I saw her face light up as she approached the piano. Slowly she placed herself on the small stool, and began to run her fingers over the keys. Then in grave anticipation, she pressed one.
The sound made her jump, and she searched the room to find me near the door, smiling like I'd never seen her before. I gave her an encouraging nod.
She lifted her index finger quite high, but stopped while bringing it down on the piano. Head tilted to the side, shivering slightly, she stayed that way till I walked over to where she was.
I played a melody for her.
She turned to look at me slowly, and I could see she didn't understand. I took her fingers in my hand and taught her the melody of Happy Birthday. After a couple of times she began to hum the keysounds in a high pitched tone.
That day's session lasted for a full hour, without any disturbance or disaster.
In the days that followed, I started to study her in her cell before and after our Music Therapy sessions. Most days I saw her sitting in a corner for hours at a stretch, gazing at the only painting in her room. Sometimes she looked on dreamily, and at times with an anger which refused to leave her soul. The piece of art, showing a beautiful sunset in all shades of yellow and orange, seemed to be a bitter reminder that reality was different. She wasn't a part of that world anymore.
The sessions went on smoothly for over a month. Every day, I would try to teach her the same melody, and the next day she wouldn't remember it. Yet there was something that was very constant in those sessions, the joy on her face as she walked through the glass door. She would never look up, but i always knew she was smiling as she advanced the piano. She never spoke. If it weren't for the incessant humming, I would've been clueless as to how her voice sounded.
Soon, I started observing how restless she seemed in the hours before the sessions. One day when her attendant opened her door, she jumped out from behind and grabber her hand, a look of dangerous excitement on her face.
The attendance shrieked out in horror.
Her mood swings became apparent and i familiarized myself with her extreme emotions ranging from deadly urges to a kind of sadness towards the end of each session.
Then something terrible happened. I was running a bit of a fever one day, so we decided to call the session off. I was in the middle of a doctor's appointment when I got the call.
I got there as soon as I could. The first thing I saw in her cell was the painting's frame shattered into a million glass pieces. She wasn't in the room, but I couldn't ignore the pool of blood and the terrible stench it gave out.
I became really worried. I was called to the office, they wanted me to call off the sessions. They said that the interactions and the therapy was making her mental state extremely vulnerable.She was on the verge of a collapse.
I tried to argue. I tried to bring to light the progress she had been making. They agreed to having a session a week, cutting my time with her for the rest of the days.
The next day the session went on without any bizarre occurrence. I tried to speak to her this time. I tried to tell her that she would get to come in here a lot less, but she only picked up my hand and made me play Happy Bitrthday with her again.
Before she left, she turned just as she reached the door.
She didn't look up, just smiled shyly at the floor, before rushing out of the room.
The next morning i got a call from the office. They told me my time was done, that they had decided to keep Sarah in isolation for a couple of months.
I gripped the phone tightly as the incident was relayed to me. They told me how she had broken into the music room. They'd found her screaming her lungs out, throwing her body on the piano and banging her head against it.
The hair on the back of my neck stood up as a picture of Sarah humming the melody I'd taught her came alive in front of me. Her eyes seemed to see through me, so real with a passion and sadness I could not understand.
A deep sense of sorrow hit me as I realized that the light had left her life, her world would always remain dark.
She would never play the piano again.
X-------------X
She screamed into the voids,
They didn't understand her pain.
She longed for the same joy,
Yet her eyes couldn't explain.
She escaped their watchful eyes,
Into the room she knew so well.
She searched till she could no more,
Finding nothing but the smell.
She fell back on the ground,
As the voices came to her.
The blood came streaming down,
And her vision began to blur.
They pulled at her limbs,
They didn't understand her pain.
The darkness swallowed her, she knew,
She would never see him again.
