Shifting Skin

Chapter 7

The body in the bed didn’t move.

Sunlight slanted in through the open window, spilling across the crumpled white sheets and creating a lunar landscape of miniature ravines. Silence dominated the room, pierced at regular intervals by a thin whistle. It came from the bandages encasing the patient’s face.

Eventually a hand slid upwards. A forefinger and thumb picked delicately at the nostril holes and shoulders flinched as pain lanced outwards. After a few moments the patient tried again, this time successfully getting the tip of a varnished nail into a nostril that still throbbed from where the blows had landed. A large flake of dried blood was prised away and a sob of self-pity was released.

The hand fell back on to the sheet as a soft whirring came from the window. A robin had alighted on the metal arm holding the window open. Head cocked to one side, it surveyed the room with a keen eye.

From the bed, a pair of swollen and bloodshot eyes looked back, hungry for company of any kind. The patient tried to encourage the bird forward with a kissing sound, tears spilling over the layers of gauze.