A Time For Reflection

words 1699


          I suppose this is what they call the time of reflection. Sheila's thoughts raced as she lay in her bed. It was past the witching hour, as they used to say on the wards. On a night shift, the hours after midnight were the disturbing hours. Some patients slept, yet others seem to come alive. Was it also their time of reflection?

         The old lady moaned softly, tried to find a comfortable position in the narrow bed and attempted to turn over. Painfully aware it was necessary not to lie in one position too long to avoid pressure sores and yet the effort of moving was excruciating but there was no one to help her. She was alone in her home. Alone in her life, if it came to that. Did she deserve her loneliness? That was the question she often asked herself.

         She supposed it all started with her childhood. Had she ever really been a child? She didn’t think she had, not really. How could she have been?

**

         “Sheila! Come here. Sheila! Where are you now, you little brat?”

         The four-year-old child covered her ears as she hid under her bed and pretended she was somewhere else. Somewhere with a kind mother like the ones in the stories her grandmother sometimes told her. She wished she could always live with Granny, but her mother wouldn’t let her go. The child could hear them arguing downstairs, they were talking about her.

         “You don’t care about your daughter. If it wasn’t for the benefit money, you would be rid of her.”

         “I can’t stand the kid. She’s always snivelling about something or other. Miserable little cry baby.”

         “Let me take her then. You don’t love her. Every child deserves to be loved.”

         “Mother, you need to watch out. I want you to stop coming here, I don't want you interfering and you’re making the kid worse. Telling her fairy stories. She needs to learn life’s not like that”

         From her hiding place, Sheila heard the front door slam. That was the day the only person who loved her disappeared out of her life.

          “Where’s Granny?” Sheila would ask, day after day. But never getting an answer, she stopped asking.

**

         Sheila sometimes wondered if the reason she went into geriatric nursing was because she never found out what had happened to her beloved grandmother. Perhaps her subconscious was searching for her in the faces of her patients. She thought of her often and even wondered bizarrely if perhaps her mother had killed her. Something bad must have happened for her not to have returned that day when she’d heard them arguing. Perhaps it had been an accident? Sheila knew for certain her only ally wouldn’t have left her to fend for herself in the clutches of that mad woman. The day was imprinted on her mind because her mother had been so angry she threw her little girl into the cellar and left her for hours in the dark.

**

         It was on the wards late one night while watching her charges, some moaning in their sleep when their medication didn’t fool the subconscious, that she wished she could put them out of their misery. After all, what did they have to live for? Observing the pain on the faces of the suffering broke her heart. Her grandmother would be ancient now, if she was still alive, and probably sick. She really hoped someone was looking out for her.

         It was those thoughts which began the series of mercy killings as she thought of them. Each one of her elderly, sick patients she successfully helped to be free of their pain, soothed a hurt deep inside herself.

         Sheila had been a nurse for many years and knew, especially with old, vulnerable, very sick patients, investigations as to their deaths would be unlikely if she was careful. It was such a very simple process to kill, much easier sometimes than the effort of keeping someone alive.
         The first time she used Potassium Chloride, a simple electrolyte which given in high doses causes the heart to stop. The patient, an old lady, had been so sick for too long. Her family never came to see her although Sheila knew they'd probably be there after the death, squabbling over the spoils.
          Afterwards when the body had been taken away to the morgue and there had been no suspicions about the death, Sheila felt something she'd never before experienced in her life. She felt powerful.

         The easiest method was to inject nothing, just air or simply adding a few drops of additional medication into the IV line would often be enough to finish the job without even having to poke a needle into a patient’s skin. There were so many ways of helping someone leave this earth. It was all so easy.

         She became to consider herself an angel of mercy, helping those who couldn’t help themselves. She wasn’t a stupid woman and only did it to the ones who had been on the ward for an extended time or those with advanced pneumonia. Sheila figured no one would be surprised if old Sally or Mary died suddenly. There’d be no autopsy, no investigation.

