“Sam! The devils are here!” Malory urged. “We have to get out! Now!” she began yelling at me, frantically. I felt as if I had no control of anything, and my focus was declining more and more. She grabbed my arm and we began running, the only difference was that Malory had a direction and I didn’t.
And for some bizzare reason, I felt that Malory’s heart was beating fast. I don’t know how I knew that, but I knew that it was beating very fast. She was scared.
She led me through building after building. And that’s when I saw them.
I saw tall dark figures that were completely still, but it was unquestionable that they were alive. They had horns and had jagged skin. They were so dark, and wore black capes. And they stared at us.
“They are everywhere, Sam!” Malory kept shouting. Why was she scared? What did Malory, of all people, have to fear?
And that’s when the figures began to multiply. More and more covered the exterior of the apartment buildings. The figures stood in front of apartment doors. I kept looking around and I spotted them on stairs and rooftops. And they simply stared as Malory and I made our way through the humid air.
We kept running, and we ran past one woman. Mania filled my body when I realized that it was Pandora. I tried to go back, but Malory wouldn’t release me. “Let go!” I shouted at Malory, trying to rip her grip from my wrist, but she refused to unlatch herself.
“We have to run!” she screeched. I divert my gaze from Malory’s grip to look back at Pandora. That’s when I saw one of the dark-horned figures appear.
It was mortifying. The dark figure was crawling on all fours. “Pandora!” I shouted at her. The dark figure made its way to Pandora. It extended its arm, grabbed her by her hair, and dragged Pandora away as she screamed inaudibly.
“Malory!” I shouted, and I began striking her steel tight grip. Mania ran through my body as Pandora was hauled away by one of those monsters.
“There’s devils everywhere, Sam,” she yelled. “Devils all over the apartments that you grew up in.” I tried to digest what she said, but the mania, fuzzy mind, and the thunder-drumming hearts were to overwhelming for me to make sense of anything.
Then the buildings began to catch on fire. Buildings began to burst into flames.
My heart seemed to have skipped beats when I saw—when I saw the decaying, burnt bodies walking—the same creatures that I had encountered the night of my college application. They limped out of the apartment buildings that were now caught on fire.
Malory kept running even faster until we exited the entire apartment area into an ocean of fog. I was out of breath. My mind went black and when I looked up, we were both inside the Aster hospital.
“Malory, what the hell is going on?” I demanded from her, I felt rushed, and everything still felt groggy. Time seemed to make jumps and I couldn’t follow along. Places changed and things happened and I kept getting lost.
“Sam, I need to tell you something!”
“What?” I said, as my head seemed to pound with blurs.
“There are two things that I was taught. A psychology teacher will make the argument that dreams don’t symbolize anything. An English teacher will.”
“What are you talking about Malory?” I demanded.
“Repetitive ones, are different though, Sam,” she added.
Suddenly, I saw staff members from the Aster hospital appear. They grabbed Malory and slammed her onto a bed so hard, that she completely went silent. They began to strap her, restraining her. Tightening belt-like objects around her legs, arms, and head, and they muffled her mouth too.
They walked out with Malory, and just like that, the room went still.
“Malory! Pandora! Mom!” I began shouting. I don’t know why the Aster staff members didn’t notice me since Malory and I were both in plane sight, but they made no effort to constrain me. Why Malory?
“Malory! Come back!” I shouted. “Pandora! Where are you!” I shouted even louder. “Mom, help me.” I fell to my knees. “Please!” I felt tears running down my face. “Grandma!” I pleaded. I was alone.
I am alone.
Part 6
Chapter 54
I suddenly wake up to my own screaming. I feel sick to my stomach, and my eyes felt teary. My head spins and nothing makes sense. I am not fully conscious. Emotions run through me in a wild frenzy, but I cannot assess anything.
I walked to my bathroom, and spewed out what I had for dinner last night. My head is muddled. I kept flushing the toilet every time I puked.
I kneeled in front of my toilet recollecting myself for about twenty minutes. I still felt fear. Several more minutes pass until I notice that I am drenched in sweat.
It took me half an hour to gather my thoughts. To differentiate between insanity and sanity. Reality and fantasy. I’m sitting on my bathroom floor, but my panicked state makes me feel that at anytime, something absurd will happen. My emotions are impairing my cognition. I can’t tell if I should still be afraid. It takes me another ten minutes to calm down.
I brushed my teeth, walked back to my bed, and looked at my clock. It’s barely 6:40 A.M.
I laid my hand on my bed covers and felt how drenched of sweat they had become. I feel disgusted.
I walk over to my bathroom a second time, and began to shower.
“Why did I have such a horrible nightmare?” I asked myself out loud as the shower’s faucet struck me with pressurized water.
I felt powerless.
My stomach turned and I puked again. It ran down the shower drain. I’m trying really hard to stay completely conscious; to be aware of my surroundings, but it’s extremely difficult. I feel profoundly shaken.
It feels so easy to lose touch with what is and isn’t around me.
The word, ’repetitive’ rings through my ears and into my mind. What did Malory mean by that? ‘Repetitive.’
