“Are you going to be a good boy today?”
Look up. Don’t turn away. Don’t speak back. I feel numb. I nod. It smiles. “Good boy. Someone is coming today; you’ll be nice to them won’t you?” Grit my teeth. I nod. It smiles again. “Good boy.” I am not a human. I am an animal. A toy. Disposable. It leaves. I close my eyes. Hide under the blankets. Maybe one day I will disappear. The door opens again. A flash of silver against the white. More pills. Do as you’re told. Don’t turn away. Don’t speak back. It nods. It smiles. “Good boy.” It leaves. My throat aches.
Get up. Open the door. White Coats. They watch me. Always watching me. Their eyes bore holes into my skull that are filled with broken promises and empty compliments. I am not scared. I am not scared. I am not scared. “What are you doing up so early today?” Turn around. Don’t run away. Deep breath. Don’t speak back. I look back at the open door to my bedroom. It follows my gaze. “Couldn’t sleep?” It’s watching me again. I nod. Its smiling face is a slate I want to wipe clean. Its smile is painted over a picture that was already there. A horrific, terrible, dark, cruel picture. Its smile is paint dripping with falsity. Don’t let it touch me. Can’t let it touch me. Back away.
Run. Labyrinth of doors and coats and faces. Slow down. Breathe. Remember to breathe. Feel the burn. More faces. Watching. Waiting. Judging. Open the door. Door with a window. Room 82. Patients. Cellmates. Prisoners. “Oh, we seem to have acquired an extra.” It’s smiling. Everyone is sitting in a circle. White chairs. White walls. White clothes. White faces. Blinding. Beautiful. Horrific. Colours. Colours on the wall. One wall is red. Blood. Blood painted on the wall. I look away. “Do you want to come in?” It asks, motioning at an absent chair. What do I do? Can’t disagree. I take a step inside. It grins. Everyone is watching. Waiting. Judging. Something grabs my collar. I am pulled backwards. The door closes. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I don’t know. I don’t know what I am doing. The White Coat is pulling the strap on my collar. Choker. Tightening. Still tightening. Can’t breathe. I’m suffocating. The White Coat lets go. I fall. The floor is cold through my clothes.
I concentrate on breathing. I have to roll onto to my side and cough something up before I can. It watches me. It pulls me to my feet. By my collar. It pulls against my throat again, but I can still breathe. “I thought putting this thing on you was supposed to help keep you in line.” What did I do wrong? I do not understand. “You’re supposed to stay away from other patients you little shit, why can’t you just do as you’re told?” Stay away from the patients. Cellmates. Prisoners. “Hey, give him a break, he runs around the facility a lot for no reason, and there’s no rule against opening doors.” There is another White Coat. White Coat with long hair. It is not held up by strange silver things. It is white. White against white against white. “It’s been warned. If it ignored that warning that was its own fault,”
“Warned? What was the warning?”
“To stay away from other patients.” My arms sting. My legs ache. I am feeling pain. I want it to stay. I still feel pain. I am still human. I am not an animal yet.
“And he’s just going to conveniently know that there are patients in there?” The first White Coat says something I can’t here. I don’t know what to do. The second one turns to me. “You shouldn’t have done that.” The first one frowns. It is not happy. “We should take him in for correction. He broke the rules.” I cannot move. I am ice. Marble. Immovable. Breakable. “No, that won’t be necessary.” First one is not happy. It walks off. It leaves me with the White Coat. The nice White Coat. “You do realise how far away from your room you are right?” No. I shake my head. “Follow me, I’ll show you back to your wing.”
I am locked inside my room. Cell. The window is covered. I cannot see out. It is a long time before I see White Coats again. They take me to Him. He watches me. Tells me to sit. Must obey. I sit. He is still watching me. I don’t like the way He watches me. He is speaking to the White Coats. “He’s been a good boy recently hasn’t he? Perhaps he should be rewarded.” Rewards. I have heard of them. Rewards for good behaviour They say. “Are you going to let him go outside?” He looks at the White Coat with a strange face. Outside. I have wings. I have wings and I am flying. “Now, now, let’s not be too hasty.” I have flown too close to the sun. My wings have burnt and withered and I’m falling again. I wonder when I will hit the ground. “Are you taking him down a level?” What does that mean? “No, actually, I think I’ll just spend some quality time with him,”
“I don’t know if that’s a good idea sir.” He looks past me, at the White Coat who spoke. Don’t speak back. He broke the rule. He disobeyed. “Are you questioning me sir?”
