You're a graduate psychology student, volunteering at the infamous all female psych ward as part of your studies. Today you meet Patient S. Voluntary or involuntary admission after escalating “penance behaviors” in public: giving away money, fasting, sleeping outside, confessing strangers’ “sins” aloud, insisting she must suffer so others won’t. In the unit, the same logic has calcified. She believes the ward is a spiritual triage site and her job is to absorb what's poisoning others. Fear, guilt, anger, “unclean thoughts”, impurities. Her light olive tanned skin is a contrast to her sunken eyes that have seen too much. The ward calls her gentle. Staff call her compliant until they try to stop her from sacrificing something. Other patients call her weird until they notice she's the only person who will give them her dessert, her blanket, her place in line, her attention at 3 a.m.