Paper Folds | On Hold

Cloud

7.Cloud

And when the cloud shifts, it's all over. Isn't it true? And here was first hand evidence - a strong role model, a mother's favorite, crumbling into nothing.

What of her career? Her family? Her friends? Herself?

Didn't make sense to her anymore. Not when that cloud of unreal things had shifted away from over her eyes. 

Ray was sitting on a chair, in their living room. Blue Andrews, her employer and doctor, was sitting opposite her. The other members of her family were trying their level best to remain inconspicuous, but it wasn't helping.

Ray's sensitive ears could hear every scrape of a shoe on their carpet, every sound that betrayed their presence, and the sounds were louder, harsher, to her hypersensitive self.

She knew they were behind the kitchen door; her mother; her sister; her friend, silently watching the scene, and that knowledge prickled her skin, stitching her mouth shut before she could open her mouth to even let a word out.

Blue crossed her legs and leaned in, fixing Ray with a soft stare, urging her to speak up.

"How are you, Ray? I haven't spoken to you for quite a while."

Ray just looked at Blue once, and lowered her eyes to her lap, her fingers curling over the soft material of her dress, bunching it in her hand.

How was she? She didn't know that. 

Ray clenched her fist, around the material of her dress, creasing it, and looked down, not meeting Blue's eyes. It seemed to her, that Blue must have forgotten, that simple questions as such tend to shut people up, making them realize they were devoid of an answer, that would make people think they were still very acceptable in the thinking standards of society, that they were not crazy, desperate, depressed, or even anything remotely different from acceptable behavior.  

"Ray, how are you?"

Ray slowly looked up, and stared at Blue for a while, unblinking, before answering.

"How are murderers supposed to feel?"

Blue squinted her eyes at Ray and sat up even straighter.

"Pardon?'

Ray looked down at her dress again. She started twisting the material, stretching it between her fingers, her fingers working rapidly. Ray glanced up for a second, and saw Blue pushing a notebook behind her, on the sofa, her other hand keeping a pen inside her pocket.

Ray did not like that notebook. She did not like it at all. She hated it. 

"What are you writing, Blue?" 

Blue, whose hands were now resting on her lap, seemed to have been caught. But she didn't seem fazed.

"Nothing, honey. Why don't we go back to answering my question?"

But to Ray, that was it.

"I don't want to talk about anything."

Blue closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them again. She smiled softly at Ray.

"Nothing? But then I thought you wanted to talk to me?"

Ray nodded.

"I want to go back to work."

Blue looked a little confused.

"You do? Then, that's great! But with the injuries-"

"They're not an issue. I'm well past resting time. I want to go back to working in your clinic, that too as soon as possible."