Where?

Crack, crack, crack. Like dry twigs succumbing to a weight too great for them, the sound broke the strange silence Salma had found herself lost in. Memories of her mother telling her she would disfigure her fingers if she kept snapping her knuckles nudged at the periphery of her memory. The words never quite assembled in the order they had been issued but the spirit of the warning, even in the fog of a distant memory, remained dire. Salma looked around, uncertain about how many people were actually in the room with her.

There was Salim in the corner: tall, handsome and wholly unbothered about what everyone else was doing. The people behind his glowering phone screen proffered better entertainment and it was to them that he paid allegiance. Martha was seated in the seat closest to the window, rocking her sleeping baby. With her shapely legs crossed at the ankles, she smiled endlessly at the oblivious sleeping child, showering him with an affection so deep it consumed her and smothered him. Small beads of sweat made his forehead shimmer in spite of the slight chill in the room. Martha either did not see them at all or chose to ignore them. She had always been like that.

“Have you seen my glasses?” Salma’s mother asked, looking at nobody in particular. Her hennaed hair made her light complexion seem slightly translucent, a magical effect that made the mischievous twinkle in her eyes more pronounced. She was beautiful and she knew it.

“They are over your head.” Salma’s father answered before anybody could point it out, never once looking up from his thick volume of Shakespeare’s works. For a second she looked stunned and then burst into an embarrassed laugh. It didn’t escape anyone in the room that her memory was steadily getting worse but Salma especially worried about it. Her mother slipped the bright red elliptical frames over her face and narrowed her eyes at Salma. With a start, Salma separated her hands and placed them, palms down, on her thighs.

“Salma…?” A voice calmly called to her. She knew this voice. Turning her neck slowly, reluctantly, she saw Doctor Mark. He was frowning and leaned forward towards her from his seat. “Have you seen them?” He asked gently, barely keeping the intrigue from his voice but balanced enough to retain the air of propriety required of him. Salma’s heart began to beat faster and she felt her stomach go queasy. She inhaled and closed her eyes, willing the images back. Willing Salim, Martha and their baby back into their places. Willing her dear father to return and be as helpful as he had always been. But they were gone; all of them. Tears pricked the back of her eyes and her lip began to tremble, “Yes, I have seen them.”

He now stood up and walked to her seat, his frame looming larger than it was against the insipid walls of the psychiatric ward. “Tell me what you saw.”