TELMA HENWICK
The strangest job I've ever taken
In the dim hours of early morning, while Thierstein remains deeply asleep, I move stealthily towards the attic. Casting a furtive glance over my shoulder to ensure the coast is clear, I unlock the door to a secluded area, a place shrouded from prying eyes.
As I climb the creaking wooden stairs, a sense of foreboding wraps itself around me. I can't help but reflect on this absurdity: this is undoubtedly the most bizarre job I've ever accepted.
Standing vigil over a man, hidden in the dusky recesses of a university attic, feels like a scene ripped from a surreal Kammerspiel
The attic is bare, except for a folding couch in the middle and some basic medical equipment softly humming. There lies my charge, a body in a coma, a tragic testament to a dream experiment gone awry.
He has become more than just a patient now. He is the silent keeper of a secret, a casualty ensnared in an endless nightmare, wrought by reckless ambition and illicit sedatives.
In this silent space, I often drag a chair closer, initiating a one-sided conversation with him - a dialogue more frequent than with the living. It's my twisted ritual of care, a silent vigil. I obsess over the shadowed thoughts lurking in his mind's quiet theater. Can he detect my presence, the ghostly brush of my fingers against his skin?
Professor Ebbinghaus, the mastermind of this unsettling scenario, visits daily. There's no guilt in his eyes, only an intense need to know, to understand. He studies the patient not with remorse but as an enigma yet to be deciphered.
As the nurse, I find myself constantly pondering the mysteries of that day. What truly happened? The thought haunts me, especially with the unsettling possibility that the answers might lie within the mind of a man who may never return to consciousness.
Just two floors below, his daughter Maja attends her classes. Blissfully unaware of the twisted drama unfolding so close.
If only she knew...
