For eleven years she had been considered the quietest patient in the clinic: once a month, on the night of the full moon, she would sit in front of a cheap painting and “talk” in whispers with her late husband and son. The staff had long grown used to this strange habit. But on the last night of the full moon I saw something that sent a chill down my spine. 😱😱
Michael and I stood by the door listening to the words of the head of the department.
— So, colleagues, — Dr. Richard adjusted his glasses, — you will spend the next month and a half here. Your task is not only to fill out your internship journals, but to truly understand the process.
He paused and added:
— Psychiatry is not only about pills and diagnoses. Sometimes the most important thing is to be able to hear the silence.
We exchanged glances. That phrase sounded far too theatrical for a man who only five minutes earlier had been explaining in detail how to properly fill out medical forms.
— Come, I’ll show you our little “golden cage”, — he said with a slight smile, gesturing for us to follow him.
The corridor stretched like a long narrow tunnel, where the doors were arranged in the same rhythm, like portholes on an old ship. We stopped at the last one. Dr. Richards quietly turned the key and let us inside.
The room turned out to be tiny: a bed, a bedside table, a chair by the window, and a painting. Cheap and darkened with time, it hung opposite the chair as if nailed to the wall forever.
On the canvas there was an old oak tree on a hill, a swing hanging from a branch, and a path leading into a dark forest beneath a blood-red sunset.
On the chair sat a woman with dark hair gathered into a careless bun.
Her name was Elizabeth Morris, and for eleven years she had lived in this room, hardly speaking to anyone except those who, according to the doctors, had long ceased to exist.
The doctor quietly explained that after an accident she had lost her husband Daniel and her little son Oliver, but one day she began to claim that they came to her through this painting.
Since then, every month, on the night of the full moon, she sits in front of the canvas and waits patiently.
— We’ve tried everything, — he said almost in a whisper. — Medication, therapy, hypnosis. She is calm and completely rational, but… every full moon she sits in front of the painting and talks to them.
We were already about to leave when I suddenly turned around.
Elizabeth slowly turned her head and looked straight at me. Her eyes were clear and surprisingly calm, without the slightest trace of madness.
She smiled faintly, as if she had seen something in me that the others had not, and then turned her gaze back to the painting.
😨😱And at that moment a chill ran down my spine, but I still had no idea that what would reveal itself to me on the next full moon would remain forever etched in my memory.
Continuation in the first comment.👇👇
That night I couldn’t fall asleep for a long time. Her calm gaze kept appearing before my eyes again and again — far too clear for someone who had been considered hopelessly ill for eleven years.
Curiosity proved stronger than caution, and late in the evening I quietly returned to her room. The door was slightly open, the moonlight lay across the floor in a pale strip, and Elizabeth was still sitting in front of the painting.
But she did not say a word.
I took a step, and suddenly she spoke softly, without turning around:
— You do understand that I don’t talk to the dead.
I froze.
Elizabeth slowly turned her head, and there was more clarity in her eyes than in the eyes of many people outside those walls.
— Then… why? — I asked almost in a whisper.
She smiled slightly, as if that question had already been asked of her hundreds of times.
— Because it’s easier to breathe here. When they died, the world outside became empty and чужим. People say “life goes on,” but no one explains how to keep living when all the meaning remained on that shattered highway.
She gently touched the frame of the painting with her fingers.
— The medicines here do one important thing: they dull the pain. And talking to the painting allows the doctors to think that I am hopeless. As long as they think so, they won’t discharge me.
I didn’t know what to answer.
— Remember one thing, — Elizabeth said quietly. — Sometimes madness is not a disease. Sometimes it is simply the quietest way to survive.
Years passed, but sometimes, when I see the full moon, I suddenly remember that night and realize that I will never forget that woman.
