City On Fire

4

After closing the doctor’s door Ella dragged her feet down the empty clinically sterile hallway but stopped halfway down and stared out the window at the setting sun. Everyone had come inside for dinner and the last of the sun’s rays were disappearing behind the Yakaranda and the compound’s wall. She wanted to go home. It had been months since she had been home. She had no family and no one came to visit her. She wanted her home and her bed and her things. She wanted to be done with the meds and shrinks and all of it. If that meant ignoring everything so be it. Ella dragged her feet again as she went down the hall but stopped when Duncan stepped out from around the corner.

“Come on, someone saved you dinner.”

Duncan stood to the side and ushered her to the right, into the dining hall. This was strategy. They had done this before and unfortunately she had been raised with far too many good manners to tell him off and besides Benny was a confidant. Looking over the bare dining hall she saw everyone smiling and laughing except for Link who was arranging his peas and frank who sat moulding chess pieces out of his mash. In the far corner of the room Benny’s hand shot up and waved at her. Benny was a short lanky figure with a fire in his soul nothing and no one could dampen. He partly shared her diagnosis in that he had terrible nightmares as well but where his were due to trauma hers was due to mental illness, or so she had been told.

“Hi Ell. I s...s...saved you a p...p...p...p...plate.”

Benny had a stutter and a tendency to flinch. Both things his father had believed he could beat out of the poor kind. Unfortunately, the only thing he did was beat the kind into the funny farm. Benny once told her that his mother had finally had enough and packed them both up and left. She got a new job and climbed the ranks quickly giving them both the life they had always wanted and deserved. There was just one thing, Benny’s nightmares. The flinch and stutter would always persist but perhaps there was something they could do about the nightmares.

Something Ella was most grateful for was that his treatment was working and before long he would be released. He deserved a little good in his life. His mother had remarried but she had seen the three of them during visiting hours, he adored his new step father. He also had great patience with the stuttering and always encouraging when Benny lost his words. They knew what she knew as well which was that Benny was a genius though he was very humble about it.

“Thanks Benny.”

Benny watched her roll her food from one side of the plate to the other. “Ell, you really should eat.”

It was his firm voice and she knew he meant business, but she just couldn’t. She put down her plastic cutlery and wiped her hands down her face. “I know. Just don’t have much of an appetite.”

She pushed the plate away before tapping the one corner. “Still hungry?”

Benny was always hungry. He ate like a bear before going into hibernation but never picked up weight and could never pass up the offer though he did glare at her just a little before accepting.

She handed him her plate but he didn’t dig in immediately.

“W...w...w....what did y...y...y...you see?”

Being the only other patient with a nightmare related diagnosis the two of them had become friends quickly and as a result he was the only one who knew, other than her shrink, that her night terrors had the tendency to come true. Unlike her shrink however, he encouraged her to follow that her heart told her. If the little voice inside her soul told her that this was something that she needed to stop than that was what needed to be done. He told her about his dreams and she told him about hers. Then he would be quiet for a while before trying to help her make sense of everything. “It was this city that had been completely destroyed. There were these people lined up in front of a firing squad and they begged for their lives.” Ella watched Benny think and then pushed the empty plate back in front of her. ”Like prisoners of w...w...war being e..ex..e..executed? There is p...plenty of w...w...w..war in the world.”

Ella thought back to what she saw. The place did look like it had been ground zero, so that made sense. She tapped her finger on the metal table, something she did when she was trying to remember something.

“There was something ells. A priest wearing size four shoes.”

Benny stared at her and raised an eyebrow.

“He was saying something about having given warning, more than once. These people were begging him to spare them but he just...”

She stooped mid sentence.

“The firing squad followed on his orders.”

Benny nodded.

“L...like he w..w..w...was in charge?”

Ella nodded. Benny waited for her to continue but she was quiet. She thought about what the doctor had said about her giving these things power. One of the orderlies came past their table and collected the dirty dishes.

“I’m glad to see you’re eating Ella.”

Ella plastered a fake smile on her face and waited for him to leave but Benny sat upright and smiled.

“Told y...y..you I c...c...could convince h..her.”

The orderly returned his smile.

“Well done.”

Then walked away and Ella’s smile dropped and shattered on the floor.

“I don’t know Benny. If I keep this up I’m not ever going to get out of here.” She didn’t want to admit it but Benny leaving was very close to unbearable although she would never say it. He deserves to get out of this place. He kept it to himself but suspected as much.

“I g...g...get that, really. But w...w...what if this w...w...as something important and y...y...y...you were supposed to d...d...do something about it and y...y...y...you didn’t. W...w...what then? Could you l...l...l...live with that?” She couldn’t. She could barely live with it as is and that was not even mentioning the rest of the guilt she had managed to accumulate over the years. The room was slowly emptying and by now the sun was down.

“C...c...come to the library. Bring your sketchbook. I h...h...have an i...idea.” Benny got up and walked out of the room leaving Ella more confused than ever.