The Correction

Chapter 3- when you're surrounded... run!

The window of the bus was clear but blurred. The wet snow on the window slipped down the glass, and the watery sight whizzing by came into view. I gazed lazily out, waiting for the moments to slip by secretly and for my day to be at an end.

The clicking of the wheels spun by every second or so. Constantly hearing the notion of the moving bus, I tried to block it out with my thoughts. My thoughts were pretty simple. My thoughts were about Josephine Jane Black. About today.

The museum had been dull. I’d seen barely nothing, just a few items in glass cases. The museum was set in a medium size family house, empty and thick with dust. Josephine’s belongings had been like any other girls of that time, dresses of faded colours, books torn and weathered and old moth eaten teddies with ripped ears and tattered paws.

She had a straightforward life, with parents and siblings and a notable intelligence but nothing much. The poor girl was tortured when they had first seen the wings she had. They had just tried to make her tell them why she had them… but she didn’t know so she was just left in pain. Then a doctor had started asking questions: Dr. Alfred Williams. He didn’t find out anything. He just wrote a report saying she was writhing in a pain unknown to humans with unusual things on her back.  

After this Josephine was sent to an institution for mad people. She stayed there for the last three days of her life before she died, the most influential part of her story in my eyes.

Josephine lived her last days in ‘daze’ (as the doctors called it), she wasn’t really conscious; she just walked around and talked. She spoke of only one thing. A place called Glea. The nurses in the institution said she told stories each hour, every one different but all in the one place: Glea, and always accurate. She spoke of it like she was there, like she was the girl in the story, like she was doing the things she said.

I didn’t know if I believed that. I didn’t want to but I feared I had no other choice. And it was just so real, everything in her story seemed just like my issue and although I saw it as ridicules it still seemed real.

My eyes glanced down to my watch, the seconds clicking by, moment by moment. I bit my tender lip. I only had twenty minutes, I had to be home in twenty minutes or mum would be home… and I was ill- well I was meant to be. I couldn’t just not be there. I had to be home, sick, in bed.

But the traffic was building up, each car grumbling its way down the road as slow as humanly possible. I sighed.

There were only some people on the bus, each watching me, a girl who should be in school, looking nervous. I tried to hide my face in my jumper. It was useless though but at least these people didn’t judge me, at least these people didn’t point and laugh. At least they didn’t know my past…

*****

I walked down the path. Snow cooling me tired feet, freezing me little toes in the useless pair of shoes I had. The watery glaze over the thin icy had melted slightly so puddles leaked through in some place. I just hopped around them.

The streets were empty, all the kids were still in school, adults at work and any others keeping warm inside there houses.

I felt lonely. All day I was seeing things I didn’t want to, hearing stories which were just too real… and it was all getting too much. I sighed and carried on walking. Every step now seemed like a mile, every corner like an amazing achievement.

It was darker now, like most winter days, with thick snowy clouds blocking the limited sun beams.

I headed around another corner and down the shadowy alley, high fences and battered garages surrounding me, tall trees with finger-like branches and rotting leaves around each corner. The people that lived here were bad, ruff people that scared most people, I quickened me walk.