Everything She'd Dreamed Of (811 hits)
Category: Quotes & StoriesRating: 1.83 on 15 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Somebody_Else (View user info) at 2006-06-27 04:36:02 EDT
None of the other patients noticed the child killer react as the new doctor entered lock down, awkwardly swiping his key card and shouldering open the heavy door as the electronic bolt disengaged.
One of the nurses thought she saw something, but was distracted when the bemused guard grabbed the door, saving Dr. Blaine the embarrassment of being hit on the head as he kneeled to pick up the case files he'd dropped onto the floor.
Been twenty years they say, thought the nurse, probably just my imagination. And when she rushed over to help the handsome doctor pick up his folders, she had forgotten all about the flash of cognition in the pale blue eyes of the catatonic patient sitting in front of the television.
But it was there.
Had she not been so mesmerized by the new doctor, who looked more like the creation of a Hollywood screenwriter than someone who knew his way around a psyche ward, she would have remembered to immediately report that particular patient's reaction, however slight.
That was a standing order.
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Blaine's first day went rather slowly. Conducting his initial interviews with the patients of C ward, he couldn't help but feel disappointed. Garden variety bi-polars, schizophrenics, and several mental disorders so minor he wondered why the guard was armed and the doors were locked.
Send them home with prescriptions and outpatient access, he thought. Put myself out of a job and piss off the courts all at the same time. He smiled ruefully. I could always go back to bartending.
Nurse Renault interrupted his reverie. "That's a strange little smile." And then she gave him one that was not strange at all. Could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
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When he got to the last case file, Renault stood up and closed her notebook.
"One more," Blaine said, looking down. "Lund."
"Lund hasn't spoken for twenty years. Why bother?"
Something in her manner irritated Blaine, and he opened the thick file.
After a moment, he raised his eyebrows, and looked at Renault.
"Child murderer?"
She nodded. "You wouldn't know it to look at her."
Blaine turned towards the pretty blonde woman sitting motionless in front of the television.
"That's all she does." Renault noticed Blaine's reaction. Men are all alike, she thought.
"She's not going to talk to you. The only thing she reacts to is that-"
"Jesus Christ. It says here she was twelve." Blaine was back in the file.
"And now she's thirty-one, and she still isn't going to talk to you." Renault was irritated now. Every male doctor that came through here was fascinated by Lund, and nobody could tell her it was just the killing. She was too good looking. But the murders were quite a story, she had to admit.
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Blaine was indeed fascinated by Lund. According to her file, it happened on the day she graduated from middle school. Once her parents were asleep, she snuck downstairs, locked the double cylinder deadbolt using the key she carried around her neck, and calmly lit the porch on fire, watching from across the street as her family perished.
And she never spoke again.
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Blaine turned off the television. Nurse Renault started to say something, but to her surprise, the woman did not react at all to this normally egregious act.
Her pale blue eyes stared into his, pupils large. Blaine moved the penlight from side to side, yet still she stared straight ahead.
Half an hour and several simple tests later, there was still no response.
Renault sighed loudly behind him. Blaine, annoyed, gave up. He thanked the patient for her time, which the nurse found highly comical, so just to amuse her further, he took the woman's limp hand warmly in his own and leaned in close.
"Let me know if there's anything I can do. I'm here to help." Then Blaine stood up to leave.
Had he not dropped his pen light at that moment and knelt to retrieve it, he might not have seen, as he rose, the tear squeeze out of the woman's eye and roll down her cheek.
And he might never have begun the sequence of events that would change both of their lives forever.
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The next morning, Blaine, who had not yet actually met his direct supervisor, sat across from Dr. Strasser, who looked back at him like he was crazy.
"You just got here, Doctor. This is a low rung, trust me. Don't make waves, and if you're lucky you'll pass through quickly."
"I know what I saw. What I felt."
"What you felt? Your feelings are the basis for this meeting?" Blaine held his gaze in spite of his boss's incredulous tone.
Strasser shifted his attention to a slightly sheepish Nurse Renault standing behind him.
"You saw this?"
Renault shrugged. "It could've been something irritating her eye."
Blaine turned towards her. "She cried! You saw it!"
Renault bristled. "Her eye watered-"
"That's not what you said before-"
"All right." Strasser looked supremely irritated. "Just because you saw a tear, it doesn't mean she connected with you."
"I spent all night with her file. Plus the old ones, all the way back to when she was admitted. There has never been, in twenty years, a notation of anything like-"
"You read her entire file?"
"Yes."
"Spent all night with it, did you?"
"Yes, and-"
"So you took it home."
"Yes, I-" and Blaine stopped. There was a smug look on Strasser's face.
He exchanged a knowing glance with Renault behind Blaine's back.
The older man leaned forward, his smile becoming even more smug, if that was possible.
"I'll keep that out of your permanent record."
