by Kristen Rose
I looked over at my schedule Debbie had written up for me and pasted onto my wall. I cringed, searching for today and read, 10am Group therapy, Indoor Group Therapy Room, second floor, printed on it in red ink.
I looked up at my chrome wall clock; ten past ten. I stopped writing and got up out of my cream chair and selected a pair of white and purple Converse sneakers out of my vast collection of colourful sneakers lining the inside of my wardrobe.
I put my purple shoes on and inspected myself in the mirror. My white pants were a little creased and there was a faint stain on the left leg where I spilt some of my orange juice at breakfast time. I licked my finger and tried to dampen the stain, but instead made it horrifyingly worse. I tore open my closet and located a purple sash hanging up right at the back. I tied it around my waste, letting the ends dangle down in such a way to cover up the stain.
I tied my hair in a neat pony tail and brushed my fringe towards the left side. Picking up my white sports jacket off of my bed I proceeded to the door, stepping out into an empty corridor and turning left towards the elevator.
I walked in and waited a few seconds before pressing the call button.
When the elevator arrived I glided in swinging my arms violently, hitting a nurse who was already in the elevator right in the face with my jacket. She jumped back a little and gave me a sour expression. I ignored her. The elevator came alive again, the doors shut and it descended downwards, arriving within a few seconds on level two. The nurse walked forward to exit the elevator. I waited until she was almost out before pushing her backwards and walking out in front of her. I heard her stumble and crash into the back wall of the compartment knocking the fern over. I didn’t look back.
I passed Debbie’s office and continued, turning right as I hit the end of the beige corridor. I continued until I reached the other side of the building before doing another ninety degree turn to the right. The wooden door leading into the group therapy room was shut tightly. I headed straight for it and with excessive energy pushed on the handle and flung the door wide open. Debbie along with the other eight or so patients were all sitting in black plastic chairs like the ones outside Debbie’s office. They were positioned in a circle so everyone was facing each other. There was one vacant chair sitting on the opposite side of Debbie. The entire group turned their heads in improvised unison directly towards me as I entered the room. The patients’ expressions were mostly unperturbed; Debbie’s expression however was one that resembled a slightly pissed off bull.
After entering the room I kicked the bottom of the door with my foot causing it to bang loudly and shake as it re-aligned itself with its frame. Debbie jumped in her seat.
‘Jenny, how nice. I didn’t think you were coming.’ She said in a falsely sweet tone.
‘What? You didn’t think I would miss today’s only decent form of entertainment did you? And now you’re in charge it’s got to be at least ten times more entertaining. Now, get out of my chair.’ I blared.
‘Excuse me?’
‘When we’re in this room, I always sit in the chair right in front of the window. That way I get maximum fresh air and minimum glare in my eyes. Of course, seeing as this is the first time you’ve hosted a therapy session in this room with me I’m willing to let your mistake slide, but only this one time.’ I paused and stared at her. ‘What are you waiting for, get up.’
‘Sit down over there Jenny, now.’ She ordered. I stared at her, refusing to move a single millimetre. ‘Look Jenny, you may have had some hold over Dr Granger and he might have been a little more lenient towards your demands but I will not follow orders given by a patient. Now go over there and sit down and do try to be a little quiet today.’
I let out a gasp of disgust. ‘You’ll regret this.’ I said revengefully and stomped over to the only remaining vacant chair in the room. I sat down as dramatically as I had opened the door and crossed my legs and arms with a practised synchronicity. Debbie tried her best to ignore me whilst I was doing this and stared at her notes, fascinated.
‘Right,’ she said after a few silent seconds. ‘As I was saying, today all of you are going to share with one another what important things you have learned whilst you’ve been here at Grove Hospital and also I would be interested to hear what some of the highlights have been for you and if you are willing to share, perhaps you might like to talk about the low points as well.
‘Now the aim of this exercise is to really try and get each and every one of you thinking about your own emotions and also to help you to get more used to sharing your thoughts and feelings amongst a wider audience of people. I hope we will all make a lot of headway based on what we do this morning and maybe even learn something truly valuable from it.’ She finished with a pleasant smile on her face, clearly in love with the fact she had made this rather impressive speech free of mistakes. I rolled my eyes, although, I don’t think anyone saw me.
