shirt. It was kind of repelling and kept you from looking away at the same time. She seemed so young but there was something ancient in her eyes and combined with the tired expression of someone who saw a lot made her appear old. She really was full of contradictions as she was walking through the corridors like she knew them very well but there was no confidence in her steps, only hesitation, and even her smile as she noticed Jane lacked happiness.

 “Hey Jane! Long time no see. It has been almost a week since I was here.”

She sat down next to her and began to describe to Jane everything that happened since they last saw each other, still faking cheerfulness.

“… and my grandmother loved it! She was so delighted when she heard I was going back to college and she promised to help anyway she can but then…”

She leaned back a little and her smile became even more like a grimace, the words didn’t leave her mouth and the silence was suffocating Rosalyn and Jane was as always staring somewhere in the distance. She shook her head and changed the subject to avoid the painful topic.

“You know, I think I am becoming fond of this place.”

She stood up and made a couple of steps with her fingers gently touching the wall but then cringed and pulled her hand away inspecting it with a grimace.

“Ew! Don’t they ever clean this place? Okay this place isn’t the greatest thing on the world or even sanitary, but it has spirit and a story. It gives me this feeling as if it is falling apart, just like me and nobody cares about it. It feels like it has been long forgotten and… But I guess I only feel that way because I don’t want to be alone in my pain… You know, I still choke up every time someone asks who the father is. I never know how to respond to that.”

She lightly kicked the chair and scoffed.

“Oh, who’s the father you ask.  Well, it is the guy who raped me. You probably saw it on the news.”

She laughed to herself bitterly and cursed.

“Yeah, like that would be such a wonderful thing to mention in a discussion.”

She turned around abruptly and asked out of the blue with a childish pout on her lips.

“Do you ever blink?”

She leaned really close to Jane’s face and stared directly at her and shuddered.

“You know I have never seen you blink since I started coming here. Not even once. If you started blinking and focused on something you could be a really pretty girl. Your eyes are really something… I used to be pretty, too. It’s his fault at least that’s what they tell me. Well, except aunt Joanne who jelled at me and told me, I caused it to myself by dressing the way I did. The thing is I have a feeling other silently agree. I’m not sure who to believe to be honest. I just….”

“Is it really all his fault? Is it?”  

She finally moved away from Jane’s face and sighed. She slumped into the chair next to her, leaned back and closed her eyes completely drained of energy. The absence of noise was something she learned to despise. It made her nervous at first of course because it seemed so unnatural to someone who had never heard a complete silence before in her life. But after a while she learned that the things it forced her to remember were far more terrifying.

 The silence lifted the feeling of tension the hectic life and constant noise inflicted on her and the real life melted away and ceased to exit… There was nothing except complete, utter silence. That’s when the memories appeared. She was left without anything to do; she was forced to stay trapped in her head and unable to think about anything else because sooner or later something reminded her of the event.

She hated silence with a passion only few understood.

“It’s just a matter of time before the silence convinces you, you do not exist anymore.”

She had no idea where she heard it but it sounded right mostly because she had nothing to say and she needed to break the silence even if the words said were meaningless.

She sat on that chair, hating the silence but not being able to break it. She impatiently waited for her name to be called.  It was not long but to her it felt like an eternity she was almost through the door when she turned around and looked at Jane weirdly.

“You know, I could swear you were sitting over there the last time I was here.”

She then shrugged and closed the door behind her.

It was a lot later when the last nurse left the hospital and was slowly followed by the cleaner a couple of hours  later and the hospital became even more silent than before and the lights went out and only as the darkness fell upon the Hope’s Hospital Jane slowly blinked.