Irhaboggle Pride (2024) Pride Fourever

4:00

Four chimes sounded in the distance. Hazel-green eyes peeled open slowly, caked with sleep, staring blearily at the dark, stone ceiling of Cell W14A of the Asylum for Wayward Victorian Girls. Hmmm. How funny it was. Asylums were supposed to be places of, well, asylum! Sanctuary! Safety and sanity! And yet, often, all over Victorian-era England, asylums were anything but. Expectation dictated that asylums were where the mad went to be cured. In reality, nothing but madness was bred inside the walls of yellow and striped paper.

Already, the inmate could feel her sanity slipping out of her brain like water. Emily-with-a-y, Emily-with-no-last-name, Emily-with-no-family. Forgotten, she was never going home. This place was a prison for women, a madhouse meant to keep mighty maidens under lock and key. Couldn't let them out into polite society, after all! They were madwomen. And no one liked a madwoman. What a shame she went mad...

You made her like that... Every time you call me crazy I get more crazy, and when you say I seem angry I get more angry... Women were supposed to be these pretty, delicate little things, eye-candy, to be seen as beautiful and not heard as intelligent or loud. No one likes a madwoman...

But what a foolish, dizzy daydream that was. What must it be like...? It sure must be nice...

To be able to go back to sleep and forget. To live in fantasy where all women were beautiful, perfect queens. To not have to wake up and face the cold reality that so many of them weren't. Nobody liked an ugly woman, a broken woman. They wanted them traumatized, but daintily, delicately so. Like Cinderella or Snow White, under the thumb of brutal authority, yet still sweet as pie and gentle as a dove. What was it that the doctors and Asylum heads wanted? We want them young, we want them fresh, we want them NOW!

Emily-with-a-y was one such young woman, and cursed never to forget her place in society as a female. We even dream of being princesses and queens. Do we forget that the "female king" never has as much glory or power as her the "male queen"? Ugh. 4:00... 4:00...4:00...4:00... Never let me sleep, I close my eyes and pray for the garish light of day, Like a frightened child I run from the sleep that never comes...

With a sigh, she pushed herself off the cold, smelly, old cot she called a "bed". Perfect for Sleeping Beauty, she thought sardonically. She crept from her cell, a secret among the Asylum inmates. They were not free to roam, per se, but they knew how to get their doors open so they could move to adjacent hallways. Emily made her way to the clocktower, "lucky" enough to be located close to it.

On the one hand, it was nice to go up there sometimes. On the other... it was 4:00. She was supposed to be asleep. Not wide awake. It was a tower of shame for her, an ever-present reminder of her place in society: cast out and buried under the refuse, locked forever in the insane asylum. She was weird. Couldn't sleep. Didn't belong. And she would never forget it. The hour never seemed to change, the hands on the clock never seemed to move, even though the incessant ticking never ended. It was as she'd noted before.

Only madness knows my name! Emily Madness. Emily Nameless. Emily Asylum.

"Why can we never go back to bed? Whose is the voice ringing in my head?" She shook hers. She could hear so many. Some of them male, some of them female. Some of them loving, some of them not. There was Dr. Stockhill and Madam Mournington, the two evil heads of the Asylum. There was Thompson the photographer, and Veronica the fellow inmate. They were both Emily's partners, lovers.

Madness! Scandal? Is it not? To be a woman with mates of both sexes, incapable of containing herself to one. What proper young lady did those dirty things with another proper young lady? Let alone with a man at the same time! And one she wasn't even married to, no less! How many taboos was that in just one fell swoop? Wild wench, she was! The story of Lillith was meant to be a warning, not an enticement.

Emily's footsteps were heavy but quiet on the wooden staircase that dragged her in a circle upwards. A fitting metaphor for madness. Up and up, around and around, dangling by a noose. "Where is the sense in these desperate dreams? Why should I wake when I'm half past dead?"

She felt disconnected from her body, not even in control of her own thoughts as she climbed like a zombie, sure as the clock kept its steady chime. Higher and higher up. Further and further away. Ticking away from the ones she loved. She looked down.

Of course, she couldn't see anyone else, the clocktower staircase separated from the rest of the Asylum, but she could envision hundreds of cells, each containing a woman. Emily's lips twisted into a cruel, unhinged smirk. They were like rows and rows of stone tombs, except something lived inside. They were like rows and rows of stone wombs, except never to give birth to what was inside, a perversion of the natural order.

At least that was how Emily saw it. But she was a madwoman. And everyone knew the thoughts of the mad weren't worth the effort it took the mad mind to conjure up. Why treat Emily like normal when she was anything but? The best way to treat someone lost from reality was to treat them with something equally detached. This was what society deemed acceptable for its madwomen.

"So many girls, so little time..." Was she referring to her desire for escape? Or Stockhill and Mournington's desire for more? As useless as women were, they were excellent moneymakers for their masters. That was why they were wanted young and fresh and NOW!

"Emily?"

"Veronica!" Emily gasped and jumped in the darkness, like a startled cat, pale and bony back colliding with the cold, black, stony walls.

"By jove, gov'nah!" Veronica slapped her forehead playfully as Emily jumped away from her, thick cockney accent even thicker than normal.

"What are you doing here?" the redhead demanded, hand on her heart. Thank God she wasn't a chaser, nurse, or doctor!

"Same thing's you, I'sppose!" Veronica replied happily. How she managed to remain so peppy for so long was a mystery to Emily.

"Can't sleep?" the redhead sighed sympathetically.

"Nope!" Veronica shook her head, beaming. "Too excited 'bout goin' home tomorrow! Or later today, I'sppose."

Emily's heart twinged in her chest. Ah, right ... Veronica always thought she was going home tomorrow. But that was the thing about tomorrow. Tomorrow never came. Because by the time it arrived, it was today. And Veronica never went home today.

Is she in denial? Does she really believe her own lies? Is it madness? Or a last-ditch effort to cling to her fleeting sanity? What comfort does she take in false promises? Where is the sense in these desperate dreams?

Veronica would've countered: Why should I wake when I'm half past dead? What point was there in living in reality—a reality wherein she had no family to rescue her and take her home—when it was so morbid, and she so powerless to stop it? Might she indulge in fantasy either way? It was just as useless and hopeless, but at least it was a beautiful lie that looked pretty—at least for a little while. She even dreamt of marrying Emily—even though they both knew it was impossible—and taking her home too. And then the cycle began anew.

Veronica would forget her words by morning, and excitedly talk about going home tomorrow, family that loved and rescued her...Sure as the clock kept its steady chime, she was weak as she lived by its endless rhyme. Time was ticking her away from the ones she loved. She was getting older, and hadn't seen them in years. Did they simply not care for her? Or had life made it such that they could not rescue her no matter how badly they may have wanted to? The saddest part of all was that Veronica's case was all too common. So many girls, so little time...

4:00. Emily sighed and rested her head upon the other woman's shoulder, silently seeking comfort, and seeking to comfort in return. 4:00. Why can we never go back to bed? 4:00. Only madness knows my name at... 4:00.