"I know we're not supposed to remove files, but-"
"You listen to me. I'm not sure what you think you're going to accomplish that numerous others, myself included, haven't been able to with this patient, but she's been in a semi-catatonic state for twenty years. The staff is trained to recognize any signs of cognition. Any. The fact you stirred up some dust groveling on the floor in front of her doesn't make you the second coming of Jesus Christ. Doctor."
Blaine turned to look at Nurse Renault, who shrugged. What a bitch, he thought.
"Feelings. Helluva first day, Zhivago," Strasser deadpanned. "Dismissed."
Blaine sullenly walked to the door.
"By the way," Strasser said, as Blaine turned in the doorway. "She's here for life, you know. Tried as an adult. Doesn't matter if she rises up and recites the complete works of William Shakespeare. Concentrate on the ones you can help."
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After the humiliation in Strasser's office, Blaine never mentioned her case to anyone again. But he started finding excuses for staying late. Once the day staff was gone, he would follow the same routine. He'd walk over and casually turn off the black and white television she sat in front of every day, and have a seat next to her, facing the blank screen.
And he would talk.
About his life, his hopes, his dreams, almost anything. Like a psychologist who silently guides her patients to heal themselves, she had a profoundly emotional effect on him.
As time passed, he began to look forward to the last part of his workday so much he became deeply depressed if anything came up to keep him from her.
He actually came to believe he knew her. He thought if he could just get her to respond, in some small way, he might even love her. It was crazy, he knew. But there it was.
Then near the end of a day not unlike the summer evening all those years ago that put her here, something changed.
She reached out and touched his hand.
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What followed was a blur. She did not speak, but he felt her squeeze his hand, or at least he imagined she did. He had only minutes before the night orderly, a kind fellow named Laszlo, would come to put her to bed. Laszlo was used to Blaine by now, and thought of him as rather courageous, a doctor trying in vain to break through the wall of catatonia and connect with a hopeless patient.
Blaine couldn't sleep that night. He wanted to go back to the hospital. Every hour he rose intending to do so, and once even made it outside to his car before better judgment prevailed and he returned to bed, only to repeat the action several more times before morning.
The next night, for the first time in twenty years, she spoke.
The story she told made him love her all the more.
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Her parents were alcoholics, abusive to each other and their two children. Her father began molesting her when she was nine, something her mother surely knew.
But that school year had been her best. She was bright, and a favorite of every teacher, always volunteering to stay late to help with whatever tasks needed completing.
More importantly, her father seemed to have lost interest in visiting her bedroom late at night.
So she walked home that day with a mixture of fear and happiness. Fear that with school out for the summer, there were more opportunities for abuse. But happiness because she carried home with her that day something new. Something she had never before possessed.
She carried hope.
The last day of school that year fell on her younger brother's ninth birthday, and when she arrived home, she discovered why her father had lost interest in her.
And the hope she had finally allowed herself on the long walk home was extinguished, replaced by guilt and shame.
Somehow, this was her fault. And with all the resolve a twelve year old could muster, she decided to make things right. She didn't know how, but she would think of something.
She made arrangements for her little brother to spend the night at a neighbor's house. The neighbor thought it odd, but knew of her parents' drinking, and questioned her closely. All the girl would say was that her little brother mustn't be in the house that night. This conversation, when recounted in court, indicated premeditation.
Having situated her younger brother across the street, she walked to a nearby playground and stayed there until long past dark. She just couldn't face eating dinner with her parents, not this night. When she finally came home, she went straight up to her bedroom, and lay staring at the ceiling, wondering what she would do.
She did not remember anything else that night, but was convinced she had indeed set the fire, because that's what everyone told her. Blaine argued with her about that. To a child, a lie told many times becomes the truth, he said.
As the fire raged, she sat on the curb in front of the nice neighbor's house, a literal buffer between her younger brother and the horror that was her parents.
She had no way of knowing that while she had waited on the dark playground earlier that night, her brother had become frightened, and insisted on sleeping in his own bed.
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Since she had no family, the court appointed a conservator to look out for her interests. It was convenient that her court appointed psychiatrist, Dr. Strasser, was willing to serve in both capacities.
The estate was fairly large, so he hired the best defense attorney money could buy. Blaine suspected he was in cahoots with Strasser, because while a twelve year old could legally be tried as an adult in this state, it was the only such case Blaine could find of one so young, and certainly a good lawyer would have fought harder against it.
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He decided to run away with her the first night they spoke. She begged him to wait, to find a proper way out, but he was not about to leave things to the legal system that had failed her so miserably. He had keys, after all. It was simply a matter of timing. The patients were locked in their rooms at night, so the security guard could make rounds of the entire facility. And Blaine had access to narcotics, so it would be a fairly simple matter to drug the orderly's coffee. Laszlo was the last barrier between them and freedom.
The following day, Blaine called in sick. He scraped together every cent he could muster.
