CHAPTER TEN
Beep, beep, beep. Ugh, my cellphone is beeping away; someone's texting me. I roll over to look at the clock and can't believe that someone is waking me up at 6:45 am. It takes me a few minutes to get my bearings.
Beep, beep, beep. “Fine! I hear you already!” I snatch up my phone to see who's bugging me. It's Tara.
I click the message to find out what she thinks is so incredibly important, that she can't wait another fifteen minutes until the tap on the door would wake me up. Ok, so yeah, I'm a little grouchy this morning. I could have had another fifteen minutes of sleep.
Her message reads, 'I'll pick you up at 7:10 so I can show you around the school before breakfast.'
The next message read, 'r u up yet?'
The third message read, 'u can't ignore me all day.'
Beep, beep, beep; another message just coming in, 'ok, I'm coming over to get you up!'
I quickly text back 'No!' and hit return. Quickly writing, 'I'm up! 7:20 is ok' and hit return. Growling under my breath, I force myself out of bed and hit the bathroom for a quick shower.
Sure enough, at 7:15 Tara taps at my door. “Come on in. I just have to brush my teeth; you're early.”
The door pops open and Tara comes bouncing in with two coffees in her hands and a paper. “Nope, I said 7:10 and you said 7:20 so I compromised. I figured you can use a coffee. You seem a little grumpy this morning. Here's some mail for you. It was in your slot.”
I take the paper from her and read it over while I brush. 'Please come to room #19 at 9 this morning. I’m looking forward to meeting you. Dr. Jennifer Adams'.
“Who is Dr. Jennifer Adams? What's her story?” How Tara can understand me with toothpaste in my mouth baffles me.
“She's really nice. I like her. She relaxes you, enough so that you can use your gift to the best of your potential. Like for me, she helps me to leave my body, and guides me in my travels. She's the one who helped me realize that I can hear what people are saying when I'm travelling. I didn't know that before. I only knew that I could see what people were doing. She helped me figure it out. Are you just about ready to go? We're running out of time here.” Tara explains as I hear her shuffling around the bedroom.
I rinse my mouth, throw my purse over my shoulder, and stare at her as she's finishing making my bed. I can't believe she made my bed… she's so nice. “You went down to the mess hall and got us coffee, and you make my bed for me? Alright, I forgive you for waking me up early. Thank you."
Tara giggles, “No problem. Dr. Jennifer, as she likes to be called, might be able to help you see the more important things in your visions, not just the awful things, like death and bodies... eww. Maybe she'll help you learn how to slow the visions down, like in slow motion or something. You did say it was like watching a movie. Maybe it works the same way… play, rewind, fast forward, pause…”
I hope Tara's right. I don't want to be so focused on the horrible stuff. Maybe if I can see through all that, then I might be able to prevent them from happening in the first place.
We wander around the hospital while she tells me about each room, and usually some kind of story that goes along with it, until we come to a room with 'Restricted' written in red letters across the door. Tara stops and stares at the door.
“We aren't allowed in there, we being non-hospital staff. As you can see, we'd need a keycard. I sure would like to get in there though.” Tara seems to lose herself in thought. “It's weird how we're allowed pretty much anywhere in this place, but we're not allowed to go through this door. I just wonder what is so important in there that it has to be locked away. What are they hiding? I mean, locking the door only makes us more curious.”
“So what's the big deal, so they lock it, so what? It's probably just patient records, storage, or maybe that's just where they lock up the staff's purses and junk. Most places provide a spot for employees to lock up their personal items while they work.”
Tara walks closer to me and whispers, “If that's the case, and don't look now, but why would they need a locked door and a camera?” She rolls her eyes up over her head, directing me where the camera is. "Theft has never been a problem here. I mean, we don't even lock our doors, and our computers and other expensive things are in our rooms. As for the camera, why aren't there more of them installed all around the whole hospital and school area? Why just here, in front of this door?" Tara crosses her arms and taps her toe on the floor, making a light tapping noise.
“Yeah, ok, that is weird. Has anyone ever asked?”
“Sure, but the staff just tell us to leave it alone, and stop asking questions. That just makes me want to ask more questions. I'm just nosey like that.” Tugging on the arm that's not holding my almost empty cup of coffee, she adds, “Let's get out of here before someone comes and escorts us out.”
“Hey Tara why don’t you just drift through the Restricted door?” I ask.
“Oh, no. I never go where I’m not invited. That would be rude. At least that’s how I was raised. I don’t know. I never actually thought about it. I guess it’s worth thinking about, maybe.” Tara seems scared kind of like a kid about to get caught with their hand in the candy drawer.
