Jack - English

It shall be a pleasure

Clara has been hospitalized for six months.

Arthur is alive

— Clara, can we talk to you?

Clara rocks back and forth.

Arthur is alive

— Clear? — the doctor insists — We need you healthy for the lawyer. He says you have a chance of leaving the hospital and returning home.

Clara does not answer.

— You don't want to go home?

— Arthur? You are not Arthur! I want to talk to Arthur!

Clara throws the first thing her weak hands touch — a pillow.

— Clara, who are you talking to? — the doctor asks.

The pillow goes on a random direction, without hitting anyone.

— I'M NOT CRAZY!! Because you...

— Clara?

— Doctor?

— Are you going to take your meds?

— No. I'm not crazy.

So Clara shuts herself off from the world.

Arthur is alive

Clara has to wear a straitjacket, because she started pulling her hair out and, when the hair was gone, started to hurt her own skin.

Clara is in a padded room, as she threw herself against the walls and dislocated a shoulder.

Clara, for lack of options, is diagnosed with schizophrenia.

Clara is not going back.

— Arthur? — Clara has not been conscious for a long time. The drugs take away her senses.

Other patients in ward 7, where Clara is, begin to hear voices. In fact, not voices. One voice.

And patients repeat a perpetual and senseless chorus.

And patients sing a song that has never been played in the hospital.

And patients talk about waves of a sea they have never seen.

And in big and small newspapers a headline worthy of large letters appears on the front page:

"There are suspicions of mistreatment in state sanatorium"

And among doctors, nurses and their families, they all repeat the same chorus:

"It started with a patient named Clara."

And in the back of their minds, a voice whispers tales of terror and smiles, vicious. He hadn't had so much fun in a long time.