Screw Loose could feel it—she was getting better and better with each passing day. She sat in her cell, sitting on her bed and wondering just how long it would be until they would finally discharge her from the hospital.
She sat alone on her bed with a tired smile across her lips, watching the fluorescent lights above her head as they hummed their steady tone. Ever since a stray brick struck her on the back of her head, she was confined to the psychiatric ward of Ponyville General Hospital. Now, after much therapy and treatment, she was up and about again.
She heard a few knocks on the door to her room, causing her ears to perk up.
“Come in!” she called.
Doctor Stable, a brown unicorn colt in a lab coat and with a stethoscope around his neck, briefly appeared in the circular window on the door to her room, then walked through the door. He carried in with him a bowl of soup on a metal tray.
“Hello, Ms. Loose,” said Doctor Stable. “How are you today?”
“Just fine, doctor,” she replied, lying down on the bed. “I’ve done absolutely nothing all day. I sat here on my bed, watched the clouds outside float by, thought about how nice it’d be to get some fresh air...”
“I can relate, Ms. Loose. Oh, that reminds me! Your daughter told me to pass on a message to you before she comes to visit tomorrow.”
Screw Loose chuckled. “Is it Wednesday already? It feels like she came in just yesterday.”
“Time does tend to fly when you’re doing nothing, Ms. Loose. Let’s see; what was it, now...” Doctor Stable looked up at the ceiling, holding a hoof to his chin. “Ah, yes! Your daughter said she won first place at her school’s spelling bee.”
Screw Loose smiled. Her daughter had always been a studious, hard worker—the kind of child she wished she had been. Instead, she never moved past being just a grunt at the carpenter shop she worked at, and as a result, she could never quite give as much as her daughter often asked her for. She did, however, try her best to provide for her. As a single mother, it was the least she could do.
“She never ceases to amaze me,” she said, sighing wistfully.
“If you’d like, I can call her to tell her how proud you are of her.”
“Thank you, but no. I’d prefer to do it myself, in person.”
“If you say so.”
Doctor Stable floated the bowl off the tray and into Screw Loose’s lap.
“So,” said Screw Loose, “how long do you think it will be before I’m finally out of here?”
“Ms. Loose, you know that I can’t tell you that! There are procedures we doctors must follow, values we must uphold! There are still tests to run, evaluations to undergo! To simply tell you something like that would be a slap in the face of the entire practice!”
“So...”
“So about a month, if not less.”
They shared a laugh.
Doctor Stable turned to leave. “Well,” he said, “it looks like you’re doing quite well. You’ll be out of here soon enough. Try not to stress yourself.”
“Glad to hear it,” she replied. She held the bowl her lips, gently blew on the soup, and took a sip.
“I’ll leave you to your meal now,” said the doctor.
As the doctor left the room, Screw Loose held the bowl up to her lips again. The soup slid down her throat, making her feel warm inside. She couldn’t wait to get her life back.
*
Doctor Stable closed the door to Screw Loose’s room.
“How was she?” asked the nurse waiting for him outside.
He shook his head. “Not good,” he said. “She appears to be regressing. She’s in her own little world now, like a turtle drawing into its shell. I tried talking to her, but she just kept muttering incoherent nonsense to herself. I don’t think she even saw me.”
The two looked into the room through the small circular window on its door. Screw Loose was muttering to herself as she drank the soup, letting it dribble out of the corners of her mouth and onto her garb.
“At least she can feed herself,” he said. He sighed. “I’m not sure what to tell her daughter tomorrow. Barring some kind of miracle, I don’t think Ms. Loose will ever get better.”
The doctor and nurse walked down the hall and out of the ward. Screw Loose, still sitting on her bed, placed the bowl back on her lap and stared emptily at the fluorescent lights with a tired smile across her lips.