He went to the hospital later that evening, and just as he suspected, Laszlo's admiration was easily manipulated.
They escaped quickly, and drove all night, crossing the Mexican border the following afternoon.
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They held hands and walked along the beach as the sun set, and she felt true happiness for the first time in her life.
Letting go of her burden after so many years, she thought she might actually float away if he stopped holding her. So he promised he never would.
They talked for hours, and made love as waves crashed on rocky shores.
He was her first that counted, and it was overwhelming.
It was the perfect ending to a perfect story.
It was everything she'd dreamed of.
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None of the other patients noticed the pretty blonde woman's reaction as the new doctor entered lock down, swiping his key card and carrying an armload of case files.
One of the nurses thought she saw her eyes move in that direction, but ascribed it to her imagination. The new doctor was kinda cute. Maybe the child killer dug the hotties, she thought, amused at the idea. She saw the movie was ending, so she'd better re-start it. It seemed to keep her happy.
The nurse located the remote, pointed it over the shoulder of the catatonic woman sitting in front of the television, and pressed play.
Casablanca started from the beginning, and the nurse watched for a moment. She liked old movies, and, of course, she had seen this one in bits and pieces ever since she started here. That was all the woman ever watched.
The nurse put away the remote, and wondered what went on behind the woman's eyes as she watched the same movie over and over.
Maybe it comforts her, she thought. The familiarity.
There's just no telling. Who knows if she's even aware of what she's watching?
But it sure is a beautiful love story. It was everything a woman dreamed of.
The nurse hurried over to meet the new doctor. It had been a long time since they'd had a new one, especially one so handsome.
Pale blue eyes followed her, blinking back a single tear.
Everything she'd dreamed of.
User Reviews
Submitted by LadyPlural (user info) at 2006-06-28 23:35:17 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Sweet. There were some logical inconsistincies, but I'll let them slide this time.
Submitted by polymorph505 (user info) at 2006-06-27 18:06:44 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Best story I've read on Uber in a long time.
Submitted by dr_weazel (user info) at 2006-06-27 17:58:56 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
This was good. Very good.
Submitted by TigerLilly (user info) at 2006-06-27 13:20:46 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
ColchesterDr....are you from Colchester CT?
Submitted by ColchesterDr (user info) at 2006-06-27 12:41:45 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Did anyone else notice the characters in the catatonic's fantasy had the same name as the main characters in Casablanca, the movie she watched over and over?
Nice touch.
Submitted by TigerLilly (user info) at 2006-06-27 12:09:31 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by redskieslookfake (user info) at 2006-06-27 06:05:19 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by Berty (user info) at 2006-06-27 05:46:59 (#)
Ranking: 0
"Pale blue eyes followed her, blinking back a single tear."
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AWOOGA AWOOGA AWOOGA
SINGLE TEAR ALERT! EMO CLICHE INSPECTORS TO SUB-LEVEL 2! DEPLOY WAAAHHMBULANCE!
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Harsh, but fair.
Berty is in a serious mood. He is doing proper analysis. I, on the other hand, have just had a variety of pendants waved at me - and as such, feel a bit bewildered
Submitted by Berty (user info) at 2006-06-27 05:46:59 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
"Pale blue eyes followed her, blinking back a single tear."
-----------
AWOOGA AWOOGA AWOOGA
SINGLE TEAR ALERT! EMO CLICHE INSPECTORS TO SUB-LEVEL 2! DEPLOY WAAAHHMBULANCE!
Submitted by Merlina (user info) at 2006-06-27 05:46:15 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Berty (user info) at 2006-06-27 05:33:40 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Yeah this was great and all but I'd like to comment on your use of the word abuse. It's like this vague, catch all word that's seems to have taken on some kind of greater meaning. It's as if all the imagined horrors of wanton cruelty and misery are bound up within those five little letters. Modern media has done for the word 'abuse' what the Nazis did for the swastika.
What I'm trying to say is that instead of creating a real exposition of what would be a complex relationship within a dysfunctional family, you have instead summoned a cliché to establish the premise of your story. As it's a short story it doesn't impact too severely on the end product but if you were to make a series or a longer effort then you need firmer foundations.
I'd like to add that I've gone into some depth on this because a lot of people are guilty of substituting real characters for cardboard cutout bad guys, themes or motivations.
Submitted by redskieslookfake (user info) at 2006-06-27 05:29:42 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Carry on
Submitted by Davros (user info) at 2006-06-27 05:12:36 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
This was good.
Got a little detatched somewhere in the middle and is probably a bit long for some people to read, but it was good.
-Dave
Submitted by hour_man (user info) at 2006-06-27 04:59:24 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
WTF? I'm not reading all of that. HAve a +2 and we will pretend I read it.
Submitted by phuzzygish (user info) at 2006-06-27 04:47:47 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
interesting....
Submitted by SullyThePirate (user info) at 2006-06-27 04:45:05 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment