Two Worlds - Season 1 - Episode 9

4 years ago

Two Worlds - Season 1 - Episode 9

Power went off and the fan gradually stopped spinning. Only then did Ivie realize how silent the room was.

Richard repositioned his chair to the window’s side and stole all of the air Ivie and he were supposed to share. He sagged his tie to chest level and unfastened the first button. He adjusted a bit away from the window. And still, blocked most of the air, but she could manage the little that grazed her until the generator’s power came. The air was of more good to him. The beads of sweat hung at his brow needed to dry up. She nudged to a position of fair air.
“Any improvements?” he asked.
That wasn’t hers to determine, but the doctor’s. “I don’t know.”
“You ought to be conscious of your improvement. Have you been picking items so far?” He said the exact words of the doctor, converting the room to the doctor’s rounded office. She was supposed to be free of those questions inside the room.
She hadn’t been picking items. There was barely anything in the hospital to pick.
“You’re feeling any urge now?”
“No.” The devil was yet asleep and it should please remain asleep.
“I talked with the therapist, and he envisaged much improvement. He assured by the time they’re done, you’d be recovered.”

No doctor would say there had been no improvements.

The fans began spinning with a deafening whir, blowing the edges of the cornrows that escaped her hairnet. She shifted from the fan, but her hair continued flying.

His mobile phone vibrated against his briefcase. Before a ring could come through, he answered the call and told the caller he was at the psychiatric hospital and would be somewhere soon.

“That was the man with me on my visit to your previous hospital,” he said.
The man’s facial appearance had faded from her head, but his height had not. He was much taller than Richard. “He’s a friend?”
“Yes. And a colleague at work.”
“I remember his height.”
Richard smirked. “He acquired that in his secondary school days. We were together until after secondary school. I furthered to a defence academy. Him, a university.”
“You served in the defence?” Not much army qualities lived in him, except his square shoulders that nearly burst through his blazers, and maybe the way he walked. The few times she had seen him walk, his steps were mainly sharp and brisk like every minute counted.

“Once a lieutenant. Now a full time businessman. I prefer business to shooting.” He simpered and looked at her as if expecting a laugh.

She managed smirking, as it would be rude to make no remark to an attempted joke. Lieutenants were probably those who stayed in the office. He did not seem the type that would hold a gun and point it to the enemy. Neither did he seem like someone that had gone through the beatings people say their superiors gave them in training.
“Was it NDA?”

“Yes. It’s almost like the university, minus the exercise,” he said, “judging from what my friend told me about the university. Did you attend a University?”
“Yes.”

“What was your study?”
“Horticulture.”
He laced his fingers, same fingers that must have held and cracked a gun. “Does anyone know you’re here? Say your parents?”
Did he expect her to go bragging that she was on therapy for an evil disorder? “No one knows. My parents live up north.”
“You didn’t call to inform them you are in a hospital?”

Without using her mouth, she wished there were other ways to tell him to stop the questions. She could handle things on her own.

“I’m not a therapist, but I think one’s parents need to know their child is undergoing therapy. Would you want to be ignorant that your child is in a hospital receiving therapy?” He spoke as though she was a child who needed the warmth of her parents all day.

“I don’t have a child.”
“I don’t think any parent wants to be ignorant of his child’s health.”
He could be a priest or one of those church people who practiced celibacy. That would explain his help and philanthropic nature. Many stories have been told of soldiers who retired and joined priesthood. “You’re a priest?” she asked and caused him an unintended chuckle.
“What prompted you to think of me being a priest?”

“Your help, concern, and all. You don’t even know me. From my knowledge, only a priest does that. It’s not as though I’m not thankful. I am. I just wanted to ask questions.”
“No sin in asking. There’s no way I’d have left you on the road.” He paused. “If you hadn’t met me that day, no accident would have happened.”
“But it’s my fault.”

“No it isn’t. It’s the illness.”
“Did you know that before you helped, before you paid the hospital bills?” She fixed her gaze at him and prayed ungratefulness was not written in her words. The twitch of his nose gave the answer.
“I simply helped because it was right to do so.”

“What about my disorder? You have nothing to do with it. Why get involved?”
“I help people. It’s one of the things Christianity teaches us.”