Sleep Is Death

New Normal

I'd never been to an institution, but I'd seen enough movies like Asylum and heard enough stories about these kinds of places to know I'd be miserable.

Every day was the same. Wake up, go to therapy, eat, take care of hygiene, enjoy half an hour of downtime, eat, go to therapy again, take care of hygiene, and sleep. We went outside once a week but for how long depended on if Lou was angry or not.

On my fourth night, I was lying awake to the sound of my stomach gurgling, my roommates snoring like bears, and raindrops beating against the glass.

"No," someone yelled out, but of the three in my room, only I jolted up. I stared at the partially open door—we weren't allowed to shut them under any circumstances—hoping it was just in my head, but then I heard, "Let me go! I swear it wa'n't me!"

As I kicked my legs from under the quilt, my eyes were glued to the shadows drawing near and far from the door.

I heard someone speaking but I couldn't understand. I walked toward the gap, my socks shielding me from the freezing, wood floor and my cotton gown swaying just below my knees.

I lifted my hand and it was trembling up and down but my fingers were as stiff as boards. Taking a deep breath with my eyes closed, I pulled the door closer to me until it came to my chest and the gap was wide enough for my face.

"Please," the girl begged, her voice just as uneased as my hands. I heard metal crashing against itself like the heavy chain my brother kept on his dog. "Ms. Anderson, I swear I di'n't steal your brooch."

"Whether it was you or not makes no difference to me. If someone else has it, I suspect they'll pity you enough to return it." They were downstairs, so I couldn't see them over the banister. "Take her to the basement."

Then there was that sound again. The metal clinked and scraped the floor, she wailed like she was about to be executed and she begged for understanding. All of it fell on deaf ears and I flinched when a door boomed shut, rattling my window.

Word spread about the situation but I never found out her name. Even when Lou realized her brooch was in her purse the whole time and let the girl out, I never spoke to her. I couldn't.

Her curly, jet-black hair was all over her head with more frizz than usual and she had this emptiness in her gaze. The other girls tended to her in my room.

They sat her on my bed without first asking me for permission, and they used soap, Vaseline, and their flimsy combs to make sense of her bird's nest.

"I'm gonna kill her," she spoke matter-factly, staring through my roommates and two other girls.

I was leaning against the wall between the door and the bathroom with my arms crossed, but when she said that, I dropped them.

"You don't mean that," a red-haired girl said, but her sentence teetered between a statement and a question. My roommate, Sandra, looked at the girl, then back at the one in distress.

She stood up, the combs hanging onto her hair like fruit. She was taller than most her age—I heard she was sixteen—and as heavyset as a farmhand brought up on southern fried food.

"Do you have any idea what it's like down there?" No one spoke. We all shared glances, all sympathetic and afraid for her. "You all can walk aroun' like you're at home and no'ne'll bother you." She placed her dark brown, beefy hand to her chest and said, "If I so much as look at Lou strange, she's ready to feed me sedatives."

She was right; I'd seen it multiple times.

I would sit near the window during our free period, watching others play cards, and then I'd watch birds fly overhead. One day, she'd gotten a bit too rowdy for Lou's taste, but she was so wrapped in Uno, that she didn't notice. The other girls were just as loud talking and giggly, but Lou focused on her.

They'd send us to our rooms, we'd hear her screaming, and then silence. The silence stung more than hearing her beg.

"I understand," Sandra said. The teenager dragged her evil eye to her. "But imagine what she'll do if she finds out you're planning to kill her."

She scoffed with her head down. She bit her lip in thought, then sat on my bed. It creaked under her weight louder and louder as she bent forward to hike up her scrubs.

"I had rats and flies peelin' away at what little sanity I had left." My jaw dropped when I saw the teeth marks on her calves. "What more can she do?"

Some say she was transferred to another institution, others think she was arrested. All I know is that that was the last time we'd seen her.

When Lou thought the brooch was stolen, we only had five minutes outside. When the girl tried to kill her with that very brooch, for weeks, we couldn't go outside.

On the last day of our punishment, we had visitors. I was among the few whose parents couldn't be bothered, so while the other girls caught up with their families and friends in the backyard, I grabbed a book—Bridge to Terabithia—and sat by the window.

The sunlight hit the pages better than my old lamp, making it easy to immerse myself in Jess and Leslie's lives. I'd read the book every chance I got because out of all we had in those two, large bookshelves, that book was the closest thing I had to my reality.

"Helen?" I was yanked out of their world, but my eyes wouldn't move and neither would my head. I recognized that voice immediately, but I was so in shock that I froze.

I took a deep breath that sounded like a shudder, and slowly lifted my chin to see him. Jay was standing in the foyer with his satchel strewn across his shoulders.

"Jay?" My voice cracked and my lips quivered. My eyes burned and fogged with tears that quickly ran down my face.

I jumped to my feet, knocking over a table plant and dropping that children's book in the rubble. I ran to him with my arms out and he extended his to welcome me in the tightest, warmest hug I hadn't had since before Kristin died.

He caressed my back with one hand while the other squeezed me close to him. I had the back of his black, graphic T-shirt in my fists and left streaks of sadness on his chest.

"I'm sorry," he said in a low voice, but I didn't stop sobbing. I wasn't as loud as that girl. I bit my lip and cheeks so no one else would hear me, but I wanted so badly to scream. I held in so much hurt from my stay and my life, that I felt it in my jaws.

He cupped my face in his palms, swiping away stray tears with a pitying smile.

"I just wanna get out of here," I told him, and, he took a deep breath while looking into the distance. "I haven't eaten more than once a day, I can hardly sleep because all I think about is Kristin and how much I hate this place." He shut his eyes, so I licked my lips and whispered, "The lady in charge of us is fucking crazy. She locks people in the basement, chained up."

"What?" He looked at me with his eyebrows knitted, slowly dropping his hands.

"You gotta tell someone, and maybe, if I show that I'm getting better, they'll let me go home." His eyes jolted from left to right, before settling on mine. My mouth fell open when I remembered, "I don't even have insurance." I took a few steps back as I ran my fingers through my hair, squeezing the locks of blonde atop my head. "Oh, my God, I'm actually gonna be in debt because of this shit."

"Helen, calm down." He removed his satchel, not knowing that I was giving him a dark look.

How could I relax when my life was over? I barely made enough to cover rent and food. I couldn't imagine what this stay would cost me.

Then, a piece of my old life was presented to me. He was holding my journal by the spirals, searching for my eyes.

"I didn't tell anyone but my wife about it. They think it was written on your computer, so I moved your entries on there to a floppy disk." I looked at him, then at it. I took it in my hands, running my thumb along the spirals. "If you want the disk when you get out, my wife has it; just swing by, or we can mail it to you"