Arkham

Chapter 1: Home Sweet Hell

Creaking and clanging of metal and chain. Tap of leather boots. Echoes. So many echoes. Muffled and out of sight, but when you hear it, you know it. You breathe it. As familiar as the heartbeat in my ear against my pillow. Yet I stare at these four concrete walls. A room with just my own mental chatter, but so alive. The sounds ruffle and mismatch into complete opaque noise. Like I can hear every churn of my stomach, pulse of my blood, whoosh of my lung. In this cell I am just a small creature inside the beast that swallowed me. While it works its utmost to digest me. The howling of the others be fellow victims. They resist so much to be digested but can't see they've already been. They only add to the ambiance of her digestive tract. She does not regurgitate what has been fed to her. For we sorry fools may as well belong here. We are her. The keepings of this concrete matriarch all tell a story of insanity. Without us, she wouldn't be Arkham. That goes for the constant blaring radios, the clapping of the boots outside the door, the rattling chains and intercoms. It all belongs to Arkham. Whether you work here or live here, you are part of her chaos. This is my home. Yup. You heard it right. Home Sweet Hell. Don't forget to wipe your heels off.

Don't even bother dragging in any of that shit from outside with you. This place ain't a fragment of reality you'll want to bring anything in. Leave it all behind. Hold that person you thought you were in the palm of your hand, and blow it away like ash. You won't keep it long anyway. Might as well give it a sentimental goodbye. Best thing I ever did, that. Now I'm whatever she wants me to be. Oh, I'll bend to her will. Perhaps one day she will bend to mine.

The others still have a ways to go. That's okay. A lot of newbies joining the ranks of Hotel Hell, lately. Gotham is the putrid gullet, and Arkham the churning stomach. We all eventually end up here. This is the finish line. The crescendo. At no later than five am in the morning, we all get a brutal reminder of that. Well, our wake-up call is at seven am on the dot. But... Ms. Atkins is a real early bird.

I'm not sure why or how, but that girl has lungs that could stop a whole military convoy. Why the government hasn't seized her already as a weapon-grade air horn is beyond me. Just throw her in a four-by-four concrete room, be late with her medication regime, wind her up and let her go. Every morning, since the day she got swallowed in this bottomless pit with the rest of us, the girl shrieks like a banshee from hell. Every morning, five am. Call it the opening to an opera that lasts the entire day. Sometimes it's her shitty bed, her meds, her nightmares, or even just plain-Jane boredom, but she'll scream. Every day. Five am. Naturally her screams set everyone else off, as well.

"Shut the fuck up, Atkins!"

"What the liver-fried fuck are you on about now, you cunt?!"

"Two hours! Please! Goddammit! Just wait till seven!"

They can plead all they want. Poor girl. She's only serenading her chorus of Arkham. Whether they like it or not, Arkham wouldn't be Arkham without those ear-splitting howls every morning. She's really charmed the place up in my opinion. If madness is the answer for the day, might as well answer it early. The guards usually try to ignore her for the first little while. But... the other inmates start squalling, shit getting thrown, spirits getting too amped up for correction. They do step in eventually. Usually, a tranquilizer in the ass does the trick. Those guards don't leave Ms. Atkins cell without a few new decorative bumps and bruises though.

She falls back asleep quickly after that. The rest of us aren't so fortunate. After Ms. Atkins chorus there isn't a soul in HRS wing that can sleep. Where is my tranquilizer in the ass? Nevertheless, another day in our home rises. We get up. We stretch. We scream. We cry. We shit. We cry some more. We stare out the window in hopes a jetliner will fly through. Then we make our beds. A beautiful Tuesday morning. The bay is still, spring sun is shining. Maybe some speed boats out on the water today. Just a little taste of outside is good enough. At least until we get our airing. The twenty minutes of that.