Far From The Madding Crowd

Sandra gazed at the small Asian man, at once incredulous and wondering if he had employed some sort of test, some odd but kind professional mind trick to fully expose her despair so clearly for all to view.

So they could see she was at her lowest ebb, Clear, undeniable, solid, evidence, though why would they need this – she had told a series of people before this meeting and her word had seemed enough until now. But strangely she was pleased for the opportunity, if that is what this was, to demonstrate despair so acutely to a room full of strangers.

Sandra had had lows before this. She had tried to take her own life twice before now, though not for a long time. She had recounted the details of this to the bored and distracted nurse up on the bridge; a bridge she thought was a serious enough bridge seeing as it had a railway beneath it and all she had to do was wait.

This was her at her lowest, ever, she said. She had been bad, real bad before; but she had never felt like this.

What a clever ruse. Ingenious if so. To say such a thing that could at once fill her with dread and riddle her body with adrenaline so that she physically shook. A tactic of catharsis perhaps, a drab speech about safety plans and talking to the nurses for a couple of days before being released back into the wildness that inhabited her life. But she was uncertain, and hope was sparse and she didn’t really have the energy for games like this. A tear slowly coursed along her jawline onto her hospital gown; the one that exposed her backside whenever she walked any distance.

She didn’t know where her clothes were she realised.

“The nurses will find out where they are for you.” The doctor said, closing her drug chart as though to end the consultation.

“We have a clothes bank,” the nurse chipped in, “clothes people have donated. i’ll ask one of my colleagues to show you.” The nurse stood up and walked to the door and opened it. She smiled kindly. Looking out onto the ward she called to another nurse and asked them to take Sandra to look at the clothes.

Sandra did as she was told and allowed herself to be led from her chair out the door.

The door closed and she heard murmuring. She caught the odd word as the assigned nurse approached her to take her to look at other people’s unwanted clothes.

“Couple of days”, “no trains at that hour”, “community treatment” and a strange accronym – “PDCS”.

She felt like a ghost as she staggered down the ward, as though she wasn’t there and it was someone else. The adrenalene had dispersed, leaving only a familiar numbness and heaviness in her body so that it was hard to muster the energy to do anything.

Despite this she dutifully followed the nurse who oddly asked her if she had had breakfast – it was midday – stopped at a door and inserted the key.

“They’re in here,” she said, before glancing anxiously at a woman mournfully gazing out of the windows of the entrance.

“John,” she called. A man with John on a name badge with a picture 10 years younger rushed over.

“Can you be here please for a while.”

John nodded and seemed to understand the quickest of glances. John went to stand near the woman at the door. He asked her if she had had any lunch.

The door opened, then another, and there they were; bags and bags of clothes.

“Let’s have a look and see what’s here shall we.”