“But seriously,” In-hye said out loud. “What the hell?”

“You’re dying,” she said, louder this time. “You’re lying there in that bed, and dying. Nothing else.” She presses her lips tightly together, clenching her teeth so savagely the blood shows through, wrestling with the desire to get hold of Yeong-hye’s insensible face, to shake her wraithlike body hard and hurl her back down on the bed.

—

Now there’s no more time left.

In-hye shoulders her bag and pushes back the chair. Walking with a stoop, she hurries out of the ward. When she turns her head, Yeong-hye’s body is still rigid and unmoving beneath the sheet. In-hye clenches her teeth even harder. She walks along to the lobby.

—

A nurse with bobbed hair walks up to the table in the lobby carrying a small white plastic basket, and sits down. In the basket are various nail clippers. The patients line up and each in turn is given a pair of clippers. Each selection takes a long time, as if the patients are trying to decide which pair will suit them best. On the other side of the lobby, a ponytailed nurse’s aide cuts the nails of the dementia sufferers.

In-hye stands quietly and observes the scene. Anything sharp or narrow that could be used to pierce or cut, anything with a long cord that could be wrapped around a throat, is forbidden. Partly this is to prevent the patients from harming others, but the main concern is that they would want to harm themselves. In-hye scans their faces, each of them bent over their hands, absorbed in the task of getting their nails cut before their time with the clippers is up. The clock on the wall indicates five minutes past two.

A doctor’s white coat flits by the glass door, and the entrance to the lobby opens. It is Yeong-hye’s doctor. He turns and locks the door behind him, his movements swift and practiced. No doubt the same could be said at any large hospital, but here, at a psychiatric hospital, the authority of the medical specialist seems even more pronounced. Perhaps it is because the patients here are not free to leave. They flock around the doctor as though they have just discovered their Messiah.

“Just a minute, doctor. Did you call my wife? If you could just tell her that’s it okay for me to be discharged…here’s my wife’s number. If you’d just give her a call…”

“Doctor, please change my medication. There’s this incessant…ringing sound in my ears.”

“Doctor, won’t you speak to him? He’s always hitting me, I can’t cope anymore. What, now you’re at it too? Why are you kicking me? I’m telling you to talk to me.”

The doctor gives the woman a relaxed, direct smile, clearly designed to appease.

“When did I kick you? Now hang on, I need you all to talk to me one at a time. When did this ringing in the ears start?” The woman stamps her foot loudly, impatient at having to wait, the feelings contorting her face seeming more like misery and anxiety than violent inclinations.