The Concealed Culture Deep Within (part three.)

Josie had already taken herself off to bed so, she had no idea of who had presented uninvited and unexpected at the front door that night.

Lucy closed the front door gently behind PC Halling. Shocked by his sudden appearance just a few moments earlier that night, she walked slowly back into the kitchen for a drink. She stretched up on her tiptoes for that bottle of scotch that she had hidden away, out of the way from Josie's view and access. She had given up drinking any make of alcohol since the untimely death of her husband. Everyone she knew, including her doctor (who had counseled her through those bleak, sad times, following her husband's death) had advised her to stay away from the booze, saying how,

"it won't help you, you know, the booze will only blur the awful memories of what happened back then..."

but, right now at this very moment, she did not even care. What the hell? A police officer had just turned up on her doorstep in the middle of the night, telling her that she should take her young daughter to see her doctor? What the f**k was she supposed to think? All of a sudden she felt like she had been pushed into a deep chasm filled with water and unable to swim, she imagined herself drowning and not knowing what to do.

The only saving grace was that the bottle was only a half-full or a half-empty, depending on the view of how drunk you were at the time. Nevertheless, Lucy's mind was full of fear and a million questions that she really could not find any answers to her thoughts right now. At least she could drown them out if only for a few hours.

Lucy did not sleep too well that night despite having forced herself to bed last night. Although the quickly consumed bottle of scotch lay on the top of her bedside table, drained of its contents, just muted the myriad of thoughts whizzing through her scared and inquisitive mind.

What little sleep she did have just kept resurfacing in her head as traumatizing dreams, her alcoholized stupor not even coming close to muting or dampening them in any way. She wandered into the bathroom to force herself to strip and get a refreshing hot shower. Her head? Well, that felt somewhat feeling like a different story altogether.

Rubbing herself down thoroughly with her towel, she headed back to her bedroom to get dressed. Hell knows what today is going to bring, next it was time she woke Josie from her deep slumber tucked up snugly in her own bed with her head hidden beneath the bedcovers too, across the landing. Josie's room did not ever have posters up adorning her bedroom walls. In all her years of growing up, her mum had never even given any of that a second thought at all. At such an innocent ten years of age, most young girls of Josie's age had at least a few posters of their pop idols covering their bedroom walls but no, Josie had no such things, her walls were plain dark yellow wallpaper without patterns or designs of any sort. Just plain dark yellow, and with white paint covering the skirting boards, door, and cream color to the ceiling. Admittedly though, her mum knew that she could have done so much better for her young daughter, by taking an interest in what her daughter was getting up to when she was spending so much time in her bedroom alone, and without even ever asking her mum if she could have friends round after school or at the weekend. She suddenly felt pretty neglectful that she had never actively encouraged her to start showing her what joys life really had to offer by way of fun activities for a child of that age. She had never once taken Josie to the play park, traveled on a holiday, treated her to a film at the local cinema, or even treated her with a present when she had come home from junior school with an 'A-plus' award from school. Whereas Lucy was feeling terribly guilty of these thoughts and non-actions, Josie's school reports and school teacher meetings all presented how academic and hard-working she was being. All this information just passed her by ever since the sudden death of her husband & Josie's dad. Lucy had heavily taken to booze and only ever doing the bare minimum to get them through the months and days ahead.

Due to Lucy's uninterested and uncaring attitude that had all too quickly developed with her, she had neglected to ingest the latest reports from her teachers. All Lucy ever really could see, was that her daughter, when she was at home, was Josie either was hidden away within th/e isolation of her bedroom or was out alone in the local woodlands. But doing what because Josie never talked about any of that with her mother, and of course her mother never asked either.

Her school had been reporting numerous &, more progressively over the past few weeks, episodes of Josie not paying intention in any of her classes (and ones in which Josie had previously shown so much promise) It was not that Josie was being rowdy or disruptive in these classes but, that she was simply NOT paying any intention at all when there. The strangest thing that was happening was that her teachers were beginning to show concerns over the fact that Josie had been an 'A-plus' pupil but still was too, despite the growing number of absences and, blatant lack of attention.

It just did not make any sense whatsoever, but due to the notable lack of parental attention or input and a total absence of comments ever being received from Lucy, the school had now become concerned enough now to resort to making a call to the local constabulary, to make an unannounced visit to Josie's home address, to investigate whatever there was that warranted looking into. The school was in total disarray when it came to determining just how a ten-year-old child could go from being 'the life & soul' of the classroom, who always paid attention throughout all of her lessons and getting all the top grades every time, to a girl who had suddenly stopped participating in lessons, would never ask or answer a teacher's query, and had, without warning, starting truanting her school hours big time, but STILL achieving 'A-plus' scores to boot!

None of this made any sense to anyone.

Lucy called out her daughter's name as she made her way to the side of the little sleeping girl. Josie groggily opened one eye and then slowly her second eye. To her mum, Josie appeared to be more tired than of late. Strange though because her daughter had, as far as she had been aware of, had slept for the past ten hours.

