Susanne leaned her head backward against the seat with a frustrated sigh. She prayed that Samuel would be coming home soon. Emma needs someone to watch over her.
Please, honey, Susanne thought. Just stay put, and please don’t do anything stupid. Your father will be home soon. He’ll notice that I’m missing and call the police. This will all be over soon.
Humphrey pulled over to the side of the road. The engine silenced, and for a moment, only the sound of Humphrey’s excited movement in his seat could be heard. “Would you look at that?” Humphrey stepped outside. “Step out of the car, duckling.” Susanne stepped outside.
Her thought-lanes were full of headless chickens, running around, confused. She reached her arms outwards, and then slapped them inward on her waist. Humphrey didn’t seem to understand what she meant. Or maybe he didn’t catch her doing it. He stared upward at nothing.
“What is it?”
“It’s a beautiful day. I suggest you breathe in some of that blue anesthesia, duckling. After all, this blue sky will be the last one you’ll ever see.”
When Humphrey walked past Susanne, toward the car, he poked a steady finger at one side of her glasses.
Humphrey was happy.
4
Unlike Axel, who had been knocked out and didn’t witness the arrival and entry of Eastern Flower psychiatric hospital, Susanne saw everything. They had driven for what Susanne guessed to be around four hours. Somewhere in that span of time, they turned from the main road of the countryside, onto a narrower road full of twigs and rocks, turning the car into something kids would ride at a carnival. This road led into the forest’s left side. The trees here carried a more elderly appearance. Their bark—darker in color, and their branches almost looked sinister. At one point, Humphrey stopped to get out of the car. He opened what Susanne assumed to be a security gate. The STOP signs along the gate had turned rusty. Even through the window, Susanne could smell metal infected with puss. A sign past the security gate read: NOW ENTERING EASTERN FLOWER.
Most of the vibrant blue of the sky turned gray. Humphrey turned on the headlights. The dark twigs and black rocks along the road now crunched beneath the car, as though they drove on bones.
When Susanne spotted what first appeared to be a giant castle, matching the height of the trees surrounding it, the light of the world had perished completely. And, with it, Susanne’s calm. She didn’t dare to turn and look at Humphrey in the dark. If she did, certain parts of her mind would unscrew themselves.
They drove over a hill, and what Susanne had first thought to be a castle came into full view. One rectangular building stood in the middle of a field. Connected to this building, on both sides, were smaller buildings. There were no lights in any of the windows. They all resembled black eyes. Behind the rectangular building, were two towers; both of them were taller than the main building.
Susanne’s fear peaked. But, if she heard the desperate screams of Axel from above, she would’ve realized even sooner that fear doesn’t have a peak.
Humphrey drove at a slower haste now, past another security gate, larger than the one before. Barbed wire followed along the top of this gate. The headlights of the car met the building. Susanne caught a glimpse of some graffiti.
THE CRAZIES HOUSE THEIR DARKEST FANTASIES HERE.
THE INSANE STILL WANDER THESE HALLS.
Another one simply read: CUNTS.
Humphrey turned right from the building. For a moment, the car’s headlights shone through the side of the security gate, into the deep, dark forest beyond. The headlights blinked, and then entered their rest.
“Well, Humphrey said. “No haven is safer than home.” When the last of Humphrey’s voice was engulfed by the silence of night, Susanne turned cold. She heard no signs of wildlife.
Even the bugs are dead in this place, she thought. Her shoulders and face embarked a cold shrug.
Humphrey raised his scalpel, allowing it to sparkle, as if it was a piece of jewelry. “Sit tight, duckling. For your own sake, don’t try anything stupid. I remember your address.” He stepped outside and headed for the trunk. She heard the trunk yawn. Humphrey came back around to her side. He opened the door. His hands unbuckled Susanne’s seatbelt. “Step outside,” he demanded. A rope slung around her wrists, tightly. She felt her lower arms start to shake with the pressure applied from the final knot.
