The Girl in the Window

These days, I wake up in my office more often than in my own bed. I can’t recall the last night I spent at home. My office is simple: a cluttered desk, a stiff chair, a patient bed with a clear view of the bathroom door. There is a dustbin near the bed. It’s filled with many small crumpled notes, with black bold ink strokes. But I don’t even remember writing anything recently. Not like that. I’ve been working too much, they say. But I like it. The isolation. No distractions and no mess.
Then there’s this girl. She looks at me through the glass window. She always wears a pale blue blouse. Her short hair is swept neatly to the right side, just like mine but mine’s swept left. She smiles whenever I smile at her. Everytime I look through, she would be right there. It’s odd but that’s how it is. I’ve never spoken to her and I’ve never seen her anywhere else in the building.

I checked the only file on my desk; a desk which is usually drowned in records.
Patient 013. Elena Myles.
There was a picture on the next page. I flipped the page but the photo flew under the desk.

Knock knock.
“Patient 013 coming in,” the soft voice came from outside.
The door opened. A lady in a white coat with frizzy brown hair, holding a black record resembling mine.
“Dr. Heller or can I call you Elena today?”
I laughed, unsure. “And why would you call me Elena?”
She just smiled and jotted something in her record.
Does she think I am Elena?

“May I know your name please.” I asked as I sat down on my chair.
“You may call me Dr. Heller,” she replied with a calm certainty.
She’s playing doctor. Maybe just for today. Or had she always?
“Okay Dr. Heller. So that is the reason why you are in this white coat holding that record.” I said, playing along.
She smiled again, reviewing the pages in her record.
“May I see that?” I asked, carefully putting my hand forward, reaching for the record.
Inside were reports of Elena Myles.
Dated 4th March, 1st June, and more. Reports: Paranoid delusions. Identity dissociation. Believes she is her therapist.

It seemed so real. The slightly crumpled old pages and the last, new page written ‘No improvement’.
“Do you always sleep here, Elena?” She inquired, taking the record back.
“Mostly, yes.”
She’s convinced herself she’s the doctor. I think today I should just observe. Let her be whatever she believes herself to be. I’ll pretend to be the patient today.
“When did you last see your reflection?”
“I don’t remember. It’s been quite long I think,” I genuinely replied.
“Really? Then how often do you talk to the girl in the window?”
“You see her too? She seems like a pure soul but I’ve never talked to her. You can talk to her one day. I’m sure you’d make good friends.”
She smiled again and jotted something in her record.

“Did you drink your tea in the morning?”
“Not yet.”
“Don’t forget to add those funny looking sugar cubes in it.”
The sugar cubes were oddly round. The nurse once joked her husband’s factory made both pills and sugar. I laughed. That’s when something clicked.
“How do you know that I drink tea with those sugar cubes in it?” I asked, startled.
“She told me so,”she said, pointing to the girl through the window.
Was she really watching me all this time? But why would she even do that?

“So you are friends all along? And what else did she tell you about me?” I asked playfully but equally alert.
“She said you’re very clever. Always watching. Always working. Moving on, I want to ask you one last question…”
I was already tensed. My patient believes that she is me. Moreover she has a friend who literally keeps an eye on me the whole day. This would make it harder for me to treat her and also scare me as she can become more ‘me’ as the days go by. But I have to put my anxious thoughts aside and keep a calm composure because my patient was sitting right next to me.
“Go on,” I encouraged.
“Where do you think the office files are gone?”
My desk is usually occupied with a lot of files of all the patients I treat. But today I could see just one with nothing but a number and a name. But she knows that too? Did she barge in earlier to take all the files away? Or maybe I am just being anxious, maybe the nurse took it to the meeting room.
“It must be in your office right?” I played along.

She smiled and bowed down to reach for the picture that had fallen from my hand.
“This is yours,” she said as she passed me the picture along with a small note.
“Thank you,” I said. “Nurse!” I called
The nurse came inside.
“Did you keep the records in the meeting room?” I murmured.
“Yes,” she replied.
“Okay and can you please show her the way to her room–or should I say office?” I laughed.
The nurse took her out.

As they left, I opened the note that she gave me.
‘WE’VE HAD THIS CONVERSATION BEFORE. YOU JUST NEVER REMEMBER.’
What is this supposed to mean? That I’ve had this conversation before — and forgot? Is she trying to convince me that I’m Elena? And have we ever met before? As far as I remember, no. I don’t know who she is. But she knows too much.

I sat on my chair thinking of all the possible things this note could mean.
I kept that note on the table and looked at the photo as I walked towards the window. But suddenly I stopped on my path. My eyes widened as my eyebrows arched upwards. My breath caught. The picture… it was her. The girl behind the window. The one I thought was watching me — was Elena.
Then who was this girl who just came in? Have I ever met her and I forgot it? Or is this picture wrong? Because otherwise this girl should be in her room and not watching me out there.

