Obscurity

Chapter 54: Spectator

Sierra

I stare after Alma as she rushes after Spencer. At first, I'm frustrated with her preoccupation with him. Then, I realize she's just as curious as I am about how in the hell he managed to smuggle a cell phone into this place. Wild thoughts about cell phones being jammed into unmentionable areas of the body cross my mind. I laugh them away. I can't imagine one fitting in any bodily orifices so easily, these days.

I continue shuffling my cards. It helps my thought processes. I figure Spencer has smuggled a phone in one of two ways. The first way being concealing it on his person when he was admitted. The second, someone brought it to him during a visit. The second option, however, has a drawback. I have not seen Spencer receive any visitors in his short stay here. So, one can only conclude that theory to be null and void. If no one has come to see him, there's no way he could receive a phone from a nonexistent visitor.

I don't think that he could've concealed a cellular phone anywhere on his body during his intake. I mean, the staff here can be very sloppy and leave much of their work undone or half-assed but I find it difficult to believe a staff member skipped his strip search when he arrived on this floor. We all are searched, and our belongings are cataloged upon our arrivals. There's typically no room for error when they are searching for contraband.

My thoughts drift away in speculation. A sailboat lost without a main sail in a windless ocean. I'm perplexed. It doesn't happen often, so it's thrown me a bit. I think harder. Try as I might, I cannot come up with a plausible explanation for this newest development.

Perhaps Spencer has had a guest or visitor since his arrival and I missed seeing them? It's highly unlikely unless I was in Medical when they came. That's a possibility. I'm still unsure. I know visitation hours vary depending on the days or holidays that fall on particular days of the week. Visitations are rarely missed. We have them in the day room and patients and their families or whoever comes to see them are sat right in the day room for all to see. I've seen no visitors in days.

I shuffle my cards again and dwell on the situation some more. Who could've given Spencer a phone? Ugh. The theorizing is boring me because I can't make heads or tails of the development. I'm curious as to who would be calling someone in a treatment facility. Who was on the other end of that call? But really it's none of my business and I need to stop weighing the option of asking Spencer straight up. He could blow me off. He could get mad. Clearly, with the phone on vibrate he didn't want anyone knowing he had it. That's not to mention the trouble he could get into if someone told staff about it.

Shuffling some more, I decide that observing the spectacle will be much more to my advantage than asking him about it outright. Plus, Alma is hunting him down and will undoubtedly ask him about it herself. If she finds anything out, I'm sure she'll share whatever information she obtains. In the meantime, I'm just going to sit back and watch. I've found that in a lot of instances, if you just watch people and observe situations, you can glean much more information from that than you can asking someone about it. Who's to say he wouldn't lie right to my face anyway? Playing the spectator will be my best bet.

My thoughts shift to the idea that the staff will find his phone. I wonder how long before someone or something tips them off to his secret tie to the outside world. It wouldn't take much. I'm not tipping anyone off, I just wonder how long before someone else does. He doesn't strike me as very bright seeing as how his secret was revealed to myself and Alma because he left the vibration on instead of just silencing the phone to begin with. So, that's two of us who are damn sure he's hiding a phone. It makes me wonder if Nick also knows about the phone, seeing as how he shares a room with him. How could he not know?

How long before Nick gets jealous or wants to use the phone? What if Spencer tells him he can't use it? I doubt it would take very long before Nick outed Spencer's little secret. If Spencer was smart, which I'd venturing to say he isn't, since me and Alma know about the clandestine device, he'd probably let Nick use it or try like hell to hide it from him. I shrug at my own thoughts. This is too much mental acrobatics for me. Why do I even care? I should be wearing my cards down repeatedly shuffling them and minding my own business. But no, here I am theorizing on the stupid actions of other patients here. Gosh, I need a life. Something outside of this place.

If I had any friends, outside of here, I'd probably ask Spencer to use his phone and try to call them. But I don't. Everyone I knew when I was out there is long gone or most likely happily living their lives with zero thoughts about little old me. Hell, half of them are probably relieved they haven't heard from me. I smile to myself at that thought. I shuffle my cards again. I wish I had someone here to play Go Fish with. That game is fun.

"Sierra, meds." Chris calls from the nurses station. I turn around and look at him. He's wearing his trademark scowl. This should be fun, I muse to myself as I get up and push my chair in while pocketing my deck of cards.

"Where's Alma?" He asks as though I'm her keeper as he looks around the day room.

I shrug, "Not my charge today, Chris. This is YOUR floor after all. Shouldn't you keep better tabs on your inmates?" I say with ample snark.

He narrows his eyes as he hands me my cup of pills. I count them. There's five. They look fine to me, so I tip them back and swallow the warm little cup of water Chris hands me. He huffs as turns the corner to look for Alma.

I don't know what he's so bent about. I'm not his flunky, and I'm definitely not doing his job for him. He can find her. She's probably sulking in our room anyway. I watch as he makes his way to our room and knocks on the door without entering. He pokes his head in and then backs up looking at me from down the hallway with his arms up in question. I shrug and walk back into the day room. Not my monkey, not my circus, I think as I retake my seat and pull my deck of cards out of my pocket again.