[“Cat in an empty apartment”, Wisława Szymborska] The technician took one look at the films, and took a marker and circled three spots without so much as ten seconds looking and tore the film down from the lightbox on the wall. He slid it in a large orange envelope and handed it to Mary, the nurse, and she tucked it under her arm and pushed the chair holding on to it haphazardly. Meera didn’t say anything, but she was fuzzy from the medicine and felt like she was watching the world through a frosted window, clear for a moment if she breathed just right, before it clouded over again. Mary rolled her into a little room and started pulling boxes down from high shelves. Pink and white and green strips, rolls of gauze. Meera thought it looked a little like the gift-wrapping station at Harrod’s when she’d been there with her sister. A doctor rushed in a few moments later and tore the film out of the orange envelope and slapped them to the lightbox hurriedly. “Alright, young lady. Let’s get you taken care of.” He was curt, almost frantic. Too many patients to take care of to give any more than a few moments time to. He wrapped gauze around her arm, yanking enough to cause pain for a moment, then fading away again. “What’s your favorite color?” Meera had to think for a moment to comprehend the question. Color. “Grey.” The doctor frowned and she went back to thinking about the gift-wrapping station at Harrod’s. “I don’t think we have grey. How about this pink?” She wasn’t sure if she said “don’t like pink” or not, but her memory of watching gifts went from brown paper packages to frilly pink bouquets attached to the top of gaudy boxes. The doctor took a reel of deep purple tape and began winding it around her arm. Purple. She liked purple. “Okay, now don’t move. The nurse will be right back.” He called out, just “Nurse!” and Mary bustled back in the room. She didn’t move. She didn’t feel like moving. Mary wheeled her slowly out of the room and out to the waiting room. Dick was waiting for her. “Hi! You’re done!” “Hi” Meera was still out from the drugs and didn’t quite look at him. “Don’t worry, dear, she’ll perk up in an hour or so. The drugs will wear off. If it hurts too much, have her take some of this ketofen, and if it’s still too much, call us and we’ll talk about other options.” She pressed a pill bottle into his hand. “Thanks.” “Sign here.” The nurse thrust something at Meera, who just looked at her for a moment, then tried to grasp the pen, only then realizing that her writing hand was cast. The nurse put the pen in her left hand and she made a lazy scrawl across the bottom of the paper. “Thank you. You can go now, dear. You have a ride?” “I’m driving.” Dick piped up. “Thank you.” Meera slurred a little, but wasn’t quite so slow to react this time. ---- Dick helped Meera into the truck, mostly having to boost her in since she couldn’t haul herself up with her wrist packed up tight. “You can stay with me tonight. I don’t think you should be alone around your uncle.” “Mmmhm.” She was asleep in the passenger seat already. ---- They pulled into the driveway of the house, and Dick sidled up to the door, shy to open it anyway, and not sure if Uncle Ram was waiting for them at all. The door wasn’t fully latched, and he pushed it open. He wasn’t sure he wanted to call out, so he stole inside and up the stairs to pack a few things for Meera. The house was silent except for the ticking of the grandfather clock, which was loud enough to feel like it should echo. The whole house felt different. Empty. He wasn’t sure what to make of it. He crept into the bedroom. The dresser was overturned, the contents strewn about the room. Meera’s usually neat school clothes were in a heap on top, as if someone had been looking for something that might be in a pocket, but the cracked woodwork and a broken drawer told another story, and one less sensible than a hurried search. The eerie silence was made more eerie by the obvious violence that had just happened. No sign of her Uncle Ram, though. Dick took a few sets of clothes from the heap and dusted them off, not that there was actual dust on them, but a few stiff and well-meant taps felt as though they might shed some of the violence and leave it in the house. He hurried back out the way he’d come, and still not a sound from anywhere else in the house. “Got my things?” Meera asked sleepily from the passenger’s seat as he sat down. “Yeah. I packed a bag.” “Thanksh.” She nodded off again. She slept until he turned off the main road into the farm, but the first rut woke her with a start and a jolt of pain. “Sorry!” he wasn’t sure why he whispered. He tried to edge up the little drive as gently as he could, but the deep ruts and old truck didn’t make it possible. Every jolt was painful. Dick led her into the cottage, and straight to the bedroom. He pulled back the covers and guided her to the bed. She sat, looking exhausted. “Thank you.” He watched her for a moment, then turned to go, and he heard a frustrated sigh behind him. Meera was still sitting on the bed, trying to take her shirt off and stuck, half on, half off, suddenly bare skin shivering in the cool room, her shirt caught on her cast and not alert enough to work her way out of it. He blushed. “Here.” He lifted her shirt over the cast and over her head. “Thanksh.” She flailed against her waistband for a moment, the fingers jutting out of her cast stiff and swollen. He helped unbutton the button and tried to look up at her face while he did, but ended up having to look aside. She managed to turn and get under the quilt herself, and he turned to go, face still red. “Not yet?”