As Debbie stared back down at her notes, attempting to decide which patient would be the best one to start the exercise with I stared lazily around the room.
I let out a sigh and began waving my hand in front of my face to create an artificial breeze.
‘Something wrong Jenny?’ Debbie looked across at me.
‘No. Other than the fact this room is like a sauna.’ I paused. ‘I can’t believe you stole my window seat, I mean, it’s just rude and …’
‘Jenny!’ Debbie interrupted. ‘I thought you were going to try to stay quiet today.’
‘Fine.’ I crossed my arms. Silence filled the room.
After a few more moments of silence Debbie looked up and stared directly at Mike who was sitting two seats from my right.
‘Mike, why don’t you go first?’ she directed to him. There was no reply. Instead, Mike turned his head and looked to see if there was anyone behind him. All he saw was vacant space followed by the shut door. He turned and stared at Andrew who was sitting on his left side and gave him a questionable look.
‘Oh, it’s you, you idiot!’ Andrew shot. Mike jumped as Andrew shouted at him and cowered slightly. I ran my special rhyme I use to help figure out which of the twelve multiple personalities Mike is each day through my head and quickly realised that today Mike was William, the shy guy who barely utters a word.
In response to the situation I started waving one of my legs up and down in rapid motions and tilted my head to the right with an expression that mirrored my physical movement in order to overly emphasise my frustration.
‘Oh, right.’ Debbie said embarrassed. ‘Sorry, I forgot your name.’ She directed towards him again with an inviting expression.
‘It’s William.’ He quickly whispered. Debbie took a moment to process what he said and then consulted her notes again. She flipped over a few pages and traced down a selected page with her finger.
‘William!’ She exclaimed to herself in a congratulatory matter, she must’ve found her notes about him from their last encounter. ‘Oh yes, I see you here now. Sorry about that, I’m still finding it a little hard to remember your … everybody’s names.’ William gave a nervous laugh, his facial expression then turned to one of desperation as he clearly didn’t wish to be the first one to speak; he probably didn’t want to speak at all.
‘So, William, what have you learned while you’ve been here?’
‘Um … ah …’ He bowed his head, shaking it whilst making incoherent pleading noises that could probably turn any un-loving mother into The Madonna. ‘I … dunno.’ He finally mumbled.
‘There must be something important you’ve learned. Be it about yourself or life or others. You’ve been here for ten years.’
‘Huh? N … nn … no … I’ve been here for less than a year.’ He looked worried. Debbie appeared immensely confused.
I snickered. ‘Jenny? Do you have something to say?’ She asked.
‘Oh, so now you want me to say something?’ I looked down at my pink fingernails. ‘It’s just, I was sitting here, contemplating just how bad at math you must be.’
‘Oh?’
‘Yes. I mean if Mike is a particular person every twelve days and there’s three hundred and sixty-five days in a year then obviously you would be each personality a little over thirty times a year, depending on whether or not it’s a leap year.’ I looked up at her. ‘So if Mike has been here for ten years then each of his personalities has been here for just over three-hundred days each, which is technically less than a year each. Of course some of his personalities, like Horace, are aware of the whole skipping time thing and do know they’ve been here for ten years. But,’ I looked over at Mike/William. ‘William is too reserved and doesn’t socialise or even bother to check what the date is.’ I lowered my voice to a whisper and directed it straight at Debbie. ‘I actually think he carves the number of days he’s been here on a tree, I saw him doing it one day, at least that’s what I think he was doing … so obviously he thinks he knows how many days he’s been here, which of course is less than a year. You’d think he would’ve noticed himself aging ...’ I pondered.
‘What?’ Mike/William turned to me.
‘That’s quite enough Jenny, thank you.’
‘Pshhh.’ I spat.
‘William.’ Debbie re-focused her attention. ‘Sorry about that little interruption.’
He nodded shortly.
‘Where were we? Oh, yes, sharing our thoughts with the group. So, William? Come on now, tell us what you have learned.’ Debbie gave him an unfaltering stare.
‘Okay …’ He looked around sheepishly. ‘Well, I guess I’ve learned a lot of people aren’t … well … that scary or mean.’ He paused. ‘Some people are … okay. But then … a lot of people are actually quite scary and mean.’ He mumbled, contradicting himself.
