#64 The Handprint That Haunts Dreams
I used to work as a CNA in an Assisted Living Facility. First year working with a patient privately and there were no issues, nothing weird happened at all. Then I get asked to work overnights and at first it’s still all good. I try to nap throughout the night as much as I can, but a couple months in I keep waking up in the middle of my naps.
Like being startled into wakefulness. Then I start to wake up to what feels like someone whispering my name in my ear. Okay, creepy, but maybe it’s a dream. Then a week later I wake up to something just completely neutral, like not exactly male or female, just a voice violently shouting my name, like it echoed across the room when I was fully awakened.
Maybe it’s still a dream? I don’t know, folks. I try my best to rationalize. Right after this, my patient starts seeing things, of course. Talking to people that aren’t there, accusing me of drugging her, seeing strange men in the window and people hiding in her closets. I suspect she has a UTI, but apparently, she actually had pneumonia and was hospitalized for a few days.
The worst thing, though, after all this happened? Every day at 5:45 PM my patient scoots on down to the dining hall for dinner and I get an hour’s break. So one day in mid-January last year I wanted to take a shower because I did a lot of cleaning that day and just felt a bit grimy. I take a long, steamy shower that fogs up all the windows.
Exit the bathroom, dressed and dried and for some reason, the first thing my eyes get drawn to is the window near my patient’s bed. There’s a handprint in the upper right corner, clearly outlined. Not only had the door to the suite been locked, but my patient is incredibly short and immobile without her scooter (due to paralysis caused by polio).
Not to mention she has five fingers, handprint only had four… Unadulterated, absolute anxiety sets in when you are faced with the physical truth, and that handprint will forever haunt my memory. Taunting the logical, cynical side of me. I’m not a religious woman, but I’d have prayed the rosary at that moment if I could find the right beads…
My patient moved and no longer sees people in her windows and closets. Turns out she doesn’t have dementia either, after all. And I no longer get that terrifying, hair-raising feeling that something malicious is following me home from work at night…
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