Closure Read Online Free Page A

zest and a keen regard for life.
    A rap of knuckles on the translucent plastic pane of the office door makes me look up from my scribbling. A purse-lipped Cheryl with an exaggerated hangdog look stares in at me. I jump up and pull the door open. She waits for me to say something. It’s only a moment’s hesitation but enough for her to turn on her heels and storm off.
    â€œCheryl, let’s talk, now.”
    She spins around and her face lights up. “Really?”
    â€œYes, right now.”
    I walk with Cheryl to a quiet part of the ward, near a set of windows that look out on a patient-maintained garden. Cheryl says she feels better already and asks me how my eyes are doing.
    â€œFine. How about yours?“
    â€œNot so good. I cried all day and I lost a lens. Washed it clean away.”
    â€œWhy the tears?”
    â€œI don’t know; I just feel bad. An overwhelming sadness. Just want to crawl into a hole and curl up in there and never look at the world or anyone again.”
    â€œYou woke up feeling that way?”
    â€œNo. It just welled up in me when James said he was going to play tennis and I realised I did not want to do anything, and I mean nothing.”
    â€œYou are doing a lot, Cheryl. You’re here working very hard, everyday, to get better.”
    â€œBut I don’t feel better.”
    â€œIt comes slowly. I’ve seen a big improvement. Remember how you arrived curled up like a bean and wouldn’t respond to all my entreaties to you to take your medicine?”
    â€œNope.”
    â€œYou were catatonic. Didn’t blink. Your contacts dried on your eyes.”
    â€œOh, yes. You used a pipette to drop saline in my eyes with your shaky hands.”
    â€œYep, and when the lens fell out of my glasses you helped me to look for the tiny screw and you told me about where to get cheap contacts.”
    â€œI remember we never found that screw. Didn’t you use sellotape to hold the lens in place?”
    â€œAha. Shall we look for that lost contact of yours?”
    â€œDon’t bother. I change them daily.”
    â€œOf course. Did you go to the art room?”
    â€œNo, but I will now if you’d just shut up.”
    â€œRight, then. See you later.”
    â€œThanks, Zack.”
    â€œNo sweat.”
    I zip back to the office. Katie clasps my coffee in one hand as she huddles over her notes, in a pool directed from the angle-poise lamp. She looks up and says she did not want my coffee to go to waste. I thank her for her consideration. She offers to make a fresh pot and refill my cup. But I tell her to forget it. I let her know that it’s late in the day and I’ll need more than coffee to get over the shift. She gives me a hug, hands my cup to me and exits. I tip my head back and drain the dregs and smack my lips like I’ve just knocked back a shot. I resume my notes on James, with those to be made for Cheryl politely waiting in line.
    I turn left from the ward into the main corridor with its six lanes of foot traffic and twin fluorescent strips evenly spaced overhead and unerringly the same lustre, night and day. I tear along at a rapid pace, weaving left and right around more casual folk. Actually, no one who works here is casual; all of us have somewhere to get to by yesterday, but I’m the rabbit with the fob watch able to hop at twice their rate. A drop of water falls off my chin and lands on my shirtfront. I reach into my back pocket for my handkerchief and wipe my face.
    I smell the canteen before I see it. The food and the central heating conspire to produce a witch’s cauldron. Yet my mouth waters. I walk in, scan the place for a familiar face, see none and feel glad for the isolation. I join a short queue with my tray and post-9/11 plastic cutlery.
    But one look at the congealed rectangular trays of rice and pasta baked under the heat lamp puts me off. I advance to the refrigerated section, choose a triple BLT in