As we wander back through the corridors on our way to the mess hall, Tara continues with the tour. I'll never remember everything she tells me, but it gives me a good start. It doesn't look like I'll get lost to easily if I ever have to go to this area again; the floor plan is pretty easy to catch onto.
Breakfast is great. I have my favorite cereal, and some fruit, while everyone tells me about their stories of how the wonderful Dr. Jennifer helps them out. I really am looking forward to meeting with her in…
“OhmyGod! I have five minutes to get to Dr. Jennifer's office. I have to go guys.” Everyone looks up at the clock and shoots up out of their chairs too. Everyone lost track of time and we are all going to be late.
Note to self: Appoint someone to be the time-watcher.
I almost run down the corridor to room #19. I suck in a deep breath, in an attempt at trying to slow my heart rate down, before I rap on the door. Under her name is a sign hanging from a chain that says 'open for visitors'. Tap, tap.
“Come on in Darlin'.” I open the door and step inside. Before I can close the door, she asks, “Sweetie can you just flip that sign over, please and thank you.”
I flip the sign, and read that side, 'Silence, Please, come back later'. I shut the door quietly behind me.
Her room looks like an old library, with hundreds of books that line the wall, floor to ceiling, on dark wood shelving. Her desk looks as though it were hand-carved, matching the big wooden chair that sits behind it. The floor has an old-style wool rug that stretches almost the full length of the room. The lazy-boy chair looks like the only thing in here that's made in this era.
Walking towards me is a short woman in her mid-fifties, but with a full head of grey hair. She can't possibly weigh more than ninety pounds soaking wet. Her smile is big and friendly, just like my friends had said it was. I can't help but smile back at her.
She takes the purse from over my shoulder, and sets it down on the table beside the door. “So you're Laura, huh? Well, it's nice to finally put a face to the name. I'm Dr. Jennifer Adams, but please just call me Dr. Jennifer, ok?”
“Hi, it’s nice to meet you too. Have you read all these books?” Most of the books look really old and well worn.
“Yup, every single one of them. Took me a lot of years too. Please, take a load off.” She points at the lazy-boy as she walks back to her desk.
I sit in the big burgundy lazy-boy as she goes on explaining why I'm here. “Well Laura, I'm here to try and help you learn how to use your gift in such a way that you'll get the most out of it. I figure that there must be some cosmic reason why all you kids are having these afflictions. Maybe you all are here to save the world one day. Maybe it's all the preservatives that are being p
ut in our food now-a-days. Who knows? But if it is to save the world, then I would like you all to have the best knowledge possible, so the world doesn't cave in and kill us all.” She giggles.
Dr. Jennifer has a way of putting things. I like her. She's a normal type of person, straight forward, no bullshit. Maybe while she's learning all she can learn from me, I can learn as much as I can from her. After all, if she's read this many books on psychological studies, I should really pay attention.
My mind shifts back to the 'Restricted' room that Tara showed me earlier, and no matter how hard I try, I just can't imagine Dr. Jennifer being up to some evil plot against us kids. I truly don't think she has a mean bone in her body.
“Ok, let's get started, shall we? Flip the leg-rest up, and lay back my dear. Take a break. I'm sure you could use one.” Again, with the giant smile. “We'll start every session with deep breathing, kind of like when you're in Concentration Class, but if you fall asleep here, I shoot spitballs at you until you wake up.” Giggles come from both of us. She can't be serious… although, she might be.
“Start with some deep breathing, and I'll talk. You focus in on my voice, ok? Then I'll ask you some questions, and you can answer them the best way you can, without thinking too hard.” I start breathing deeply, while she's talking.
“I'd like you to imagine that you're standing directly in front of a huge wall, and on this wall is nothing but white paint. Imagine yourself reaching your hand out and touching the white wall. Now, I'd like you to imagine turning your head to the left. You’ll see that the white wall curves all the way around. Now I'd like you to imagine turning your head to the right, and see the white wall curves all the way around to your right. Now imagine turning your head up towards the sky. Imagine that the white wall is really high. Imagine that the ceiling is also painted white. Now, I'd like you to keep breathing deeply, and take a step backwards. The wall is still white. Take a few more steps backward. Imagine that you can see colours and shapes. Take a few more steps backwards. Now turn your head to the left and see that now the walls have something on them. Turn your head to the right. Something is on that wall too. When you look straight forward, and take a few more steps back, the picture starts to come in clearer. Can you see a picture forming?”
I can actually see something. How is she doing this? “Yeah.”
“Take a few more deep breaths, when you're comfortable enough, take a few more steps back. Look all around you, and when you feel like you can, start describing what you see on the walls.”