Susanne’s stare left the dark of the forest and spun around to meet Humphrey. She saw that same darkness reflect off his pupils.
“Quack,” he said. His grin was noticeable through the surgical mask. “Before we go inside, we must decide one thing: are you going to be a tame duckling and follow my lead, or are you going to a wild one that needs to be put on a leash?”
“I’ll follow.”
The cold air of night tickled her tongue as soon she opened her mouth. She felt the cool flavor linger, like a kiss from death. She had never craved the warmth of her husband’s lips more than she did now.
“Alright,” Humphrey said with a breath of amusement. “If you’re a tame duck, then quack.”
“Excuse me?” The question knocked her off her mental balance to the point where she had forgotten the situation for a second, almost laughing.
“Did I not make myself clear? You’re a tame duck, so you will obey my commands. Now quack, my duckling.”
“Quack,” Susanne said in a boring voice.
“Good girl.”
5
The rattling of Humphrey’s keys was loud enough for Susanne to flinch. It wasn’t loud by her usual standards, but she had gotten used to the silence. A chain revolved around the handles of a door, kept together by a bicycle lock. Humphrey bit down on a flashlight. Susanne glanced at a sign above the door. Written with a marker, in all capital letters, were the words: NO TRESPASSING.
The door opened. They walked inside. Rays of moonlight shone through the windows, adding a layer of glistening snow upon the floor. Humphrey locked the door from inside. He gave a brief tour of the lobby with his flashlight. A stairwell stood to their left. Their right was empty of furniture. A door read: MAINTENCE. Humphrey shone the flashlight right in front of them, where two sides of a steel door met. “That’s the elevator,” he said. “It worked once, but not anymore. We’ll use the stairs.”
They started forward. Humphrey walked in front with the flashlight, and Susanne walked behind him. She noted with her first steps that the floor clicked in a unique echo, the way that most hospital floors do. She found it quite strange that even the lobby had this kind of flooring.
Maybe they had a big carpet once, she thought. He could’ve removed it.
A red light flashed in her mind at that conclusion. Humphrey didn’t seem like the type of guy who liked to fix and customize his home.
They reached the stairs. Humphrey grasped the railing. Susanne felt annoyance at not being able to do just that. She struggled with her balance up the stairs with her hands tied behind her back. The echo of the stairwell drummed through the lobby.
White panels from the ceiling on the second floor were low enough for details to emerge. They were coated with either dust or spider web, Susanne couldn’t tell which. Either way, the thought of what might be crawling around on top of those panels gave weight to her walk. On the balcony of the second floor stood what resembled a café. It looked like an abandoned diner from a movie about the apocalypse. They turned, now staring down a long a corridor. Here, the walls of the corridor were made out of glass. Susanne saw glimpses of an outside garden through the glass. Benches stood the test of time; their wood seemed to be rotten, decorated with holes. At her feet, leaned against the glass wall, was dirt lined with dead grass and miserable flowers. Humphrey’s flashlight bounced from left to right with the wiggle of his walk, and when they reached the middle of the glass wall, Susanne was momentarily struck by the sight of a stone statue. It stood in the middle of the outside area.
“That’s the Laughing Lola,” Humphrey said. “They had to ban a man from en
tering that outside area. He would always find a way out there, though, no matter what they did. It’s funny; most people would try to escape, but not him. Apparently, he sat out there most nights, laughing along with Laughing Lola.”
Susanne increased the speed of her walk, wanting to walk past the glass wall. As she reached the wall’s end, she glanced behind her shoulder, and in the dark, the outline of Laughing Lola stared right back.
At the end of the corridor, they reached a large window, displaying shadows of tall trees upon the floor. They stumbled onto an intersection; even darker corridors stood on both sides. Humphrey traded his flashlight between the two. In one of the corridors, a sign read: 363. In the second corridor, a similar sign read: 364-367.
