Słoń - Butterfly

A young boy on his way to school saw a woman
He called out to her several times from a safe distance
It was late November, 6 a.m., in the middle of a field
And she was just standing there - completely naked
A village near the border, somewhere past Zielona Góra
Wherever you are at this time of year - it's gloomy everywhere
The young boy, not thinking long, dialed 112,
Saying an old lady in the field looks terrifying

Gawkers gathered when the patrol arrived
Such wonders in the area don't happen often
"She's a lunatic!" - threw a pimple-faced kid
"Aunt has Alzheimer's, she often does such things"

The younger policeman swallowed his saliva, feeling uneasy
Despite the winter - a drop of sweat ran down his back
"What are you doing here in the field?" - asked the senior officer,
Trying to hide the fact that he was also scared
She just stood there, looking, eyes covered in a white film,
Expression on her face, as if I don't know, how much she had to suffer
Thin as a prisoner from Nazi camps
White face contrasting with lips blue from frost
A handful of gray hair, skin thin as a drum
The policeman wanted to put a hand on her shoulder,
To which she responded with a dreadful, hoarse moan
And shielding herself, in fear emptied her bladder

The crew in the ambulance didn't have an easy time either
The calming injection finally put her to sleep like a baby
"She must have gone through hell" - said the paramedic
Her exhausted body was an image of torment
Like a statue she lay, so still, pale
The on-call doctor immediately began examining her
And froze, because both the look and the state of her body
Disguised the fact that she was 3 decades old - a drama
Left arm broken, bone badly set
And those eyes all in a fog, as if covered by wax
Clearly, someone had given the woman a severe beating
Perforated intestines, injured reproductive pathways
Helpless as an infant - she sleeps on the bed by the wall
The police tried to establish her identity
In vain, she was searched for in the missing persons database,
But despite many efforts, there was no lead
The doctor filed a report after a thorough examination
Noticed a small mark on the right wrist
Some dots, lines, a scar, or a symbol
Something resembling tribal scarifications done with a needle
He examined the scars, a cold fear growing in him
Never in his career had he treated such a patient
Three teeth pulled out, and on her neck a mark
The size of a coin, a keloid wound

She lies on the ward for over 2 and a half weeks,
Fed intravenously, on calming agents
Not a word spoken, no contact with her
Sometimes only her moans escalated to screams
In such cases, she had to be transferred elsewhere
The woman required psychiatric observation
With an unknown name, the so-called NN patient
Trauma is also a wound, but it goes much deeper

A gloomy place - psychiatric hospital
1980s can still be felt in the air
Layers of dirt on the windows, wainscoting on the walls
They say even the National Health Fund has forgotten about this place
A closed community, a three-meter gate
Isolated people from the outside world
Bars on the windows, the cold face of the moon in the sky
Inside, depression, delusions, and neuroses
She rode through the hospital still pale as a ghost
An image of hopelessness - drooling from her mouth
On the two beds next to her two similar cases
Forgotten souls in a state of deep apathy

After a few days, a young vicar came to see her
Everyone here liked him, he was cheerful and smiling,
But when he entered the room, he grew serious and silent,
Because the woman was a living negation of faith

He had seen old people, witnessed death more than once,
Illness, neglect, knew the sight of extreme poverty,
But believe me, her visage left him breathless
He felt she suffered with every gram of her body

"Patients gossip that you need to keep an eye on her" - said an old lady in a bathrobe from behind the priest
She stood in the corner of the room, a schizophrenic named Maria
An aged, abandoned painter by her loved ones

Christmas came, holidays are rather sad here
Only Mrs. Maria visited her on Christmas Eve
"You're a butterfly" - she said, stroking her face
"It's not true what they say about you, that you have no soul"

Time dragged on, a freezing January passed
Fluorescent lights shine like candles covered in snow
From time to time, the vicar came, making rounds in the rooms
He looked at the girl, thinking the world had gone mad
Hospital staff also told him more than once,
That in her presence they feel an indescribable fear
That ruined face, thinning gray hair
And those moans, piercing like a wasp's sting

One night in February, the woman had spasms
Writhed like a snake wanting to hide in the sand
In her cough, there appeared a dense, red color
She needed to be taken to the provincial hospital's ICU
Beside her, a nurse, another sat behind the wheel
In that old ambulance you would feel like in a coffin
They rushed to help her, but what happened?
Honestly, I don't know
Someone found the ambulance crashed into a tree

There are many accidents,
But in this case, there are more questions than solid facts
Inside the ambulance sat only a corpse,
Pierced by a thick branch - the dead driver

The night was slippery, but that's not the problem
The police technician found an issue related to electricity
Something likely stalled the electrical system,
But with such a crash, it's hard to trace the source
The search of the forest took about two days
The paramedic and the woman vanished without a trace
There were no footprints at the accident site either
As if they had both dissolved in the darkness

The priest, making rounds, looked at her empty bed
He will forever remember those eyes filled with emptiness
That night he couldn't sleep, because he saw the painter,
Singing, drawing the girl's scars on paper