The Weeping Lady

If Arthur was required to describe the place in one word, it would be drab. The four walls were grey and lacking in decoration. The colorlessness was not helped by the fact that the floor was as grey as the walls. There was nothing interesting or eye-grabbing about the room. There was no rug by the door or potted plants at the corner to brighten up the place.

There was no coffee table, couches or even magazine rack for people to feel at ease. After the steel door closed behind Arthur, the place felt suffocating due to the lack of air ventilation. There was no window or even a fan to cool the interior and if not for the low temperature of night time, the place would have felt as hot and as unbearable as a sauna.

Of the four walls, two of them were fitted with a door. One was the steel door that acted as the front door and there was another wooden door on the adjacent wall. Arthur had a pretty good guess that it led upstairs. Since the building had double story and he did not spot an outdoor stairs when he checked the perimeter of the building, this door had to lead to the indoor stairs.

Beside this wooden door was a square cutout in the wall. It was similar to the window but instead of opening up to the world outside, it connected the room Arthur was standing in to another room. The opening was blocked off by a wooden board and above this window hung a sign that said, Dispensary. That was the sole proof that Arthur was not at the wrong place. However, the place was still wildly different from a normal clinic. For one, where was the counter for the receptionist where the patients can register themselves?

From that, Arthur knew this had to be some kind of special clinic. It reminded the young man of those shady abortion clinics that he saw on newspapers and television but those places probably had better amenities and patients' records than this so-called clinic.

The two other walls were lined with rows of plastic chairs, the ones used during public assembly. They were not comfortable and they came in bright colors. However, placed in this grey room, the burst of colors just made the place feel sadder.

According to what he heard from the young man, there should be a nurse waiting but Arthur did not see such a character. Perhaps the nurse was behind the window that led to the dispensary. There was however another patient who sat on one of the plastic chairs. This came as quite a surprise to Arthur, he did not expect to find anyone there so late at night.

The patient was a woman of around 30. She had long black hair and a grey blouse that made her fade into the background. One eye-grabbing feature though was the long skirt that she was wearing. Unlike Miss S, it was not the length of the skirt that caught Arthur's attention but its color. The skirt was the brightest red that Arthur had ever seen. It reminded him of fresh blood. Sitting on the chair, it appeared like the skirt blossomed out underneath her.

The woman was holding a small bundle in her arms and she was weeping softly as she rocked the bundle. She was so wrapped up in her grief that she did not even raise her head or respond in any way when Arthur walked in. It was impossible for her not to notice Arthur's entrance since the steel door creaked noisily.

The bundle in the woman's arms was wrapped in lengths of cloth that was as grey as the woman's blouse.

Since there was no one else in the room, Arthur could only try his best to get information from this woman. He moved to the chair that was 2 seats away from the woman and sat down. He tried to begin a conversation but he realized how difficult that was. The woman's grief formed a wall around her and Arthur found it rude to intrude into her private space.

Arthur observed the woman out of the corner of his eyes. She had been shedding tears non-stop since his arrival. Even from his vantage point, Arthur could not see what was inside the bundle she was holding. The bundle was so tightly-swaddled that there was no opening at all. The young man wondered, if the bundle was hiding a living thing, how could they even breathe?

Then it hit Arthur, probably the thing wasn't even breathing.

In Arthur's mind, the woman looked like a mother mourning the lost of her child. This was supported by Arthur's observation that the bundle had not moved, not even a little bit. If it was a living thing, then it would have struggled from the discomfort but it had remained firmly immobile.

The woman's tears fell continuously on the bundle in her arms but the bundle did not give any sort of a reaction.

Either this was a mother whose child had run into some accident and she came to this clinic that sold miracle pills as a final resort to save her child or she was some madwoman who formed a inordinately emotional bond with an inanimate object. Either way, Arthur could find no easy way to intrude the woman's grief-laden world.

He cleared his throat audibly but that barely got him any response. The woman continued her silent weeping and ignored Arthur. Her focus was on lamenting her loss and Arthur could understand her grief.

However, at the same time, he needed to make some progress. He couldn't just sit there and wait for the Jade Rabbit to come back to him, what if that did not even happen.

Galvanized by the sense of purpose, Arthur coughed and asked in a loud voice, "I'm sorry, Miss but have you seen a rabbit enter this place before me?"