I’m here again. My room. My body is squeezed into the very corner of the room, between a full body mirror and my bedside table. Everything feels far away; like it can’t be touched, like none of it is real. It doesn’t even feel like my room.

           I begin to try to survey my surroundings. The lighting is dim, curtains drawn, my strained eyes causing a sharp, piercing pain through my skull. My legs give out from under me and I fall forwards, thrusting my hands in front of me to break my fall. But these are not my hands. These are not the hands that tap away on my typewriter at work. My hands have tight pale skin that clings to my bones, not grey skin that sags between my fingers and moulds around my veins. With these unfamiliar hands, I manage to crawl slightly out of the corner of my room. Just this small movement drains me and I feel all of my energy leave me, like the rug below me is extracting it. I fall down onto it and roll onto my back.

           ‘Oh dear, now what’s happened here?’

           I hear a voice from behind me, towards the door. I recognise it from somewhere, but I don’t know where.

           ‘You’re keeping me busy today aren’t you! Come on, let me help you up.’

           I feel the person approach me. Their shoes vibrate through the floor, getting more and more violent as they near. It’s her, the nurse. She is stood over me now, and I can see her face getting closer and more in focus as she reaches down to help me up.

           ‘Get off!’ I cry, but she pays no attention. ‘What are you even doing in my room? How did you get in?’

           A smile cuts through the strain on her face. ‘Don’t worry Sarah’, she says as softly as she can through gritted teeth, ‘I’m just going to get you up on the bed. Get you all nice and comfy.’

           My body is too weak and doesn’t fight her for long. She tucks her arms under my shoulders and places me on the bed.

           ‘Now, it is Wednesday, so there is Bingo and a film on tonight in half an hour if you fancy it. But with the way you’ve been today, it might be best for you to get an early night and some rest. How does that sound?’

           Her words confuse me and I don’t let them rest in my ears for too long. They make me feel sick, like they somehow don’t fit the world around me. These words and this nurse should not be in my life, let alone my room.

           She has begun walking to the door and is no longer by my side. I am tucked into my bed tightly, but I still manage to turn my head to my bedside table. Standing on top of it is a photo frame, with an elderly couple resting inside. The woman’s hair is cropped to her shoulders and a dark grey, whereas the man’s hair is much whiter. The man is wearing glasses and is smiling as he looks lovingly at the woman to his right. They are happy, but I don’t know them.

           ‘What’s going on?’ I croak, using my last ounce of energy.

The nurse turns back to me in the doorway and smiles again. She reaches for the light switch.

‘Everything is fine. Get some rest, Mrs Blackwell.’

Another nurse passes by the doorway. They begin to walk off together, but just before the door closes, I hear the beginning of their conversation.

‘Aw, bless her.’

 

I’m running late; I always seem to be doing lately. My brain fuzzes a bit in the way it always does when I’m rushed. I gather my thoughts and check my bag: purse, keys, lipstick. I crouch down to grab my shoes from under my bed; formal black flats, simple but effective. I don’t have time to even glance at the clock again before I leave my flat.

            ‘Good morning Sarah,’ someone says to me as I finish locking my door.

            ‘Morning,’ I reply. It’s the nurse who lives two doors down. Or maybe three. ‘How was the night shift?’

            ‘Not too bad actually, can’t complain,’ she replies, smiling as she checks her fob watch hanging from her uniform. ‘What time are you in?’

            ‘Nine,’ I reply, ‘I really should be getting going.’

The nurse takes a step towards me. I’m certain she doesn’t live this far up the hallway.

            ‘Stay for a while,’ she says, ‘I’ll put the kettle on. We’ll have a chat, really get to know each other.’

            ‘I’m really sorry but I need to go. Some other time though, definitely.’ Bless her. It can’t be easy working long, unsociable hours like hers. I bet the patients she looks after aren’t much good; half of them are probably too crazy to form a sentence. I’ll knock on after work tonight, and if she’s awake I’ll invite her round for some tea. That’ll be nice for her. I shoot her a smile and set off past her down the hallway.

 

            My name is Sarah Morgan. I’m 24 years old, and I’ve just started a new job. The office where I work is just outside of the city centre. The building stands alone, on the corner of Vinewood Street and Percival Road, surrounded by a strip of grass which wouldn’t satisfy a Calf for a day. A pink stone path leads you from the pavement to the double door entrance. When you find the staircase you go three flights up. That’s where I am.

              I’m not important to the company, just some underappreciated PA. I have to dress formal, it’s company policy, but I am still one of the most under-dressed. After all, I can barely afford my flat, never mind fancy clothes for work. The men here stride around in tailored suits, their expensive brogues clicking on the tiled floor almost as fast as the other girls I work with tap their acrylic nails on the worn desks they perch at. Their nails click more than their typewriters, partly because they’re lazy, but mostly because they’ve always got some greasy haired guy leering at them, with more money in his wallet than respect for his wife in his heart. A bat of the eyelashes and they have everything they desire: the expensive tight-fitting dress, the stunning heels, you name it. They leave me alone, not one of them has ever tried to buy me anything, not even a bottle of water. They know better than to even try; I’d suffocate them with the precious fabric or use a heel to pierce a hole in their chest.