I take a few steps back, and realize where I am, I'm in the food court; the same food court that I saw collapse in my last vision. “I'm scared. I have to get out of here!” Panic is starting to take over me.
“You are perfectly safe. Nothing can hurt you. Remember that you are only looking at painted walls. When you get scared, take a step forward and everything will stop. When you feel like you can continue, take a step back again.”
I take a deep breath and look around the food court. “There's a woman in front of me with two little kids, twins maybe, about three years old. There's an old man eating alone. A group of girls are about thirteen years old. Three men in work clothes eating kind of fast.”
“I'd like you to look around and read signs. Is there a sign with the name of a city on it? Is there a sign with the name of the mall? Do you see a store or restaurant with a name that you don't recognize? Remember that you can turn your head, and look all around you. You can walk around and look for a sign. Maybe there is one around the next corner.”
“I can't move. My body can't move. I don't see anything saying what city I'm in. There is a store called 'Campichamps'; I don't recognize the name at all. There's no other sign.” I feel like I'm watching a movie, from inside the movie film. This is amazing.
“Now, take another look around to see if anything looks out of the ordinary. Is there anything out of place, or threatening in any way?” I can hear Dr. Jennifer, but her voice sounds hallow and like it's really far away; getting farther away. I have to concentrate more and more to hear her. I try to stay with her.
“There's a worker with a big plastic bin on wheels and he's putting trash in it while he pushes it through the food court. I guess that's not out of place.” I start to take another look around, when the floor starts to shake, then stops. “The floor shook! People are looking around at one another. The floor is shaking again! Everyone is getting up. Dust is falling from the ceiling. The floor is shaking really hard, and the ceiling is starting to fall down. Oh no! Those kids, their mom! They're under a big slab of ceiling. OhmyGod!”
“Laura, take a step forward, and then take a deep breath in.” Dr. Jennifer's faint voice shocks me back to realizing that it is not really happening, that it's just like a movie; not real.
A haze fills the food court, and then little by little, the scene unfolds through the dust and floating debris. It instantly slows down when I take a slow step forward, towards the movie screen, so to speak.
I continue talking to Dr. Jennifer, describing what I see. “I'm ok. It doesn't look like a bomb went off, or anything like that. It looks like an earthquake has shaken the building so hard that the ceiling has fallen down. That’s what it is. There must be a really big earthquake about to hit somewhere.”
Confident that I will not be afraid, or at least trying to tell myself that, I take a step back.
Blackness engulfs me. Colours rush past me, until I’m being thrown through the bubble. The scene immediately starts to play right where it left off from. I blink hard, trying to force myself to not look at the bodies and the blood. I try to only look straight or up, not down.
"There are huge chunks of cement from the ceiling on top of people. The railing that surrounds the second floor has partially fallen. I don't know if anyone fell from there." I talk, hoping that Dr. Jennifer can still hear me.
I turn my face to the left and scream loud enough that I shock myself. Horror! I see something that scares me so much that I scream louder than I ever have in my whole life.
In a matter of a split second, I'm being sucked out of the bubble, back through the colours, into the blackness. My eyes fly open, spinning me back to reality. Even though I'm awake and sitting up in the safety of the lazy-boy chair, I'm still screaming, shaking and trying to run away. If my legs weren't so shaky, I just might have been able to. I've never been so terrified in all my life.
Dr. Jennifer has my face in her hands and she's looking straight into my eyes. “You're ok, nothing can hurt you here. When you think you can… tell me, what did you see?”
I'm still panting and crying. I try to tell her. “A man… he was bleeding, really badly. His ear was hanging off, and he had blood coming out of his mouth. He was covered in blood… all over his clothes. It's the same man that I saw eating alone.”
I can't help but sob. The horror of seeing that man is being changed into sadness. He must hurt so badly. It looks so painful. “He scared the hell out of me. Why was he standing there? Why next to me?”
Dr. Jennifer hands me a tissue and tries to comfort me. “The man can't hurt you. He doesn't even know that you're there. Remember that you were only witnessing the event, and not actually participating in it.”
I look up at her and my eyes feel heavy. “Then why did he look right at me and say, 'Young lady, can you help me?'”
All the blood seems to be leaving Dr. Jennifer's face. Her eyes are huge, and her mouth is moving, but words aren't coming out. She stands and walks quickly over to the window and whips open the drapes, blasting sunshine throughout the room. My eyes are burning. I can hardly hold them open.
I wait quietly for what seems like ten minutes, but is probably more like two, until she stops scanning the books on her shelves before she actually says anything.
