Doves and Crows

Barbara continued to stroke the yellow yarn on her doll’s head.

“Why won’t she be in there, Barbara?” I asked steadily and my heart started to beat surprisingly fast. Where had Annette gone? Barbara didn’t pay any attention to my question. “Barbara!”

“You look so beautiful today. Is this a new dress?” she whispered in her doll’s ear and giggled. She began humming and gently ran a finger down the front of her doll’s dress. A chill chased its way up my spine and I walked out of her room, shutting the door behind me.

Maybe I should let it go, it’s not like the loon was that much of a babe.

Things were much quieter in Room 24. Shirley was sitting in a chair and reading the paper while Linda was lying down in her bed, her face turned away from her roommate.

“Checks,” I announced and entered their room with a knock on the door. Neither of them so much as looked up at me.

An improvement over the last room. I laughed to myself. The bordering along the walls was the same as Barbara’s with the blue butterfly trails. I checked behind all the dressers and into the jewelry boxes, taking special interest in a collection of gold and pearl earrings.

When I checked Shirley’s bed, I smelled something off. I saw out of the corner of my eye that Shirley was staring at me from behind the paper.

“Do you eat in here?” I asked flipping off the covers. I heard a vindictive cackle come from the other side of the room. I took a deep breath and bent down on all fours to look under Shirley’s bed. My face twisted in disgust when I saw a soggy sandwich with cheese and lettuce.

It was then that I remembered that Shirley looked like she was as thin as a piece of paper. Wouldn’t she be hungry and want to be eat it?

“Why were you put in here? Do you have an eating disorder?” I asked casually as I flipped through her chart, pretending that the hospital actually wrote down the patient’s diagnosis on it.

“It’s a ham sandwich,” Shirley said while putting down the news paper neatly in her lap. “I’m Jewish and they wouldn’t give me an alternative to a flippin’ ham sandwich,” she said sharply.

“She doesn’t do this often, only when they don’t have any other crap for her to eat.” I turned around and saw Linda turn on her side to face us. Then she rolled her eyes and started fixing her hair. “Not that any of the food they serve here is at all eatable.” Linda was a rather pretty doll, a bit bland though. Her eyes were like a corpse’s.

Knock. Knock.

“How are things goin’?”Jesse asked as he popped his head in the room.

“Uh…” I stumbled and rushed to get up off my knees. “I’m just doing checks. Is something the matter?” Jesse shook his head and entered the room completely.

“Nope, I’m just here to do my part. I’ll take over this room. You don’t want to see Miss Linda here when someone tries to get her out of her bed for checks,” Jesse told me laughing.

“Go for it. I’ll go to the next room,” I told him and headed out. I knocked on the door to Room 25 and the door bounced open.

“Checks,” I announced. Patricia was sitting on the bed on the left side of the room, scribbling down her rambles onto paper with a miniature pencil. She looked up from the journal and gave a half-hearted smile.

“Bunga! Bunga! You didn’t drown,” she cheered, closing her little book and sat up. Her hair hung over the left side of her head.

“Yeah, I had a school thing yesterday,” I told her. Again, I began inspecting the room for anything suspicious. “Where did you come up with that idea of me drowning?” I asked slightly amused.

“Well that’s how I went: I walked down into a lake with stones in my coat,” she stated simply.

“You never died Patricia,” I reminded her like she was a child forgetting to say their please-and-thank-you’s. She rolled off her bed and leaned against the wall.

“Yes I have. I was before now, not in this life, you know?” she said quietly. “I died in my past life,” she corrected me. With my back turned to her, I cracked a concealed smile.

I was wondering when one of them would explain why they’re here. I sat down on Annette’s bed.

“What past life, Virginia’s?” I asked with a faint surprised tone. She laughed and closed her eyes.

“Of course, I’m Virginia, or at least I’m her reincarnation,” she said dreamily.

“Really?” I asked trying to cover up a smirk. “And who was she?”

“I was most brilliant author to ever grace the earth,” she said with passion as she bounced away from the wall.