The dream about burning buildings—I have had recurrent dreams about burning buildings in recent days. Could she have been referring to that?
After my panicked state decreased, I began to notice how fatigued and exhausted I felt. I found myself immobile, simply standing in my shower.
After a while, I finished up and got dressed. I folded my blankets. The clock read 7:20 A.M. now. I made my way down to the dining room for breakfast.
George greeted me, but I didn’t have much of a motive to converse with him, or anyone. I asked him what there was available for breakfast, and I chose what he offered me: a slice of bread, bacon, and oranges.
It wasn’t until I sat down, that I noticed the dining room was completely empty and I was alone. I felt the loneliness and silence crippling me. I couldn’t help but feel that I had chosen this for myself. Solitary and isolation.
I constantly told myself that I was a student of high achievement, that I was destined for great things, and that I was not like the other patients here. I was going to receive a college degree and be recognized. But now, I’m just the hospitalized schizophrenic.
However, I felt as if I had alienated myself from everyone here. I would spend my time convincing myself that I was not rock bottom like everyone else here. I led myself to believe that as soon as I got out of the Center, I would continue with my scholastic journey and take the academic world by storm, but I began to realize how wrong I was. I’m no special case, I’m just like everyone else here, mentally incapacitated, but I made this enormous effort to exclude myself from everyone else here. I would tell others that intelligence does not affect the value of a human life, and yet, in the back of my head, I let myself believe that I was better than others because of my intelligence.
I would argue that no one should be treated as less of a person, but I walked as if I was greater than others. And where did that get me?
I remembered how I began arguing with my mother on what success was. How I acknowledged success as being intelligent and educated, but she made the argument that success was finding happiness and self-satisfaction.
Now look at m
e, top 6% of my class and completely and utterly unhappy and alone.
“Sam, are you okay?” George shouted from the counter.
I felt a knot in my throat from the crushing silence and adverse thoughts. I quickly tried to unravel my mangled vocal chords.
“Yeah,” I responded.
I did it again.
Why do I do this to myself? Isolation. Self-alienation.
I’m not okay.
Chapter 55
The rest of the day went by very quickly. I spent my time in the book section of the Commons Area again. I stumbled upon the photography book that Fidel was looking at yesterday, the one having to do with the industrial revolution. I flipped from page to page, reading about textile factories and railways, and a section on the advances of medicine.
No one approached me. No Fidel, no Malory, no Zoan, nor any of the other patients.
Before I knew it, it was time for lunch already. It was 1 P.M. I arrived at the dining room and it was fairly occupied. I made my way to George who informed me that today we were having sandwiches. I took his offer, and asked for a cup of apple juice served in a plastic cup.
A moment later, George handed me my meal. I found a table that was empty, so I took a seat. I began eating my meal. After a few minutes, the young boy appeared.
He had a tray in his hand with the same sandwich that I had accepted from George. The young boy walked up to my table and looked at me.
“Is this seat taken?” he asked.
“No,” I responded.
“May I sit?” he asked, still holding the tray in his hand. Waiting for an approval, but then again, the dining area is for everyone, I don’t own whatever empty table I decide to sit in.
“Sure,” I answered.
He sat and began having his meal. I looked around the room, and took notice of the dining room; the other patients were slowly occupying it. Groups of woman and men sat in clusters of four. Other tables simply had three or two people. Other tables were empty. I suppose Fidel wanted to sit in this particular table for some reason.
I’m sure he had friends and companions and such. I on the other hand, not so much. If there was a club of the friendless patients, I would be the president, and the club would have no members besides me.
I didn’t let myself overthink the motives or reasons as to why he was sitting with me. I am actually scared of blowing whatever incentive he had out of proportion by overthinking. I didn’t ask him about why he was here; I didn’t want to be rude. So we just ate lunch without saying a word.
The conversations of other people having dinner were enough to diffuse the silence that was occurring at our table.
I avoided eye contact, until he asked me, “How old are you?”
“Eighteen,” I replied.
“That’s odd. All the other woman are a lot older than you,” he informed me.
“Is it?” I asked him.
“Well, it’s not a bad thing. It’s just that the youngest women here are in their mid twenties, and your still a teenager.” I felt odd. I felt excluded somehow. Why did someone else’s observation make me feel this way? It’s not like I could do anything about my age.
“Well, you look like a kid yourself,” I responded with a bit of agitation that I did not mean to emphasize.
“I just turned seventeen,” he informed me. I almost choked on the last bite of my sandwich.
“I thought minors weren’t allowed here at the Center,” I exclaimed.
“Yeah,” he replied half-heartedly. “The child hospitals wouldn’t take me as a patient. No room. So my parents made a strong appeal to this hospital because I couldn’t find anywhere that would take me in,”
I drank my juice, and tried to find some sort of logic to what Fidel was telling me. I couldn’t help but think about how Zoan appealed to get out of the hospital so that he could visit the city, and how Fidel appealed to get into the Center. I guess anything goes here now.
“How long have you been here for?” I asked him, although I had a general concept.