**

         Every so often, she would visit her mother in the mental institution where she’d been for over ten years. Sheila didn’t know why she bothered, but hoped maybe one day her tormentor would find it in her heart to tell her daughter what had happened to her grandmother. But Mother would sit and stare at nothing. It had been many years since she’d even recognised her only daughter.

**

         It was one night on the ward when doing her rounds when Sheila’s world changed forever. She stood at the end of the bed checking the medical notes, when the name on the file, Mrs. Louise Chambers Aged 92 made her scan the details on the chart. Her heart seemed to stop beating, and after long moments she gasped for a breath. It was as if her body had forgotten to breathe such was the shock of seeing this shell of the woman she’d once remembered as strong, funny, and vibrant.

         “Are you alright Sheila? You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.” A colleague asked her as she passed by the bed.

         Sheila moved her hand away from her mouth and brushed away tears. Tears of sadness, perhaps? Or were they tears of joy at seeing someone alive she’d thought of as dead? Composing herself, she spoke, “Yes, I’m okay, Fran.” Giving her friend a small smile she said, “I thought it was someone I used to know, but I was mistaken. It gave me a bit of a shock, that’s all.”

         Fran nodded and said, “It was probably a trick of the light.”

         Sheila replaced the file, went up to the woman in the bed and shone her torch on the sleeping face.

         “Granny? It’s Sheila,” she whispered, almost under her breath.

         The sleeping woman in the bed gave no response, which the nurse was secretly pleased about. She didn’t know how she was going to approach this unexpected turn of events.

         When her shift finished at seven the following morning, Louise Chambers was still unresponsive. Sheila did the handover to the day shift and left the hospital. She needed time to figure out her next move.

         The next night shift all was quiet at long last on the wards. Sheila checked the watch pinned to her uniform and gave a wry smile. It was midnight, that witching hour when the innocent dreamed pleasant dreams and the wicked were tormented by their evil deeds. She was under no illusion as to where she fitted. She knew she’d done terrible things while convincing herself it was for the best. The thoughts she was having at that moment were diabolical, but she was having a hard time resisting them. After all, her grandmother had deserted her when she was at her most vulnerable, left her with a crazy mother who would beat her and lock her in the cellar for hours. Surely that was unforgivable. Wasn’t it? She needed to be punished.

         She replaced the chart at the end of the bed, pulled on a new pair of rubber gloves, and moved toward the sleeping woman. The patient’s diagnosis was double pneumonia and was reliant on oxygen being delivered at a constant flow, the only thing keeping her alive. Her breathing was laboured and noisy, her chest rattled. Sheila moved to the chair next to the bed and sat down. The old woman’s eyes were bright with fever when they met Sheila’s stare. There was no sign of recognition. How could there be? It was so long ago.

         She deserves to die after what she did. Sheila attempted to quiet the voices telling her to do it, but knew there was no going back. The die was cast. She turned off the oxygen.

         Her grandmother’s eyes widened as she fought for the oxygen she desperately needed, whilst her granddaughter stood by and watched her slowly suffocate, giving a wicked smile. A smile the old lady recognised and must have triggered a memory in the dying woman’s brain. “Sheila?” she gasped, before her eyes closed for the last time.


         The enormity of ending the life of someone she used to know and love drove the killer into a state of depression. I should have asked her why she left me. There must have been a reason. Now I’ll never know. Living with the voices repeatedly telling her she was evil and crazy like her mother was almost unbearable. And yet she remained on the wards taking care of the old and infirm and only occasionally giving some unfortunate assistance out of the world of pain into the next one.

**

         Sheila looked at the alarm clock, the green numbers glowed in the dark. It was now three in the morning. Reflecting on her life, thinking about how things could have been tired her. She now knew for certain she’d done those old people a favour by lessening their suffering because how she wished someone would do the same for her. But perhaps that was to be her punishment.