            There are only two times when I get distracted from doing my work. The first is when I look out of the window. I’ve never been great at concentrating, so having my desk by the window is a terrible mistake on the company’s part. I’d stare out of it for hours if I had the chance, but I rarely get five minutes before a wad of paper is thrown at me to file. The window is my escape; whilst the other girls here feel special through the company of a balding cretin, whose waistline bulges with lust and pork pies, I feel special through thinking about life outside of this voluntary prison. I hate being cooped up. I feel restricted, like I can’t do what I want to do, like I’m being controlled. There’s only one reason why I really stay here. Only one thing that’s able to suck my mind from the outside world and back into this office. But even when it does, it doesn’t bring me back into my job, and my work. He takes my mind away from everything.

 

            It’s quarter to Twelve. I’m late. Very late. My bed is made and my curtains are open, but I don’t recall waking up. I bet I’ve been daydreaming again. Yes, that’ll be it. I must have sat down to put my shoes on and just got completely lost in some stupid thought. Silly me.

I swing the door shut behind me and turn to lock the door. Out of the corner of my eye, I see the nurse.

‘What kind of hours do they have you on at that bloody hospital?’ I ask, hoping that she remembers our previous conversation.

            ‘Oh they’re not too bad,’ she replies, ‘long but rewarding. Where are you off to?’

            ‘Work,’ I say, although for some reason I don’t entirely believe myself. ‘I should have been there hours ago. I don’t know what came over me.’

            The nurse smiles at me. ‘Why don’t you take the day off? You look a bit under the weather, I’m sure they’d understand if you told them’

            ‘Oh no, I can’t do that!’ my disgust at the idea is clear in my voice. ‘Can’t be skiving now.’

            ‘You really don’t look too well though, if you don’t mind me saying.’

            ‘I’m sure I’ll get through it,’ I snap, before softening my tone to a more jokey one, ‘no rest for the wicked as they say!’

            I turn quickly and set off down the hallway, only to be met by the smell of stale urine. It seeps in through my nostrils and instantly reminds me of who it belongs to. I look up and see him coming towards me down the corridor. He is a tall man, however age has made him stoop forwards, meaning he now looms over people when he used to tower. I don’t know his name. He looks oblivious to the world around him; he probably doesn’t even know I’m in the hallway with him. He might not even know he’s in a hallway. Bless him. That nurse should take less notice of me and focus on those who really need help. Surely a good nurse can tell the difference.

           

            Eddie Blackwell is new to the office, just like me, and worlds apart from every other man here. He’s quiet, but in such a deafening place silence is golden. I’m not sure I would even know he worked here if he didn’t have to come to my desk every Wednesday to pick up his post. Wednesday is my favourite day at work, and it also happens to be today.

            We barely spoke a word to each other the first few times he came. He would stand in front of my desk, occasionally peeking at me through the lenses of his rounded spectacles. His hands would only leave his pockets to take his letters from me and I wouldn’t see him again for the rest of the day. This happened for weeks, and it drove me mad. He seemed like the most decent man on earth. I started to mimic the professional flirters around me that I call ‘co-workers’ to try and get his attention. I’d laugh at everything he said, which wasn’t a lot, but it was all I had. I wasn’t really sure if giggling at him as he said ‘thank you’ would really help, but it was worth a shot. I went to a better hairdressers and got my hair cut so that my loose brown curls were cropped to my shoulders. I did my face up to try and get a compliment, but all I got was a skin rash for a week.

            None of these attempts worked. My hope was all but gone, right up until the day he noticed my copy of Islands in the Stream, which had just been published. His eyes lit up when he saw it, and we spoke more then than we had all of the other times he’d dropped by combined.

            From then on, he never left me alone. He’d already finished the book, so he’d come round to my desk nearly every day just to see where I was up to and what I thought. I made sure I read a little every night just to make sure I had something to comment on. I finished the novel ages ago, but he still visits me all the time. Now we talk about everything: our co-workers, the news, each other’s lives.

It was through this that I introduced him to my hobby of staring out of the window. To him it’s more of a game, he actually comes up with stories about the people we spy on. One of my favourite ones was about a man, who was running down Percival Road. He was missing a shoe and his briefcase was gushing out pieces of paper, which danced around in the wind behind him before floating down and soaking up the puddles he had splashed through. Eddie went into so much detail about him that you could write a book just out of what he said. The words and ideas that come out of his mouth are the only things I can concentrate on.

He’s wasted here. He knows I think so.  He’s a far better man than the sleazy bunch who inhabit here, whose idea of creativity consists of picturing what someone’s tits look like. I’ve said it to him a thousand times, I’ve told him that he should leave all this behind, just forget all about here and just move on. He’d find a better job in less than a week and be happy. I want to see him happy. He has the same reply every time:

‘I’d never want to forget about you, Sarah, and I never will do.’