‘Do you think I’m scary or mean?’ William looked from side to side, too scared to tell Debbie what he was really thinking. He remained silent. ‘Come on, don’t be so shy. I want you to tell me the truth. More importantly I want you to stop being afraid of what other people might think of you if you tell them how you really feel. Everyone admires people who speak their mind.’
‘Huh! Could’ve fooled me.’ I commented.
‘Jenny, wait your turn.’ Debbie snapped. ‘Now William,’ her voice returned to a calm babying tone, ‘do you think I’m scary and mean? I don’t care if you do.’
‘Well … yes.’ He finally said. I started to clap.
‘Jenny!’ I stopped abruptly. ‘I see.’ Debbie was clearly pissed. ‘Why do you find me scary and mean? I’ve never done anything to hurt you or said anything remotely damaging. In fact, the only thing I can be accused of here is trying to help you. Haven’t I been nice?’
‘Well … you ... never mind.’ There was silence. ‘I answered you’re question, and I don’t have anything else to say. Can we move on?’ He pleaded.
‘Of course.’ Debbie sighed and quickly continued on to the next person.
The minutes painfully ticked by. It felt like everyone was functioning at normal pace but for some reason the clock didn’t feel like keeping up. Eventually it was my turn.
‘Jenny.’ Debbie looked at me. ‘Guess what, it’s your turn.’
‘Well, about time. You know, I’m beginning to think that the reason you made me sit here, was so that I was one of the last people to have a turn in talking, and therefore wouldn’t have enough time for me to say everything I wanted to say otherwise tomato head next to me wouldn’t get a turn.’ I crossed my arms.
‘Jenny, don’t be ridiculous.’ She pouted. ‘And, it’s not nice to call people tomato head.’
‘He has red hair.’ I said simply.
‘Yes, well … that’s not the point. Anyway, moving on. Not much time left.’ She took a slow breath. ‘Now Jenny, I’m rather interested to hear what you’ve learned in the entire time you’ve been here.’ She said to me.
‘Where do I begin.’ I drew in a long breath. ‘Well, obviously I’ve learned psychology is not a science and it is an absolute waste of time because clearly those who practice psychology know absolutely nothing and they spend their time trying to cure people that have nothing wrong with them and even if those people did have something wrong with them a psychologist still couldn’t cure them even if the outcome of the apocalypse depended on it.’ I said, finishing with a deep breath. My speech was followed by an icy silence.
‘I see ... Well, aside from that interesting fact, what else have you learned Jenny?’ Debbie asked with practice tolerance.
‘Nothing. I know everything else.’
‘Okay then. Perhaps you would like to share with everyone any highlights you’ve had whilst being here.’
‘Naturally there have been no highlights because this place is a dump.’ I let out a disgusted laugh.
‘The low points then?’
‘Oh, that’s easy. Well first of all the lowest point for me would have to be when Huey retired because he was so much better than you and I’d rather spend an hour a day with him than with you because he didn’t smell like sardines.’ Debbie let out a huge guffaw. ‘And then of course when you banished me to that plain, un-original white room for an entire month, which was pretty crappy.’
‘Oh, so you acknowledge you actually went to The White Ward. Everyone has been saying you’ve been telling them you went on holiday.’ She smirked.
‘Yes … I was trying to make you look good.’ I explained.
‘Oh?’
‘Well, if I went around telling people you put me into isolation, and then took me out again because it was a useless waste of time, wouldn’t people start to realise that you were not competent in your position here?’
‘I see. But, why should you care Jenny? You’ve been wanting me to leave since the day I arrived.’
‘Well, maybe I’ve realised it’s more fun to keep you here. That way I can sit here and insult you all day.’
She glared at me. ‘I see …’
‘Anyway, I wasn’t finished telling you about the low points.’
‘Go on then.’
‘Actually, all of the real low points I have experienced whilst being here have been in your presence so I mean, you shouldn’t really have to ask me that question because you should already know the answer. But, then of course, you are a psychologist so I guess I shouldn’t expect much from you.’ I laughed.
‘Right ...’ Debbie bit her tongue. ‘Would any one like to contribute or add to this … provocative statement Jenny is making?’