Humphrey and Susanne walked down the latter. This corridor was more isolated than the previous one. In her mind, she saw hysteric patients bump into each other, walking down this same corridor. At the end of this corridor were the numbers 364. Humphrey led her up another stairwell, and they walked up toward 367. Unlike the stairwell back in the lobby, this one sounded softer. It wasn’t made out of metal, but out of wood. Each step had been decorated with small, dirty carpets.
“Tell me,” Humphrey said. “How long have you been wearing glasses?”
“I don’t know. I think I was four or five when I first started wearing them.”
“You mean around the time when you started to become aware of yourself and your place in this world?”
“I guess.” Her voice was tired from the stairs.
“And that’s the time when children are apt to start keeping secrets, wouldn’t you say? That’s when their parents start lecturing them about lying.”
“Sure.”
“You’d be surprised to know that I’m not a father. But, I’ve read that children start lying with increased mental development around the age of four. How old is your daughter?”
Susanne stopped dead on the stairwell. Humphrey stopped five steps above her, and turned his head. “Why do you ask?” The soft gleam of her blonde hair had been replaced with oil.
“Why do you ask why I ask? I won’t do anything to hurt her unless you leave me no choice. And questioning me won’t make her any safer, I guarantee that.”
Susanne started upward again. Humphrey went along. She talked to his back. “She’s six.”
“Do you ever question her love for you?”
“How much longer—“
“Answer my question.”
“I think you can figure that one out for yourself.”
Humphrey turned. Susanne jumped, clasping her hand against her chest. She made a startled sound as if she choked on the air. Humphrey communicated with the flashlight, waving the beam up and down with each word. “Are you just like your brother? If you are, you better let me know right now, so that I can make a quick change of plans. You have a mind and a voice to share your intelligence with. When I ask you something, no matter how stupid, you will answer my question and share your knowledge. I don’t know much about social interaction, but I know that communication is the key to any important relationship. Now you stop being selfish like your brother and think about the person in the room with you for a change. Do you understand?”
Susanne nodded. The back of her hair stuck to her neck in bodily glue. “She loves me.”
“And what makes you say that? What if she’s lying?”
“If you were a parent, you’d know what I mean.”
“But I’m not. So explain.”
“There’s an inseparable bond. No words are needed. You just look at each other and your facial expressions say it all. You couldn’t fake that kind of raw emotion.”
They reached 367 now. Humphrey shone the flashlight up and around, making Susanne think that he expected someone. Who knows what kind of friends he keeps in the dark? Here, a carpet covered every inch of the floor. It was soft, and reminded Susanne of the carpets people placed in bathrooms; the ones decorated with tiny worms of wool. There were no intersecting corridors on this floor; only a long one, straight down. Drawings hung on the walls. Humphrey started to walk down the corridor. Susanne followed.
A drawing with a red stick-figure hung on her right. The paper was thick—rough in texture. The stick-figure stood in the middle, covering almost the entire paper in height. In the top left corner, a yellow sun had been drawn. It had eyes and a smiling mouth. Below it, a blue house was surrounded by flowers. The flowers had faces. On the bottom of the drawing, with clumsy handwriting, read: CHUCK, AGE THIRTY-SEVEN. A smiley-face with dead eyes had been drawn next to his name.
“Do you have a husband?”
“I’m single.”
Humphrey shone the light in Susanne’s face, blinding her. She only saw his figure beyond the light, now dark, resembling a shadow.
“Oh, you Gardner’s sure are a funny bunch. Do you find it funny to say such things? I saw your family picture, duckling. It had to have been recent. The child looked almost exactly the same. In that picture, I saw a husband, wearing a ring. Shall we try again?” Humphrey drew the light upward, away from Susanne’s face. “Do you have a husband?”
“Yes.”
“Speaking of which, where is your ring, duckling?”
“It’s on my nightstand.”
Humphrey brewed an awkward chuckle. “Ah, I see. Do you ever question which parent your daughter loves the most?”
Susanne swallowed. Her throat made a wet sound. “No.”
