Boarding school

I was studying to be a child psychologist, or more accurately, a psychotherapist. I liked everything, everything was fine until I got my first internship. I've never encountered such horror, either before or since.

The boarding school building is located in an old pioneer camp. In front of it is a huge park with overgrown and dark alleys, damaged and darkened statues, chipped tiles underfoot. Children in washed-out hospital pajamas, on mended sheets. It's not because the staff is cruel—the state apparently just didn't have the money for anything, even for sick children who have already endured so much grief and pain since birth. Everyone here is abandoned; not one of them has ever heard their mother's voice or felt the warmth of her hands. They are in constant pain, terribly painful, they have unpronounceable diagnoses, they are the future inhabitants of a small cemetery where only children's faces are photographed. They die without ever having a chance to live.

I was terrified there. Death is a daily occurrence there. Even the children who are even slightly responsive to reality watch with utter indifference as the body of their bedmate is carried out of the ward. Only once did I overhear a girl ask the nurse, "Why is he the first? And when will I be? I wish I could..." as if they were talking about waiting in line for a carousel...

Sometimes we were asked to stay on night duty. Naturally, under the supervision of doctors and nurses. They were simply extra hands, since many children can't even roll over on their own, or roll over, bury their noses in the pillow, and lie there, suffocating, because they no longer have the strength to crawl out of the confines of their beds. It was during one such duty that I heard this story from the head nurse.

"That night, two of our children died at once. Vanechka and Seryozha. They had become ill that evening. We postponed hospitalization, relying on our own strength. And they're not very willing to take our children, they're hurting them. They're destined to die anyway, saving them would only torture them, so at least let them be at home, among their loved ones. We immediately transferred the boys to a separate ward and took turns keeping watch there. I sat there from three in the morning until six in the morning. They lay there, snoring, but you could tell by their breathing that they weren't sleeping. Suddenly Vanya says, "Nanny, look at Seryozhka, he wants to tell you." I think, well, what can he say? Seryozhka didn't speak, he just moaned. But I went over and looked into his face, and there his eyes were just white, white as a sheet, not a pupil, nothing... just white... I stroked his head. "What are you doing, Seryozhenok," I say, "sleep peacefully..." and I press the button to call the doctor, the child's eyes are completely lifeless. And he blinked, his eyes became normal again, and he moaned: "M-m-m, m-m-m, m-m-mama..." I was taken aback, I'd known him since birth, he couldn't say a word, and then... The doctor came running, they moved Seryozhka out of this room. I stayed with Vanya, sat by the window, with my back to the radiator. It was a moonlit night, so I couldn't see Vanya's face. Forty minutes later, the window suddenly opened silently, and the fringed curtain caressed my face, and I jumped up in surprise. The chair overturned, rattling against the radiator. I slammed the window, picked up the chair, and said to Vanya: "Sorry, I scared you." And he said to me: "Don't be afraid, Nanny, it was Seryozhka who came to say goodbye. I'll come too, don't be afraid." Then the doctor beckons me from the hallway. I go out, and she says quietly, "Send the girls there, Seryozha is dead." And then Vanya's voice from the room: "I told you not to be afraid."

How is this possible, tell me? What kind of farewell is this? How did the boy hear our whispers? It's a good twenty meters from the door to the bed, and we never have silence. Mysticism! And Vanya said goodbye to me too. When they were making his crib, I was carrying his mattress to the laundry room, and his robe was hanging on the door, and it fell onto my shoulders as I passed by. It was as if he were hugging me with his sleeves so softly..."

After this internship, I left university. My relatives accused me of neglect: "My parents paid and paid, and now she's thinking of quitting." Her classmates would say with disgust, "You see, she's disgusted by wiping away the drool of autistic babies."

But I can't... I'm afraid to bury my children...