Eden O'Meara - Étaín (lepidopteran) wrote in forgotten_gods, @ 2010-07-08 21:15:00 |
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Entry tags: | jude, étaín |
Who: Étaín, Jude
What: Panicking
Where: Bellevue Hospital, Jude's office
When: Thursday night
Warnings: TBD
It was dark by the time Étaín reached Bellevue Hospital. It seemed as if the train ride had taken hours longer than it should have. She had spent it wrapped up in herself, gripping her elbows as if she were cold, though the truth was that the summer night was unbearably hot and humid, her hair straggling out of its knot at the nape of her neck and sticking to her skin. She had her battered copy of Speak, Memory in her bag but she hadn't bothered to get it out to read on the train. Not even the feel of the crumbling paperback against her fingers could soothe her now. There were grey shadows beneath her eyes, the only remnants of her eye makeup.
He could be anyone on this train.
The night air seemed to press down on top of her head as she climbed the stairs from the subway. It felt like hot breath, invading the space between her collar and her neck, making the backs of her knees uncomfortably sticky. It was only a few blocks until Bellevue, but by the time she was walking through the doors of the hospital she felt sick with the humidity and had to stop for a few moments, leaning against the wall near an air conditioning vent until her skin felt dry again.
He could be that woman behind the desk, or that orderly that just smiled at me.
She pushed herself onward. She had cried herself into exhaustion and it made her feel humiliated and weak, as if she would disintegrate at the faintest brush of an antagonist's hand. She was stronger than this. She and Jude, together, were stronger than this.
It could be him sitting in Jude's chair, squatting inside Jude's skin...
The hall was already half-darkened, the signal that the wing of the building was put to bed for the night. The air had the faint burned-ozone smell that implied a vaccum had been there recently, and most of the office doors were closed, their lights off. Save one. The light spilled golden from Jude's half-open door, and she tapped her fingernails gently against the door before she slipped into the room. At the sight of him sitting behind his desk, her eyes filled with tears.
"I'm sorry it took me so long to get here," she said, hoarse.