“I’ve read a bunch of classics, but I’ve never heard of the dame,” I commented and checked under the two beds. They were all clear.

“Don’t think I’m make this up. I was real," she said with a small glare before delivering a resentful smirk. "As for the reason you don't know about my work, just take a pick: I was a woman, I was a feminist, and I was... well, I wasn't a typical wife-"

"Sure thing, Tricia. Spare me the tirade. Be honest, what'd you do?" I asked as I felt a sneaking suspicion she wasn't being completely honest. She tongued the inside of her cheek.

“I went a little bit... wonky," she mumbled and she sighed. "Guess some things never change." She gave a short laugh. "Two years ago, I went to the lake outside my home and took a swim in it, and when I went under water I saw this vision. I saw Virginia's whole life, my whole life flash in front of me. I can't just pretend I don't know who I am." I got up off my knees and saw down comfortable on Annette’s bed.

“I guess Nettie was wrong, you don’t believe me.”

“What?”

“We all had a bet going that you wouldn’t believe me. Little Nettie seemed to disagree; apparently she thought you would be more understanding of my beliefs,” she said slinking back to her bed and began scratching down words in her journal. “Poor thing, she’s far too naive.”

“By the way, where is she?” I asked writing down that Patricia had ranted about this second life and shifted so I could sit straight.

Patricia’s smile fell and she wouldn’t look up.

Scratch. Scratch. Scribble. Scribble.

“They found a big cut in her wrist two days ago. They have her in solitary,” she said as her voice was no longer chipper. Then I remembered how I threw the clipboard the day before last.

“We didn’t take her for a suicidal one. I mean, she isn’t depressed like Linda and she isn’t bipolar like Barbara. I thought I would have noticed, but I guess I’m not used to the cutters. I drowned myself in the lake. Yes, we’re not that same…” she rambled on, writing quickly and sporadically.

“Patricia?” I asked going in front of her to try and get her attention. She started in a deranged state at the journal and continued writing. “Patty? Damn woman, Virginia?” she looked up and slowly stopped writing. She smiled and read her writing aloud:

“I can only note that the past is beautiful because one never realizes an emotion at the time. It expands later, and thus we don’t have complete emotion about the present, only about the past.”

I stared at her in wonderment and felt joy from her quote. It was brilliant.

“The nurses are the only ones who can take you to the hole. You find one to take you and you’ll find Little Nettie,” she hummed while glancing at her journal. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some reflecting to do.”

“Of course,” I said hastily and rushed down to the Nurses’ Ward. After unlocking the entrance door, Jesse chased after me and followed in behind me before the door closed.

“What’s wrong, Rob?” he asked and pulled my arm back so I would come to a complete stop.

“I have to go tell Mrs. Delilah or someone to take Miss Facet out of solitary,” I answered, aggravated over the sudden pit stop. Jesse stiffened and looked down.

“Oh, right. Did you just hear about that? It’s terrible it was her, I didn’t think she was depressed,” he said sincerely upset.

“She’s not depressed,” I fumed. At the shocked expression on Jesse’s face I knew I had to calm down and elaborate. I took a deep breath to relax and apologized. “I accidentally cut her arm with my clipboard the last time I was here,” I admitted. A wave of relief washed over his face.

“Why didn't you report it? Never mind, come on,” he said slowly. Then he sprang forward past me and yelled over his shoulder, “Let me go get someone.” I watched him run off to a door down the way. A few seconds, later the door opened, and a few seconds after that, a woman marched out of the room.

“Mister Emerson? Hello I’m not sure we’ve met. I’m Mrs. Crowe, the head psychiatrist. Is there a problem?” she asked blinking her coal eyes rapidly in her flushed state. She was middle aged and luckily didn’t have any of her black hair graying yet. She wore a real proper dress; the kind you knew had a petticoat underneath. I nodded slightly.

“Sorry about this, ma’am, but I need talk to you about the girl in solitary,” I explained smoothly. She continued blinking for a moment and then her eyes stayed open in awareness.

