UNSCATHED

Chapter 5

  AS THE WEEKS WENT ON, TASHA LEARNED TO IGNORE PIQUE'S GLOOMY MOODS and his dislike of long conversation – that he now found even more difficult than before. She learned not to mind the way he tutted and hurried away after his meals as if he had never been there, for hadn't she often felt similar herself?

She'd heard the word "depression" used more than once. How could they think she was depressed, she wondered, when she was the happiest she'd been in a long while? She told the Staff that.

   "No, Tash," they said, "you're not."

The Warehouse had once been so short of Staff that the Activities woman had had to help. She had once helped with the more physical side of things.  Tasha and her had never seen eye-to-eye, her not understanding why Tasha was so frantic to leave the Warehouse lounge after eating or why she'd – in her view – change her mind over trips out that took a lot of her time to organise. She yearned for the livelier years; when people actually wanted to do things -- to go out, when people actually got on and socialised.

She worried about Tasha's sight and her road sense – the latter was not good; her financial sense or the lack of it; her declining will to do anything for herself –- though there had been no change, not physically anyway –- her talk of having "nothing to get up for".

     In her way, she had tried to help. She had told Tasha something she had not been happy with. Something about it being long enough now to get used to something; something that she had said needed to stop...

.. and Tasha launched herself at her, nearly falling out of her wheelchair in the process; her sparkly fingernails raked the air. 

      "Natasha Mills! Until you calm down," she said in her loud voice, "you will not get any assistance."

"My stomach!" screamed Tasha, "I need help......you can't treat me this way! You can't...you can't!"

The door slammed.

"No!"

Later she'd write in Tasha's orange folder that she had been threatening Staff.

Tasha, small as she was, who couldn't reach a thing -- this was a running joke at the Warehouse due to her short arms -- had to have a pair of Staff in when they cared for her. Pique had told Tasha that her arms were so short she looked like a T-Rex.

The pair of Staff to care for her was fair enough really, as Tasha was basically a dead weight -- but it even extended to giving her drinks, checking her drainage bag, and chatting to her on the rare occasions they had time.

      "Tasha? Tasha, what happened?"

     The snarling thing that had worn Tasha's form became subdued instantly, as if she had been struck by a dart; a look of pure joy came onto her face.

"Awaken!" the same voice growled.

Tasha jerked; the activities woman was calling Tasha's name and begging her to look at her.

"I knew you'd like that," said the voice that was not the activities woman's, "they might think they know what you need, but don't I know what you like?"

"Yes, " said Tasha, "you do."

Oh, how I wish you didn't...

"Shh, it's all right," the voice continued. unusually soft, "I'm here. I'm not going anywhere.....put your songs on, make yourself feel better.... you'll forget everything.... that's it, shhh. ...."