Unsurprisingly no one volunteered. In fact most people seemed not to be paying any attention to what was going on. Just as the silence was starting to become a little bit too uncomfortable Franny spoke up.
‘I agree one-hundred per cent. Jenny is absolutely right.’ She said.
‘I’m sorry I didn’t ask for your opinion Yes Man Fran.’ I said to her.
‘Jenny! That is a very rude thing to say. Now, stop being so inconsiderate of other people’s feelings. We’ve had this discussion in our private sessions. I thought you were starting to appreciate the fact the other people have feelings.’ Debbie said.
‘And I thought you were smart enough to tell when someone is lying.’ I replied. ‘No matter,’ I continued, ‘at least someone agrees with me. Now, is there anyone here with a valid educational background that agrees with me?’ I stared the room down.
‘That’s quite enough Jenny. We’re running out of time, I think we better move on to Andrew.’
‘Excuse me. You were the one who asked if there was anyone who agreed with my statement.’
‘I know and that question was answered by Fran, but we don’t have time to scare anyone else into agreeing, okay. We must move on.
‘So, Andrew, what about you?’ Debbie directed her attention to the guy next me.His arms were crossed and he was avoiding Debbie’s eye contact with stupendous control.
‘I’m not answering your question, it’s stupid.’ He uttered the words stiffly.
‘Come on. Can’t you be a little bit co-operative for me today?’ Debbie looked
fed up.
‘Of course you would say that. A person of your authority thinks they’re so fantastic. But what about us honest citizens? You sit there on your chair and pretend to be so interested in what we all have to say but deep down I bet you don’t give a shit.’ He said, as though he were reading my mind.
‘I see, so that’s how you feel is it?’ Debbie said, almost as if she was off in another world.
‘Yeah and if you don’t like it then you can go and fly a kite.’
‘Ugh, that is horrifyingly cliché.’ I interrupted.
‘Hey, it’s my turn, who the hell asked you for your input?’ Andrew fired at me.
‘I don’t need to be asked to provide input, especially not from some fat Prince Harry lookalike. I’m important enough to be listened to twenty-four seven.’ I turned my entire body to face him. ‘You know, aside from your horrible cliché I actually agree with the former part of your opinion.’
‘Fuckin’ shut the hell up.’ He blurted in my face.
‘No, you shut up you un-original festering pile of faeces. Don’t you bathe?’ I blocked my nose with my fingers.
‘You wanna fight, cause I’ll fight.’
‘Oh yeah? And what will the rules be? Wait let me guess, rule number one, don’t talk about fight club. Rule number two, don’t talk about the fight club.’
‘What? That makes no fuckin’ sense.’ He put his arms on his chair, ready to lift off.
‘Neither does “if you don’t like it then go and fly a kite” but you still said it didn’t you, you dumb ass.’ He looked at me confused. Debbie didn’t appear to be paying much attention to us.
‘Alright let’s go.’ He stood up, knocking his chair to the ground. He looked rather awkward, pulling his pants up over his tummy. He stretched his neck from side to side producing a sickening crunching sound and then proceeded to do the same with his knuckles. He advanced directly towards me, and just before he attempted a mammoth lunge onto my erect leg Debbie finally felt the need to intervene.
‘You two stop it now or I will call security and you will both be taken into isolation immediately!’
Upon hearing this Andrew stopped, thinking twice about pursuing his violent act towards me.
‘I am sick of the two of you. Half of the time you always manage to get into some kind of a fight. Serves me right for sitting you two next to each other.’ Debbie sighed.
‘Yeah, well it’s not like anything bad even really happens. This sissy loser always backs down.’ I egged him on.
‘Jenny.’ Debbie looked at me. I sat back down. ‘Okay, I think this will be it for today.’ Debbie uttered with an extreme lack of energy. ‘I’ll see all of you in your individual sessions with me next week. Jenny, Andrew, I will have a special discussion with each of you during your own sessions about your behaviour today.
‘You may all go.’
Immediately I busted out of my chair and stomped to the door, whacking those in my path. I headed back towards the elevator dramatically assuring the doors closed shut just before the rest of the patients started to board.
#10 Silenced