Standing up she gently began pacing the small and rather clostraphobic room she found herself in. The rain outside pounded the single glazed window like some enthusiastic drummer beating a worn out skin. She looked haggard, weak, and vulnerable; far from the beauty queen she once proudly wore the crown. She knew she was in hospital she just did not know why, the memory was a mere haze, the last twenty-four hours nothing but a blur.
Hobbling over to the window she knew that she would be discharged this evening but how it quite got to this stage only fate knew. She was Eleanor, a twenty-one year old university student in Oxford. If you looked at her life from an observational perspective you would not see anything too abnormal. But inside Eleanor was a whirlwind of emotions.
Her life up to then had been one that most women her age would not live if they had their lifetime to live ten times over. Beauty queen, model and musician. Many stayed clear of her, they were unsure about her persona, yet deep down Eleanor knew that her attitude had caused her life thus far to be one of pure isolation. She knew that she did not belong in this time.
Each day that she awoke she would shudder at the mere observation of any modern-day mentions. The posters on her wall were of centuries past artists, her books were copies of literature at least half a century old. Yet surrounded by the modern-day technology that many took for granted, Eleanor was just a mere spectator in a world she did not belong
Rolling back her bandage she rubbed her sore wound with her hands as she watched the rain lash against the window pane. She had somehow wound up in hospital, she felt giddy, weak almost yet even though the machine in the room that was monitoring her heartbeat played a beat akin to a medieval drum she knew time here was short. She glanced at the clock on the wall; it was five minutes to midday.
Damned impatience was providing an eternal cramp in the back of her neck.
Sighing she turned to face the bed that she had spent the last fifteen hours in, just like her bed at home it was cold, hard, unwelcoming and somewhat barren in any form of comfort. She slumped into her chair and looked at the mirror, the gaunt face that stared back at her bore nothing to the resemblance she once knew. Yet even though the fake glow of the beauty queen had long left her face she knew that in this shadow pale reflection she looked more radiant and beautiful than ever.
Her gaze was broken by the chimes of the church bell opposite. Each one echoed within her heart, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, and eleven….
Eleanor never heard the twelfth and final chime. Maybe it was the weakness, maybe it was the lack of fresh air. Somehow she slumped to the floor, twice in the same day her head had hit the floor hard. Yet this time, this moment the fall would not land her in hospital.
No
This time it would land her in a place where her heart would feel at home but her mind would not belong. An eternal place where love exists and dreams come true. Her eyes were closed yet her heart was so open.
The journey had just begun. A journey of love, hope, pain, irony and above all despair.