“Did he actually talk to you, or do you think that just by coincidence he might be talking to someone that you can't see? Perhaps someone is standing on the other side of you?” Dr. Jennifer is leaning
on her desk, looking back at her books. I think she's searching for a particular one.
“He was talking to me. There was nobody else around me, I'm sure of it. He was standing right beside me. I could have touched him if I was actually there. It scared the shit out of me. I don't want that to happen again. It won't happen again, right?” I am desperate for her to tell me, to promise me, that indeed it never will. But she doesn't. She stares at me for moment, but doesn't say anything. I take that to mean that it probably will happen again.
“I have read about this before, I’ve personally never experienced having a patient do it. If I could just find that particular book... Here it is.” She takes the book from one of the lower shelves, and holds it gently. She’s smiling at it, like it’s an old friend that she hasn't seen in a very long time.
The cover is brown, with small printed words on the front that I can’t read from so far away. When she opens the book it makes a crackling sound. It is obviously extremely old. The pages are yellowish and the writing is very faded.
“Can I use the bathroom? I'd really like to splash some cold water on my face.” Before she even says that I can, I'm up out of the lazy-boy and picking up my purse, heading to the little washroom that's just past her desk. She doesn't say whether I can use it or not, she's too busy carefully flipping pages. Her lips move silently, as she reads little bits off each of the page, searching for something in particular.
I look into the mirror and can't believe how horrible I look. My eyes are so bloodshot, and the reddish-purple under my eyes is even more emphasized by the intense paleness of my skin. I splash some water on my face and decide to use the toilet while I'm in there.
I hear Dr. Jennifer mumbling from the other room. I hope she doesn't think that I'm still sitting in the chair, and that she's talking to me. She is pretty engrossed in that book, so maybe she does.
I shudder when I picture that man's bloody face so close to mine. I just can't believe that I didn't pee my pants. The way his ear was hanging, and the blood that was flowing down from his head, was gruesome. My body shivers again.
I come out of the bathroom after several minutes. Dr. Jennifer is still flipping through the book. I ask her, “Is it ok if I go now? I don't want to do that again today, I really don’t.”
She looks up from her book and says, “I'm going to read through this book again, and leave little notes where there is important information, so that you can read those pages... if you want to. Otherwise, I'll just fill you in on what I find out. Maybe we can learn something that might help us make your journeys much more pleasurable, and not so terrifying.”
Dr. Jennifer looks up at me, and realizes that I’m just standing there, looking too terrified to even consider purposely going back into that vision, let alone ever think it may ever be even remotely pleasurable.
She drops her voice down, and calmly adds, “If we can discover how to enable communication between you and someone else, if indeed he was actually talking to you, perhaps you'll be able to talk to him. It sounds impossible because you're not actually there in your physical person. It'll take me a day or two though.”
“Is that a book about what's happening to me? Please tell me that someone else has been in this situation before.” I am desperate for any help I can get.
“Well, there are theories and claims, but I don't think there has actually been any solid proof of being recognized in visions. I will keep searching, though. If I find anything, I'll drop this book in your mail slot as soon as I'm finished with it. If you don't want to read it, drop it back off to me, and leave me a note. We can schedule an appointment for you to come in and we'll discuss it.” I turn to leave her office and she calls out to me, “Just wait a moment dear, I called to have your orderly, Laden, come walk you back to your room. I just don't want you alone right now, in case this session brings on a migraine, and throws you right back into a vision. Not that I think it will, but just to be on the side of caution.”
She called Laden? Great! I look like death, and he's coming to see me. So far, this day is just crapping all over me.
“Hello, hello.” Laden comes strolling in the door all smiles, until of course he sees how awful I look. “Wow, you look like you've been given a beating. I hope you got a few good swings in. How do you feel?” He laughs, then takes my wrist, and begins counting my heartbeats. Then holds up his finger, and tells me to follow it with my eyes, while he moves it from left to right, and back left again. Although it hurts, I can still do it.
He looks straight into my eyes. The whole world around us disappears. Until of course, he pulls down my bottom eyelids and tells me to look up.
“Yup, she's blown a few vessels in and around her eyes, but otherwise she seems ok. Even still, I'll take her back to her room and keep an eye on her for a while.” He flashes me a glance and a wink.
Without even looking up from her book, Dr. Jennifer says, “Good to know that all is good with you Laura. Try not to think about what happened here today. Put it as far out of your mind as possible, so that you don't have a nightmare tonight when you're sleeping. I'll pick up with you later sweetheart.”
And with that, Laden and I leave her office.
Colours In Blackness - A New Life Page 10