But had she actually slept for the last ten hours, because, at the end of the day, Lucy had not really been in any fit state to check on her daughter through the nighttime hours that had passed by, in all honesty, the half-drunk bottle of scotch would have testified to that fact!

Once awake, Lucy made sure her daughter was sitting up enough in bed and then left her to get washed & dressed, whilst her mum went about busying herself in the kitchen, making two cups of tea and a bowl of cornflakes for Josie to munch through before the doctor's appointment later that day.

It was not your normal everyday family 'sit round the table' morning breakfast at all. Josie sat down at the kitchen table with her head lowered for much of the time. Her mum, despite trying to get her daughter to utter even a single word, sighed in exasperation, as she could not even get as much as a 'yes,' or an 'okay' from her sullen-looking daughter that morning. Although she had not got much of a conversation out of her daughter if she was really going to admit anything.

Leaving the remnants of the left-over breakfast on the kitchen work surface next to the white-enamel-covered sink, Lucy led her young ten-year-old daughter out of the front door for the short ten-minute stroll through the quiet village of Stumpton, and down to the local doctor's surgery.

Making it down to the village surgery after a slow 20-minute cold morning walk, the two of them opened the surgery door and walked in. After registering their attendance for Josie's appointment there, the receptionist replied.

"Dr. Deetrick will see you in 10-minutes, he has been expecting you,"

The time spent sat waiting was not long and to Lucy's surprise, Dr. Deetrick came out to usher them into his consultation office.

The doctor's consulting room was far more lively than Josie's bedroom back home, it was bright, airy, and full of the doctor's own family, his wife, and kids, and even the family (piercing blue-eyed) husky puppy.

He had sat back down at his desk where it overlooked the woodland area behind him. He turned toward the mother and daughter and spoke in a quietly-spoken voice,

"Please both of you, have a seat right there," indicating to the two vacant seats on the far side of his desk.

Glancing back at his computer screen, Dr. Deetrick tapped on a few keystrokes, seconds later a police report file flashed up onto his large twenty-one-inch screen.

Looking directly back at the two on the other side of his oak desk, he relaxed back into his chair, leaning his hands upon both of his swivel-chair arms, took a slow intake breath of air, then spoke.

"I understand that a PC Halling made a recent visit to your home late last night after arranging an appointment with me today to see your daughter Josie."

"Yes, it was rather a totally unexpected call and a pretty unnecessary visit to make too," came the quick reply from Lucy.

"Well. perhaps unnecessary might be a little strong Mrs. Crevin, as your young daughter's school has been attempting to contact you and, they have become worried over Josie's behaviors lately?" came back Dr. Deetrick, "so much so that they felt it warranted the involvement of a police officer to make a visit to you."

Josie sat in her chair squirming, but silent.

Lucy looked at her young daughter and asked, "Josie, what has been going on, why have I not been hearing about any of this then?"

Again, her mum's question remained left unheard and no answer was forthcoming.

"Yes Josie, do you have anything that you want to tell me or your mum?" asked the doctor, staring intently back at Josie, and looking directly into her eyes whilst he spoke to her.

Once again, no reply was forthcoming from Josie.

Lucy spoke back to Dr. Deetrick after a short couple of minutes of hushed silence. The room fell so silent you could have probably heard a pin drop to the floor.

"Now I'm worried because I do not know what is going on here."

Dr. Deetrick changed his gaze to her and then calmly spoke to her,

"Both the police and the school have become very concerned of late with your daughter's behaviors in school and outside of school," the doctor took a few seconds to read a portion of the reports loaded up on his screen, breathed, and then continued further, "they both feel that something affecting your daughter's overall mental state of mind is taking place, and neither of them can comprehend as to what at this time."

This time Lucy had nothing to say.

Josie still remained silent and was continuing to squirm sat in her chair.

The doctor continued once more, "I am going to request that your daughter is seen over the next week or so by the out-of-town psychiatry services to see if they can help a little more this. Nobody involved so far understands what is going on with your daughter but, this all appears a little too out-of-depth for general medicine."

Neither mother nor daughter said anything. Stunned into an unbelievable silence, they both stood up, and without any further words or smiles, walked out of the consulting room and out of the surgery.

Dr. Deetrick watched them pass by the surgery through his window, as he wondered silently about the little girl, as to just why her eyes were so dark, black almost, and without any indistinguishable color change between either pupil, both black, both pinprick.

After thinking over what he had seen with his own eyes concerning Josie, her mute behavior, her dulled colorless eyes, that he had seen in her when he looked closely at her, he turned back to his computer and began his referral to the out-of-town' mental health unit without any further delay...

****************

Stay tuned for the next installment of 'The Concealed Culture Deep Within.'

If you missed the first two parts of this story, you can click on the links below, to catch up.

Part one:

Part two:

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✨I can't wait to hear from you soon... Jonathan💕.