“Nurse!” I called out.
No one came in. “Nurse, come in!” Still no answer.
I opened the door, stepping into the hallway. Empty.
“Nurse!” I shouted again.
“Yu-you aren't supposed to be here,” a janitor said, looking at his feet with a trembling voice.
“It's my hospital. Are you new here?”
The janitor nodded awkwardly and stepped back.
“I was searching for you,” I asked the nurse, who ran towards me.
“Please go to your room. You will be seeing the doctor again for a quick questioning,” she replied with unease.

“But nurse, isn’t she patient 013? Elena?” I asked as I showed her the picture.
“Yes.” She answered, taking me to my office.
“But if she’s Elena, who did I just speak to?”
The nurse hesitated. “You’ve met her before. Ask her again.” She walked out of my office, leaving me alone inside.

Why is everything so suspicious today? Even the nurse is acting all weird. There is a new janitor I don't know about. And more importantly, where are my files?

I fell on my chair to drink a cup of tea. I poured from the flask and dropped in the sugar cubes. They dissolved instantly — like always. Funny.

Knock knock.
The door flung open. It was her again. Elena. The one who pretends to be me, but is not the real patient according to the record.
I can't do anything in a hurry. Being calm is the first priority for a doctor.
I took a deep breath and asked her to sit down.
“So who exactly are you?”
“I am Dr. Heller. And you are?”
“Alright. I'm Dr. Heller. She's Elena. Then… who are you?”
“You really need to talk to her and you will understand.”

“But tell me, have you noticed the band on your hand?” She calmly asked again.
“I am the doctor here, not you.” I was being unprofessional and worked up here.
“That’s what you said yesterday too,” she said and walked out the room.
Yesterday? We haven't even met before. How can she say this?
I looked at my hand. I had a band on my right hand. But there was something written on it. I never noticed that. I flipped the band over.
‘013 Elena Myles’ written in bold black.
My hands trembled, no match for the stampede in my chest.

I scrambled to the door. It won't open. I twisted the knob a hundred times. It won't open. I called the nurse, banging the door and still it won't open. Noone heard me.
Why did she lock me in? Was the nurse plotting against me all this while? What is she going to do?
I shouted as I flicked off the drop of sweat from my forehead. I ran to the desk and searched for my phone. I checked in my pocket, on the bed and in the bathroom too. It wasn't there.
Am I looted too?

The window! I looked towards the window. She was standing there, staring at me. But this time, she looked scared. Her hair was a mess and the top was untidy, which was unlike her.
“Hey! I need help,” I waved at her with both my hands and screamed at the top of my lungs.
She was waving back at me. But I couldn't hear anything. I went closer to the window and she came closer too.
“Help please!” I begged.
She mimicked me perfectly — hands in sync, expression copied frame for frame. Not watching me. Echoing me.

I started punching and banging the window. She did the same and it broke. The glass was on the floor. But the girl was gone. Like she vanished into thin air. The blood was flowing down my knuckles and tears rolling down my cheeks.
This can't be true. Is this the end of my life?

The ivory walls began to peel. The pale wood faded into rusted metal. My desk — no, not mine — shrank into a battered table. The window? Gone. Just a blank, white wall. A silence so loud it rang in my ears.
No! This can’t be true.

Memories flooded my eyes. Elena asking me the same questions; the nurses locking me inside; the girl in the window staring at me. The kids laughing—always laughing. The shaking, the seizures. The fear.
The woman in the mirror was not me.
No—no, that wasn’t right.
That wasn’t supposed to be me.
I started screaming and panting in terror.

“Your name is Elena Myles.”
The voice is calm. Dr. Heller’s voice.
My voice.
No—her voice.
No—mine.
“Stop saying that!” I scream. “I help people! I fix people! I am not a dimwit!”
My hands claw at the desk, the chair, the floor—anything to hold on.
“You’re the one in my seat. You’re the copy. Not me. I’m not her—I mean—she’s not—”
My mouth won’t work.
My voice cracks like glass.

The nurses barged in. A sharp pain in my arm.
“Wake up,” she told me.
I furrowed my eyebrows and my eyes closed.
“You said I wasn’t broken,” I whisper. “You said I could be anything. You said I was enough.”
I said that, didn’t I?

I opened my eyes in my office, again. There was this girl, looking at me through the glass window, wearing a pale blue blouse. Her short hair is swept neatly to the right side, just like mine but mine’s swept left. I smiled, and she smiled back. We’ve always done this. Haven’t we?
I checked the only file on my desk; a desk which is usually drowned in records.
Patient 013. Elena Myles.