Feverish and failing in the 5-Woman room

texture · 14 Nov YDAU, night

• When: 14 Nov YDAU, late night — one continuous span while Joelle van Dyne night-cleans the 5-Woman room.
• What: Charlotte lies asleep and acutely ill while Joelle cleans around her. She is unwell, missed her Saturday Night Lively Meeting on Pat's OK, sleeps in a mask but without her earplugs, and has been too sick to shower for days (Joelle keeps clear of the fever-sour bunk). Twice she sits up in sleep, glistening with fever, and says in a flat dead voice something that sounds for all the world like "Trances in which she did not breathe," then falls back. Her cheek scars burn a more violent red than the rest of her face; her ribs under a wet T-shirt are starting to stand out, her neck getting the skinny stemmy look of "katexia" (as printed); to Joelle she looks like a ravaged fowl.