"You see that girl over there?" My new roommate asked me.
"Of course I do. And I've been doing so for the last thirteen days."
"Do you know anything about her? How or from where did she get those scars and bite marks?"
I stayed silent for a good while.
"I didn't know until today, right before you moved in. One of the inmates told me, that middle-aged woman with a balding scalp."
"...So, what did she tell you?"
I needed some time to organize my thoughts and speak only as much as would make a satisfactory answer. I usually kept the door to my cabin closed, but now that I had a roommate, I didn't bother to close it. We could see the entire ward, almost, through the doorframe, from where we were sitting.
"That the girl's mother is a crazy-psycho prostitute who wanted to drag her into that profession, but when she refused, her mother beat her a lot. That's not the end of it, though, she claims those bite marks came from her mother as well."
My roommate was visibly shocked.
I didn't know my roommate's mental health condition at the time, therefore, afraid I might have triggered him, I promptly told him what I had witnessed. "But, rest assured, her parents also came by today and... Well, by 'parents' I mean her guardians: her mom and her uncle, and her mother seemed completely fine to me. It could very well be that she's the one that's a crazy-psycho sixteen-year-old, who is a kleptomaniac and also a pathological liar."
"Aren't we all, in one way or another, crazy?" my roommate responded.
"Do you mean just the eight of us here? If so, that is precisely why we're here," I said, sitting perfectly still, resembling a statue.
"No, I mean everyone, the general population included. Everyone's mad to a degree. Crazy, bizarre psychos. Some people can hide it better than others and as a result, they don't end up in mental hospitals."
He had a point there and I wasn't in the mood to argue. Yet I replied, "Well, life becomes unbearable when you have known and seen too much. You see, this is why I wanted to get the saying, 'Ignorance is Bliss' tattooed by the side of my right ankle."
"Do you have any tattooed at all?"
"Nope."
"Do you want to get a tattoo anywhere else on your body?"
"Yes. I want the sentence, 'Too weird to live, too rare to die' to be tattooed on my ribs. How about you?"
"I'm not a big fan of tattoos but who knows, I might just get one. But hey, since you're condemned to die soon anyway, what's the point of such desires?"
Now it was my turn to be shocked. How did this boy know that? How did he seem so young yet so wise?
"Do you mean to say that we're all gonna die, or are you talking about me specifically?" I asked.
"I meant you, specifically," he said, his face expressionless. Even more so than mine. I probably looked as sickly and dead as I felt inside.
Without another word, I stood up and started towards the ward. I wanted the cabin on the far east.
YOU ARE READING
An Attempt Was Made
General Fictionan attempt was made to write a novella. includes mentions of suicide, abuse, and violence. reader discretion is advised.