Marigold Ward

Marigold Ward

Katie Marie

 
Mrs Jenkins died on a Monday.

No one on Marigold Ward was surprised. She was old, frail, and sick. The death certificate listed all of those things: dementia, frailty, suspected sepsis secondary to leg ulcers. But I knew what had taken Mrs Jenkins, and it sure as hell wasn’t sepsis, or the wounds on her legs that had refused to heal.

What had taken her didn’t have a name, but I knew it all the same.

The morning after Mrs Jenkins had died, we all filed into the morning briefing, none of us making eye contact. I suspected that they all knew what was happening on Marigold Ward, but none of them would admit it. It was too strange, too unreal, and we ground our world in reality.

It takes a special kind of person to work in a Ward like Marigold Ward. The kind of person who isn’t fazed by the harsh reality of the human body and the myriad of ways it breaks down long before death. That kind of person can come in day after day, change your grandfather’s catheter, wash out your grandmother’s bed sore and offer them a comforting smile as they wither beneath the bedsheets. That kind of person is always grounded in reality, to where the fantastical cannot exist.

So, when the shadow came to Marigold Ward, it felt no need to hide. It knew, knew the nurses wouldn’t see it, even when it danced from bed to bed snuffing out lives like a strong wind against a series of small flames.

We are used to death here. The slow creeping death where you rot from the inside. The kind of death that you wait for with hope, because life has become a never-ending procession of painful self-care. Time is measured by the gaps between the basics that we all took for granted when we were fitter. They have become the sole focus and they have also become almost impossible.

By the time the morning briefing ends, I know who it’ll take next.

It has been watching Mr Morton on and off for a while and his stats are dropping. We’re already looking at a return to a more acute ward, but the waiting list, that ever-present bogyman, means he’s still here.

I walk into the side room where Mr Morton has been moved in an attempt to curtail infection. His bed rails are up, the bed low to the ground. Mr Morton is prone to falls and that’s how I think it will take him. We’ll come into his little room and find him cold on the floor. We will list his death in much the same way as Mrs Jenkins’ was.

I stand in the doorway and watch Mr Morton stare at the corner, his eyes distant and unfocused. Most people would expect such from someone with late-stage dementia and an ongoing infection, but I can see what he’s looking at. 

When I try to look at it, I can’t see it. Like an eye floater, it’s only visible in my peripheral vision. I look out the window and it comes back into focus on the edge of my vision. Its tall, easily ten feet, skeletally thin and made from black smoke, its insubstantial fingers are disproportionately long. All the better for reaching and grasping.

It turns to me and smiles, the lights of its eyes visible through the smoke. Its grin is hungry and terrifying.

It likes to let them know it’s watching them, enjoys their fear, enjoys that the other nurses don’t see it, don’t believe the patients when they point and cry. 

I turn to face it and instantly I can’t see it anymore.

“I know you’re there.” My voice quivers and I feel sweat break out across my back. “I know what you are. I know how you hunt and I know how to stop you.”

Mr Morton has turned to face me, his mouth opening and closing as he desperately tries to speak. His eyes are wet, hope shining in them. I nod at him, not trusting my voice. He smiles at me, his breathing easier now.

I turn and leave the room.

I lied.

I cannot stop it.

Mr Morton will be dead before the morning, but now he will die in hope rather than fear.

It’s the only gift I can give on Marigold Ward.