“Oh, you’re talking about Miss Facet. Yes, very strange that she did that, but I assure you that us psychiatrists are checking her out,” she said confidently with an all knowing smile. I shook my head and ducked my head slightly.

“It’s not that, ma’am. That cut Miss Facet-” I said her last name pretending to have remembered what it was before the nurse mentioned it, “-has on her wrist, you see she got it by accident.”

“An accident?” Mrs. Crowe asked with a frown. “She clearly cut herself. Therefore, she has to stay in solitary for five days. Where did you come up with this idea?” She was rather intimidating; her eyes were almost completely black: I couldn’t tell where she was looking.

“She was looking over my shoulder and I jerked my clipboard too fast. I didn’t think to report it at the time. Just get her out,” I said slowly started to become panicked. Mrs. Crowe shook her head and frowned.

“I can’t accept that. She’ll just have to stay up there for a few more days until she’s better, then we can have her transferred back to her ward.”

“But she didn’t do anything!” I nearly shouted slowly as my blood started to boil.

“Mister Emerson,” Mrs. Crowe cracked and stepped back at my voice, “we can’t just take your word for it. You’re here for community service for being a bad kid and you’re new, so I don’t think your word has much weight to it.”

“But it’s the truth! Ask Jesse, he was there,” I hissed without thinking. Jesse was a good guy, told the truth and acted polite. What I just said was a very bad idea, but I needed him to lie for me or else Annette wouldn’t get out for almost a week.

“Excuse me,” rang a voice from behind all of us. We turned our heads furiously from the heat of our discussion to see Luke smiling smugly.

“May we help you?” Mrs. Crowe huffed refusing to fix her hair from in front of her face. Luke looked up coolly and nodded.

“Yes, the doctor I’m working with asked me to get Robert here for some questions, something about the women he treated the other day,” he said like he was serious, but the glint in his eye that only a few of us on the team could notice told me he was lying.

Mrs. Crowe raised an eyebrow and turned to Jesse.

“Mister Turner, come into my office so we can discuss this privately,” she said calmly after a deep breath. “Mister Emerson, go with Mister…”

“Luke Pomeroy, ma’am,” Luke finished politely.

“Yes, go with Mister Pomeroy and get some fresh air. In fact, take the rest of the day off,” she ordered and turned her back on Luke and me.

“Fine,” I growled softly. I could have had smoke coming out my ears. Jesse gave me a last nod along with his still pathetic and pleading look as he turned and entered Mrs. Crowe’s office. I faced Luke.

“Looks like you had a rough day,” he said patting me on the back and leading me down the stairs of the tower to the outside. “There’s only one way to fix your spirits.” He pulled a long bottle of Vodka out of his backpack and threw on his baseball jacket. I ripped the bottle from his hands and tipped the drink into my mouth.

“Thanks pal,” I said gratefully as I rubbed my temples and continued to drink.

“No problem, bud,” he said taking another bottle, this time whiskey, out of his pack and began drinking.

“I thought you guys were going to practice,” I asked taking back another big gulp. At this point I could feel the alcohol not agree with my apparent thirst, but we continued.

“We couldn’t do it without you,” he laughed sniffling up a running nose that his whiskey caused. I laughed lowly and took another swig.

“You guys are great. I need this after today, they put Little Nettie in solitary when she didn’t do anything,” I raved as I became surprisingly buzzed. Was I usually this much of a lightweight? He laughed as we reached the baseball feel at the park.

“Is she that angel from earlier?” he asked and placed a baseball bat in my free hand, pushing me towards home plate.

“Yeah, little angel Nettie,” I laughed in near hysterics and lined up at the plate. I took a mouthful of vodka once again before dropping the empty bottle on the plate and gripped the bat to hit.

“Less talk, more baseball!” Todd shrieked and howled like a werewolf. Everyone ran up to take positions in the outfield.

We drank till ten and then thought it best to try and find our ways home. I made it to mine safely after about a half hour, even though the park we were at was a meager thirty feet from my house.

My mother was strutting nervously back and forth in the living room when I arrived; my father had gone to bed who-knows-when. I bid her worry racked-self good night and stumbled upstairs to bed.