Fate would have it that Nurse D. was one of those rare ones. 

                Elisa Duncan, with her tall thin frame, headed down one of the cool stone corridors.  Her long plain dress brushed the floor, collecting loose dust.  What a dreadfully dim place this is, she thought now, and had been thinking for quite some time.  Oh, how this caring young nurse wished she could fill the hospital with something bright-colored or flowered to give these people some sign of hope!  She, herself, thought it might help, but the superintendent and his board would not allow it.  “It would be harsh reality,” he had said.  There was no hope for these victims of mental torment, and that was just God’s truth. Therefore, nothing was ever improved.  The hospital hallways were still covered with the same pale, pink, dirty wallpaper coming loose at the ceiling and splitting down the walls to reveal the cold, brown brick beneath.  The poor nurse had become part of Rutledge’s establishment only a few years ago – a hopeful young thing – just to be told that there was no hope for the poor, sad, and deserted ones – the ones with no families or love.  Elisa’s mother had ministered here before her, so in truth, Elisa had spent most of her life here.  When she’d grown, she’d devoted her life to this hospital, and she’d not let her devotion be misplaced. 

                That was why she opened the closet.

                 Inside the dark, musty space were stacks of grimy boxes containing the confiscated belongings of patients constrained to the asylum.  Their property had been taken from them when they had begun their lives at Rutledge’s and had not been seen for years by anyone.  No one cared to remember that the belongings were there or that the items had owners.  But Elisa did; Elisa was different.  Perhaps she could bring the patients a little bit of joy – and perhaps a little sanity – though she was beginning to feel that she was losing her own.  

She set out peering through the faintly marked boxes, taking the time to gather a collection of items.  She then headed down a dreary hall to present the belongings to their respected owners, making sure that nothing she sought to return was rough around the edges.

                                                                                   2

               The dark, stone ceiling was the same day by day.  This was, without doubt, truth, because if it was ever different, she would have known.  Nothing ever changed about that drab ceiling, except on nights like this when the lightning would strike outside the room’s small, singular window and reflect shadowy patterns from the teeming rain.  At least there was a little variation then – a little chaos

                 Laying in the darkness, staring and motionless she was – the girl with the distraught, sullen look and the large intense eyes of emerald that always seemed open, even in sleep, watching everything around her.  She rarely moved; rarely spoke – to anyone other than herself – only stirring when she was made to.  Otherwise, she was fairly immovable.  No one would have ever guessed what was going on inside her head at any given moment, but at this particular time when the ceiling above her was lit so randomly with the storm’s disorder, there was a very smooth train of thought going through her mind.

                 One, two, buckle my shoe.  One, two, buckle my shoe.  One, two, buckle my shoe.  

                 It continued on like this without ceasing and without her recognition.  The words calmed her; the crashing thunder did not disturb her.  Neither did she flinch when a dim ray of light from the hall about an inch wide and growing steadily fell into the tiny cell with the leaky ceiling, parting the darkness ever so harshly. 

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