Lady At The Window

My health had not been the best for the past few years. I had made several trips to doctors and specialists, trying to find out what was wrong. At the end of September 2022, I was sent for a whole barrage of tests, including an electrocardiogram (ECG or EKG) to measure my heart's electrical activity and a full blood count. That very night, we received an urgent call from the doctor about the worrying test results.

Rex rushed me to the emergency department at the hospital. The nurse on duty took one look at me and said that my pallor was dangerously grey. Over the next fourteen hours, I would be given two blood transfusions, along with a bag of plasma.

While I was waiting for a room to be prepared in the ward upstairs, the woman in the next bed became angry at the nurses. The doctors had requested more tests and scans for her, and she was not pleased that they could not diagnose her recurring ailments. Her scolding voice soon rose in volume, getting the attention of everyone on the floor.

By that time, it was close to midnight. The agitation level was almost a palpable presence in the place. I felt chilled and did not feel it was due to my low blood count.

'I want to see the doctor NOW!' screeched the irate woman.

BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP. The monitoring devices went haywire all at once, emitting alarms and sounds of mechanical distress. At every single bed.

It was absolute chaos. Nurses were hurrying from bed to bed, frantically pressing buttons to stop the ear-splitting blaring, and trying to reset each monitor. All the while, the woman carried on a relentless tirade, steamrolling over the nurses' attempts to calm her down.

Rex and I looked at each other in bewilderment. What was going on?

Eventually, the Head Nurse managed to placate her. She arranged for the woman's discharge and assured her that any further tests could be done as an outpatient. It was rather odd how all the machines on the floor subsided to quieter beeps, once she left the emergency department.

Hospitals are never the most comfortable place to be. It was early morning and Rex had gone home by the time they got me into a room on the fourth floor. I was attached to uncomfortable tubes and a heart monitor, my arm was aching from the canula, and my limbs felt weak and rubbery.

But I was still in a much better state than the elderly woman in the next room. During the nurses' handover at the change of shift, I overheard one say to the other that the patient had been refusing her food. They were currently trying to get her into palliative care, but it was probable that she might not last long enough by the time there was an available bed. Sadly, beyond making her as comfortable as possible, they could do nothing more.

Sleep was impossible that night. My lower back hurt, and I could not figure out how to adjust the bed. The temperature in the room had gone quite cold. It was unusual for me to be bothered by the air-conditioning. I normally liked the cold, and the nurse had made me comfortable for the night, wrapping me up like a cosy burrito in cotton blankets.

The lights at my bed were turned off, with the door was left ajar for the duty nurse to be able to check on me at a glance from the bright hallway. I could hear the constant rasping and wheezing noises from next door. That poor woman's laboured breathing sounded especially loud in the stillness of the night. It reminded me horribly of a death rattle, like during the time I had sat vigil years ago for my father and Rex's mother.

My vision had gotten accustomed to the dim lighting. A movement to my left caught my eye. I blinked once, twice, but the image was still there at the window.

It was a slight-built woman or a young girl, dressed in a black gown and a wide-brimmed black hat. Her face was pale, the features hidden in shadow by a gauzy veil from the hat. A coat was draped over her shoulders like a cloak. From the angle of her head, she was peering in at me.

For a moment, I thought it was a visitor who had gone for a walk outside, taken a wrong turn in the dark and was trying to find the entrance back to the ward. Then, I remembered that the room was four stories above the ground.

Was she an Otherwordly visitor? But I did not feel any malice from her, only a vague sense of curiosity.

On a whimsical impulse, I waved to the lady in black, acknowledging that I knew she was there. Then I quickly turned on the bedside light. The figure was gone.

Getting out of bed, I scanned the room for any object that could be reflected in the glass. There was nothing that matched the figure. The closest thing in height was the IV stand, but it was too thin. It was also near the door, which meant that its reflection was in the wrong position.

When I mentioned this to the night nurse in passing, she vehemently declared that such things never happened there. She looked so thoroughly spooked that I decided not to say anything further on the incident. The hospital was a fairly new one, but there had already been a number of reported mortalities there.

In the morning, I checked the scenery outside the window. It overlooked the rooftop of the nearby building, a carpark, and the main road in the distance. There was nothing that could have formed a dark shape the night before. The ledge running along the side was too narrow for even Spiderman to stand on tippy toes there.

The patient was still there in the next room, her condition unchanged. But I did not get another chance to see if the lady in black would reappear in the night.

My daily blood tests were showing that my blood count was much improved, oxygen saturation and erratic heart rate had stabilised. By late afternoon, the doctors decided to send me home for recovery, and to be scheduled for surgery at a later date.

That night, as part of my bedtime routine, I did my online crossword. One of the crossword clues read: "You look like you've just (seen a) ghost!"