“Two months. You?”
“About seven-ish,” I responded.
“Sorry,” Fidel addressed me, “I haven’t asked what’s your name?”
“Sam,” I replied. I felt a sudden discomfort because I knew his name, but he had no idea what my name was. In the two months here, we had rarely crossed paths. The only time I saw him in my day-to-day activities was when I would see him in the book area that I always seemed to find myself in.
“I’m Fidel by the way,” he informed me, but I already knew that.
We were finishing what little was left from our meals and beverages in silence.
“I haven’t heard you in group therapy,” he stated. “Almost everyone has gone up already.”
We had been in the same group for quite a while now. More than half of us had participated already. “Yeah, they rearranged everyone into new groups not too long ago,” I reminded him, to give an excuse as to why I haven’t gone up, or I should say, my avoidance to go up.
It’s true what he said though, that I hadn’t gone up yet, but it struck me that he hadn’t either. Otherwise, I would have a better idea of who he is.
This young boy, or young man, that I kept referring him as, turned out to be a bit younger than what I expected. He is the only none-adult in the Center, so that would make him the youngest man here.
“You know,” Fidel began, “Dr. Alvarez asked me about my age. At the time, I was sixteen, and that’s what I told her—that I was sixteen. She said that was very young, but she also informed me that a couple of the men here are young because schizophrenia develops sooner for men than women.”
I somewhat already knew this. In my early days here, I had made several observations. One of which, was that a few of the men here were very young, like Zoan who was twenty-two, but recently turned twenty-three.
I stayed quiet, not knowing how to respond to him. I couldn’t help but wonder what type of schizophrenia he had or what prompted him to be admitted. I couldn’t help but wonder. And that’s all I did. I didn’t want to ask him about it, I didn’t want to be rude, or intrude upon his personal life by asking him serious questions.
We finish eating in silence. He stood up first and walked towards the counter and then disappeared. When I finished eating, I also did the same. Leaving my plate, cup, and utensils on the counter where the cooks received them.
I made a quick stop to the dining room’s restroom to wash my hands. Then I remembered that we were going to have an art session today. I made my way to Nurse Jackie and asked her when it would start. She said that the art session was going to be in twenty minutes, so that meant that it would be at 2:30 P.M.
Art sessions are basically drawing and painting classes that the Center has. A very nice man comes and tells us about a style of art, and we are free to create what we want. It doesn’t always have to be his art style. The art session is not mandatory like group therapy, but it’s a fun way to pass the time.
I began making my way back to my room. When I reached the stairway leading to the second floor where our bedrooms are located, I began to hear the murmuring sounds of people.
When I finally made my way up there, I saw something unusual. A few doors down, there were two staff members standing outside by one of the rooms.
The majority of people right now must have been having lunch, so the rooms were fairly unoccupied.
I became a bit hesitant as to why there were two staff members standing outside of a room. I began walking slower, trying to be cautious. I kept getting closer and noticed a few of the other patients peering were from their doors to look at what was going on. A bit farther from the staff members, stood Fidel and another patient.
When I got close enough, I was able to recognize the two staff members. It was a red-haired nurse who we knew as Helen. The other individual was one of the Center’s psychiatrists, Dr. Oliver. He was one of the part-time psychiatrists who worked here during the afternoons.
D
r. Oliver and Helen exchanged a few words amongst each other and began walking towards my direction, eventually, passing me and disappearing down the stairway.
I came to a slow stop as I walked up to Fidel and the other patient standing next to him. There was something uneasy about the amount of other patients peering through their rooms’ thresholds, looking at the door where Helen and Dr. Oliver had stood.
“What happened?” I asked Fidel.
Fidel and the other patient exchanged glances. The other patient was a blonde man who must have been in his late twenties.
“Well, I was in there with Zoan,” the blonde explained in a hushed voice, “When Dr. Oliver and Helen knocked on the door. They asked me if it was okay if they spoke to Zoan alone, and I said all right. I went to eat and when I came back, something was up. They were still in there.
I heard Dr. Oliver speaking to Zoan, something about ‘I know this is a hard time’ and ‘if you need anything, we have 24/7 counseling.’”
Fidel alternated his focus to the blonde, the door, and me.
“When they came out,” the blonde continued, still speaking quietly, “I asked Oliver if everything was okay, and he told me that Zoan needed sometime alone. Both of them avoided telling me what happened at first, but I explained to them that I was his roommate. That’s when Oliver told me that Zoan lost his dad, and that Zoan needed some time alone.”
There was a long silence in the air. I felt the hairs on my body stand as the words ‘lost his dad’ chimed in my ears.
Fidel sighed and leaned against a wall, and the blonde took a seat on the floor. The few patients on this floor eventually retreated back to their rooms.
I felt an immense emotion in my chest. It was sadness. I felt empathy.
Then, the silence was broken. Zoan began to cry from his room.
Chapter 56
The three of us exchanged glances, but for some reason, both of them quickly looked away, staring into the blank spaces of the hallway. I felt compelled to do the same.
Stand Tall My Sweet Dandelion Girl Page 19