The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

The Message

Although my own corner of the hospital has the look of an expensive private school, one would never mistake the cafeteria crowd for members of the Dead Poets Society. The girls have hard eyes, the boys tattoos and sometimes rings on their fingers. There they sit, chain-smoking and talking about fistfights and motorbikes. Their already stooped shoulders seem to bear a heavy cross. Cruel fate has cursed them, and their stay at Berck is just one more stage between an abused childhood and a jobless future. When I am wheeled through their smoke-filled lair, the silence becomes deafening; I see neither pity nor compassion in their eyes.

Through the open cafeteria window you can hear the beating of the hospital's bronze heart: the bell that makes the firmament vibrate four times an hour. On a table cluttered with empty cups stands a small typewriter with a sheet of pink paper stuck in the roller. Although at the moment the page is utterly blank, I am convinced that someday there will be a message for me there. I am waiting.