« 044: What Familiarity Breeds... | Main | 046: Scene I, Part II » May 29, 2003

045: Scene from the Institute

...The last door on the right belonged to the oldest resident on the wing. Thompson -- one of the psychiatric nurses -- had been at the Institute twice as long as Gardner and Patient 178, as far as she could remember, had always been in this room. Gardner checked the chart mounted next to the door.

“He’s been in all day,” Ruiz said. “Morning staff said he didn’t want to come out for breakfast. Wanted to stay indoors today, I guess.” He laughed, a small wheezing sound like air escaping from a balloon or, in Ruiz’s case, a deviated septum.

Standard policy was to keep the doors of the rooms locked when the patients opted to not come out of their rooms. Some days they wanted some privacy—there almost wasn’t any chance for solitude in the arrangement of the common room in the North wing unless you remained in your cell—and, after making sure they hadn’t managed to smuggle in an object with which they might hurt themselves, the staff was happy to comply. Still, the staff was supposed to make regular checks through the portal to ensure the safety of the patient. “When was the last time someone looked?” Gardner asked.

Ruiz checked the sheet and was silent. He shrugged finally. “Sometime early afternoon,” he said finally.

He doesn’t know, Gardner thought. He shook his head. The day and swing shifts always looked to the graveyard shift to catch up the paperwork, citing the constant interruptions of the regular hospital staff and the constant need for supervision that the patients required during their waking hours as excuses for why the finer details of their jobs were missed. Issues found during the graveyard shift—when there was more time to be careful and exacting—always become the graveyard’s problem. Never mind, he thought, that we’ve got three-quarters the staff they do.

He flipped up the hatch to Patient 178’s room and peered inside.

Ruiz checked 178 off his list and had turned back down the long hallway before it occurred to him that Gardner hadn’t said anything. He stopped and looked back at the taller man. “Hey,” he said.

Gardner flinched at the sound of Ruiz's voice and moved his head away from the tiny portal. “There’s writing on the walls,” he said. His voice sounded distant as if he was shouting from the other side of an immense cathedral. There was an emptiness about his expression as if he had just lost something and couldn’t remember what it was. A tiny dot of blood had crept from the corner of his right eye and was tracking towards the edge of his cheekbone...

Posted by Teppo at May 29, 2003 08:56 AM

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