XLII | Someone’s Replaced

❦

Hey Fifi,
can I sleep here with you?

The next morning,
I wake

to the sour stench of vomit.

Moonlight Sonata
seeps through the walls.

'Good morning, Tammie,'
I say.

She smiles
without opening
her eyes.

It feels good

to wake up
to somebody

by your side.

Sunlight
streams in

relentlessly

through the curtainless window.

I'm sweaty
without even

getting out of bed.

April. May. June.

It must be
one of these months.

Seasons
don't matter

in asylums

where forgetting
is commonplace.

Zuraida,
the new patient,

isn't in the hall
standing in front of her armchair,

like last night.

The nurses must have
got her to her room

somehow.

(That explains
the screams we heard
last night.)

[Read the full story at novelconbini.com!]