the woman behind the wall

while i was in hospital, there was a woman in the room next door.nobody would tell me what was the matter with her,but she seemed to be in pain almost all the time and the moaning and the screaming went on for hours until she begged for help. i have very rarely felt so utterly helpless. i wanted to go to her, to hold her hand and comfort her, to be there, to somehow ease her pain. but i couldn`t move properly,couldn`t walk without help, couldn`t sit. so all i could do was lie there and listen to her pain and when it got really bad i rang for the nurses who were then angry with me for some reason, because i asked them to help her.
this went on for one and a half weeks and i got used to it,which is terrible,but true. she was always there, behind the wall.
and then, one afternoon, she was gone. and it was quiet and i had longed for that quietness, for some peace,but now it seemed wrong. they told me she had been transferred to another ward and that she was okay, whatever that means in hospital vocabulary.
i never saw her face.

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