“I think you have. I think that there have been times when you lay awake at night, wondering what qualities from your husband will stand out, overlapping your own. I think that once or twice, you’ve been thinking about what grave your daughter till take the most pleasure in visiting. Or, what retirement home she will visit most frequently. Have you thought about what were to happen if she grew up to be a diva and didn’t visit any of you at all? Have you thought about failing as a mother?”
“Please stop.”
Humphrey stopped his walk. He didn’t turn around to face her. “You’re failing as a mother right now, wouldn’t you say?”
“Susanne’s face broke apart in emotion. “Please stop.”
“I have stopped. I’m standing still. See, this is what I’m talking about. You care so much about the people in your little love circles. I say that you’ve failed as a mother, and you become sad. But if I say that you’ve failed the world, your reaction won’t even be one of sadness. What are you doing to help the world? I’m sure you know that there are people in need outside of your family and friends. Tell me, what have you done for them?”
Susanne said nothing.
“You have morals. I can tell by your tears. Why are your morals so isolated? Why do they not reach out to the rest of the world? Do you even search for The Valuables?”
“Stop lecturing me. Where are your own morals?”
Humphrey grabbed Susanne’s arm. With a swift motion, he removed her glasses.
“HEY—“
He pointed at her now exposed eyeballs. He shoved the tip of his index finger against the pupil of her left eye. “They’re right here.” He moved his finger over to her right eye. “And they’re right here.”
Humphrey’s grip struck a nerve and pain squeezed her upper arm. “You could’ve saved thousands of lives in your lifetime. You use your thoughts to serve your own purposes and the purposes of those close to you. Well, you can traverse your narrow little lane. I, however, exist in reality. People die every day, and you do nothing to stop it. I hurt two people, but I save the thousands of lives which you choose to ignore. You don’t have to be a genius to figure out which of the two will benefit the world the most.”
Humphrey sat the glasses back on Suanne. She had put on glasses every day for most of her life, but never had they felt so uncomfortable. Their edges seemed sharp and heavy. After long seconds of puzzled panting, they started walking down the corridor again.
“Your husband,” Humphrey said. “What’s his name?”
“Samuel.”
“It’s a mule?”
“No. His name is Samuel.”
“Yeah, you just told me that. But he’s a mule.”
It bothered Suanne to keep looking at Humphrey, even though she only looked at his back. The beam from the flashlight didn’t stretch to the walls in this corridor, but she could still make out most of the drawings.
Here was a drawing of an octopus with a human head, and a giant eye. The paper looked worn out. The person who had colored it had put too much strength on the drawing hand. Thick layers of glossy black crayon covered the octopus. Above the octopus, a crooked text with all capitals read: THE VOICE IN MY HEAD. The drawing had been signed by Rebecca, age twenty-four.
“I see that the drawings capture your interest. This particular ward held schizophrenics, and people with bipolar disorder. As a way to keep their minds busy, the nurses often encouraged them to draw and play board games. There’s a room in this ward, called ‘The Play Room.’ It’s full of dolls, board games, comics, and various drawing materials.”
Humphrey continued. “Somewhere in the seventy’s, a murder occurred inside of The Play Room. From what I read and heard, a mother of four wanted to draw a younger patient for her children to see. Maybe put it up on the wall in their room. She told the younger patient to sit still so that she could capture her face and all that. Well, apparently the patient didn’t sit still. Before the staff could figure out what all that ruckus was, the younger patient’s head had been smashed with a wooden chessboard.
“Apparently, when the staff barged in, the mother displayed her drawing to them in a proud grin, despite the fact that a corpse touched her feet.”
That happened in the summer of 1976. The mother gave that same proud grin toward her children in court, when her blood-soaked drawing was displayed on a monitor by the judge. “Your mother drew that,” she had said before her defendant shushed her.
“Is my brother here?”
“Your brother is on a lower level. I’m afraid you won’t see him for the rest of the night, nor will you see him tomorrow.”
Blue Anesthesia Page 18