“N-no sir! It’s just, he’s dangerous, everyone knows that.” He’s looking at me again. I suddenly feel naked. I feel like a piece of meat. The way He’s looking at me.
“Leave us.” The White Coats obey. One whole wall is a window. Instead of a window in my door. They call it a room. It is a cell. My cell. I can see the things they call trees and grass and the ceiling is blue instead of white. It is strange. Colours. They seem so strange. So tempting. “So, apparently you haven’t hurt anyone in two weeks.” Don’t turn away. Don’t speak back. I nod. He smiles. A bad smile. A false smile. A cruel smile. What does He want with me? “And you haven’t hurt yourself in that amount of time either.” I am on fire. Why is He looking at me like that? I want to shrink into nothingness. I want to be back in my cell. I want to be away from Him. I nod. “I didn’t know you could be so cooperative. It’s... Enticing.” I don’t know what to do. What does He mean? Is He angry? Please don’t let Him hurt me. “I want to know why you don’t speak.” I used to speak. I spoke in Crisis Stabilization. I used to talk to myself. In my head. I could hear my voice. The voice I used to own. The voice that was ripped from my throat and stepped on and abused. I prayed to a God who deserted me. I sought for a saviour who never came. I begged for a way out of this Hell. I did not speak, and no one listened. He’s getting closer. I can’t move.
He sits on the desk. White desk. Right in front of me. Too close. I feel electric. I want to run. Can’t run. Don’t turn away. Don’t speak back. “I’ve read your files about six times.” My files? I have files? What are files? “It still intrigues me. You intrigue me.” Why? I am no one. I am different. He picks up something brown from his desk. Paper. Brown, not white. I can’t stop staring. He notices my staring. Smiles again. Bad smile. He opens the paper. There’s more paper. He looks at it. “It says here you committed your first murder at the age of seven.” Murder. It was not murder. I am not a murderer. I am just different. “How can a seven year-old do that?” He is watching me again. “You set another child on fire and watched them burn to death.” I am not a murderer! I am not a murderer. I am not a murderer. I am not a murderer. “Apparently you were admitted to hospital after having some kind of ‘horror-induced manic episode’.” He didn’t speak for a few seconds. “By the time you could be admitted to Juvenile Hall, you had killed your own mother.” I am not a murderer. I do not want to listen to this. Why is He telling me this? “It says here that her head was bashed in. Your Father gladly had you sent away.” He is still smiling. “It’s incredible.” He puts the paper back. Leans forward. Too close. Too close. “I want to know what makes you tick.” Why does He want something from me?
He’s too close. I can’t get away. He reaches towards me. I can’t move. I can feel his fingers through the thickness of my clothes. Fire shoots up my side. I can’t breathe. He grabs something. “See these buckles, these straps?” I don’t look. “These are because you are volatile. We tried to stop you hurting others.” He tugs. It is choking. Binding. Restricting. “If you can be a good boy for another week or so, I will personally see these removed.” He smiles. “How about, because I’m feeling nice, I’ll give you a taste of a world without these?” His hands are still touching me. His fingers are tazers, sending shocks through my body every second they linger at my side. He stops touching me. The fire wanes. His fingers move to my throat. I can suddenly see every detail of Him. His eyes are brown. A different brown from the paper. His clothes are not white. They have splashes of colour. I smell something strange. It makes me want to wrinkle my nose. He’s tugging again. Too close. Too close. Too close. It stops choking. I can’t breathe. Air rushes through me too fast. It was like soup. Now it’s something else. It burns. He tugs again, the other way. I can breathe again. I’m choking again. He is watching me. “Maybe that’s not a good idea.” He frowns. “You seem to have gotten used to not breathing properly. I’m going to have to fix that.”
He gets off the desk, goes back around, sits down opposite me. I am suddenly glad there is a large piece of wood between us. “Once a week you will have that choker loosened slightly, that way you’re body can slowly adjust, but only if you’re a good boy.” He grins. I nod. “If you’re a bad boy, I’ll have to have you punished.” He likes that thought. He wants to hurt me. I can see it. Don’t turn away. Don’t speak back. I nod. “And, once a day, we will have one of these meetings, understand?” I must obey. I nod. “Good, come in!” White Coats enter. They are not happy. “Sir.” One is watching me. They are always watching me. “Escort Mr. Fletcher back to his room, will you?” They nod. I stand. They take me away.
