Tales from the Cooinda Cycle: Memory Five

DING DING

The electronic bell rang out, signalling someone was calling for assistance.

DING DING

The chime was a constant through the time at the centre, almost never a time that it could not be heard, there was always someone pressing their call button. If it had gone longer than five minutes without hearing it, it began to feel strange.

DING DING

The problem of course, was that because of the constant chiming of the bell ringing throughout the whole complex, it was all too easy to tune it out and not notice it, or even ignore it. I was beginning to notice there were some residents the staff would move to quickly if they called, and others that they deemed ‘demanding’ or ‘trouble’ so there was no rush to them. There were even regular occurrences where the resident had pressed their call button by accident, and not realised, so it seemed if this happened too much, staff assumed this was the case.

I walked down the long ramp between two floors, and around a corner to head down the corridor towards the cafe, I could still see the sign on the door I left before I went to empty the bins.

Back in 5 minutes

Heading down the corridor I heard the electronic bell, and knew someone was calling for assistance, while not my responsibility, I would pop in if I passed a door and saw the light flashing above, the visual stimuli for notifying assistance. There were small displays around that flashed the room number of the call, however the one nearest to me was positioned so that I could not see it from within the cafe, or even the angle from the corridor I was walking up.

DING DING

It continued, as I neared the cafe, I saw the light above Room 12 flashing, now I understood why it had rung out so much. The Man From Room 12 was someone many of the staff had told me was troublesome and called for the slightest things, and from some accounts was quite rude to the staff.

I had spent some early shifts in this place sitting with him in his room and watching the news over a cup of coffee. He was pleasant enough to me, but I could see this place got to him and he was quite short with people at times. I could see no one heading to his room, so I decided to quickly pop my head in, say hello before reopening the cafe, and see what he needed.

DING DING

The chime ran out again, even as I entered his room, looking at the display now visible from his door I saw The Man From Room 12 was the only resident currently calling for assistance, and had been for around five minutes now. I turned the handle and opened the door, triggering a fear and recurring nightmare I had about this place. Every time I opened a resident's door, a small fear crept in that I would find them dead in their room.

“Hey, it’s me from the cafe, I saw your light flashing.”

Fear and panic. It filled room twelve for those few seconds. It was in his eyes staring at me, arms outstretched for help, and it was in my mind as I looked at him, helpless and afraid, gasping for air. I snapped out of my panic, sadly there was nothing I could do for his, there was something wrong with his air tank or the supply to his mask.

I can’t fix this.

“I’ll get someone, I’ll be as quick as I can.”

DING DING

I raced out of the room and ran to the main reception area, guilt and panic crashing over me in waves. I hated having to leave him alone to get help, but it was clear no one else was coming soon.

DING DING

Arriving at the reception, I found a few staff in a room chatting, and told them to get to room 12 now. There was something wrong with the air tubes, they didn’t move as quickly as I wanted.

DING DING

“He’s struggling to breathe,” I said angrily. “You need to hurry, I can't fix it.”

One of them headed to the room, soon followed by another.

DING DING

Waiting outside the room for a minute or two as they went in to work.

DING DI-

The chime stopped, one of the staff must have turned it off when they went in. Now a period of unsettled quiet fell, as for a few minutes there were no chimes echoing through the centre.

I waited outside the room for a few more minutes, until the staff came out, they were wearing their PPE gear for when handling residents, so they looked somewhat menacing, I always thought their appearance in the PPE would be frightful to some residents, it removed even more emotion from the staff than the little they already displayed.

“He’s gone,” they said, removing their masks and gloves.

It was so matter-of-fact to them, there was no sign of distress in their voice, no glimpse of anything emotion. Just the cold facts, I didn’t know how to respond. I wanted to yell at them, I wanted to weep, I wanted to get out of this place, I had never wanted to come here to begin with and this exact situation was one of the reasons I didn’t want to come.

I went to the cafe door, took the sign off it and changed the writing.

CLOSED EARLY

I unlocked the hair salon next door to the cafe, locked the door and sat on one of the salon chairs in the dark, then stared at the ceiling for a few minutes, unsure if I would cry, and closed my eyes.

DING DING

I awoke in my bed, in my small bedsit unit, my phone had chimed with a message. It was morning and as I looked around I realised I must have dreamed it all. The time in the centre was clearly getting to me, everyday feeling the same, a never ending cycle of psychological and emotional torment. I looked at my phone, it was a message to the group chat for those of us placed at the centre together, a message from one of them who had the early morning shift.

Fear and panic filled me once again, as I read the green-bubbled words in the chat.

"Btw The Man From Room 12 passed early this morning!"

Followed by a second message, including another typo...

"Excuse the exclamation mark, thag was not intended"