Jennifer. Residence of Grief. Viktor Khorunzhy

new patient. However, no one bothered her till lunchtime.

      Inmates were supposed to have their meals in a small dining room penetrated with the smell of burnt onion; its windows were situated so high that one could look into them only having jumped up or taken wings. Two keepers standing at the entrance were sullenly watching the patients packing the hospital refectory. Some were brought there in wheelchairs; most of them came on their own feet.

      The ward eighteen occupied a table to their own. Having whisked to a spare chair, Jenny burrowed her eyes into her plate, secretly watching other diners. It would probably be difficult to find another place, which inhabitants would look so different and so elusively resembling each other at the same time. Here, there were people of various age and gender, with frozen, estranged faces or – contrarily – with flaming eyes and fidgets. Some of them went at their food (a light-salted mush dressed with who-knows-what sauce) with animal esurience and wolfed it down in an instant. Others, on the contrary, seemed not to notice their plates at all; after having sat at their tables for about a half an hour, they retreated, leaving their food untouched. Keepers approached some of them and made them eat, having thrust spoons in their hands. Such indifferent, almost dippy patients were called “veggies” here. Among them, there were some that tried to eat themselves, however they had a hard time holding a spoon in their trembling hands.

      Jennifer secretly noticed that such a trouble bugged Ryan as well – the lad strove to overcome slight trembling of his fingers, but not always successfully. Having caught the girl’s eye, he uttered a slightly embarrassed sigh.

      “Damned nerve in my back! It turns my face into a caricature and doesn’t let me move properly. Something gets inflamed inside and pinches it… And dear sirs wise doctors can’t figure out what is the reason for that and what causes such a body response.” Unable to cope with his hand, Ryan dropped his spoon discontentedly. “So that’s why, instead of studying, I have to hang about different clinics at least twice a year, until my “back-biter” nerve is bored to envenom my life and decides to take its ease for a time…”

      “Have you been here for long?” Jennifer wondered shyly.

      “Not really. Three months, perhaps – I’m not that good at counting time here. It passes differently in here, not like out there,” the lad nodded at the barred window.

      Having glanced in the same direction, Jenny sighed. She hadn’t even spent a day at the clinic, but yet she felt impenetrable longing lurking right to her heart. Longing for her freedom that had been taken away for God-knows-what sins…

      Having left their dishware on tables, patients started retiring from the refectory – as they were to have their compulsory after-dinner nap. Dwellers of the ward eighteen also shuffled off homeward.

      When they returned, Jenny’s bunk had already been made with bed clothing, if clothing could be a proper name for a grayish-white sheet and a blanket cover laundered out to pieces. After having reunited with its pillow-case, a pillow as if shrunk and now stank with drugs and dust even more. The girl sighed, having recalled her cozy bed and her favorite roller she used to take with her every time she had to spend the night not at home. However, such cases were pretty seldom – her parents were communicating with their friends not really closely…

      The memory of her mother and father swept over her in a wave of longing again. To take her mind off it, Jenny decided to shift her thoughts to her new fellows, but all of them had already dived under their blankets as if at a command.

      “You should go to bed too!” Emma advised from her corner.

      “But I don’t want to sleep. I’ve never had a day nap since I was five.”

      “Needle will come and chews out if you are not in bed,” Sofia added.

      “Who’s that?”

      “You’ll see,” the girl whispered towardly, having cuddled under her thin blanket.

      Almost at the same time the ward door flung open and a stout nurse appeared at the step – she was just as broad as the one that had brought Jenny here. Only she was older – in her late forties – and had even more unpleasant face.

      “She rather resembles a ball than a needle,” Jenny thought, having caught a sight of the incomer medical worker. “What are they being fed with here?”

      But her size didn’t influence her speed at all – as the one had been called Needle got to Jenny in no time and turned the girl around, having painfully grasped her shoulder.