ANATHEMA

chapter eleven: the pantaloon

When I woke again, I was by myself. Tyler must have been caught.

I stood up slowly, still slightly disoriented. I was the only one in the ward, which kind of surprised me.

The room was filled with empty cots, with wooden cabinets nailed to the wall next to them. I didn't have much to do, so I started counting the ceiling tiles.

I was at forty-two tiles when I heard people enter the room.

Looking up, I saw the guards carrying a girl in by her arms, her hanging limply in between them.

"Put her in Bed F," one of the guards muttered to the other. He grunted in response, then slung the girl in a bed across from me.

"Maybe she can keep the schizo company," one of them said. The guards began laughing, not daring to look over at me, then left the ward.

When I had gotten to eighty-seven tiles, the girl woke up. She sat up some, and I finally got a good look at her.

Her hair was split down the middle in color; the right side being gray, and the left side being black. Her wide, brown eyes looked red and tired, but they danced across the room, taking in everything in her surroundings. Her lips were plump and pink, and when they parted, I saw that she had a gap between her two front teeth.

I heard her muttering something; it sounded like she was singing under her breath. I pretended to keep counting tiles while I listened to her.

"Hey girl, open your walls, play with your dolls; we'll be a perfect family.

When you walk away is when we really play. You don't hear me when I say, "Mom, please wake up, Dad's with a slut, and your son is smoking cannabis."

No one ever listens, this wallpaper glistens. Don't let them see what goes down in the kitchen."

She was rocking back and forth as she sung, her voice shaky and her eyes as wide as marbles.

My heart started beating a little
faster when I heard her sing, "I see things that nobody else sees."

I closed my eyes and fell asleep to the sound of the girl across from me spelling the word, 'dollhouse'.

/~/

When I woke up the next morning, I was greeted by a nurse holding a tray of food and a cup with my medicine.

I sat up and took them, dismissing the nurse with a smile. She replaced the clipboard at the foot of my bed with a different one, then left the ward.

I ate my food, but felt a pair of eyes bore into me. I didn't dare look up until I was finished with my breakfast, and when I did, I stopped moving.

The girl was staring at me. She had a murderous look in her eyes, and she only blinked once as we looked at each other.

The food on her tray had been smashed, all mixed together in a colorful pile. The plastic utensils were sticking out of the mess like she had stabbed it.

Her mouth started moving and she started singing again, the tune different than yesterday's;

"Pill, diet pill, diet. If they give you a new pill, then you will buy it. If they say to kill yourself, then you will try it."

I looked down at the cup of pills, still sitting on the tray.

I wasn't too keen on taking them now.

She smiles daintily, then goes back to mashing up the food on her tray.

Soon, an official walked in and sighed at the sight of the girl's actions.

"C'mon, Miss Martinez, you know you have to eat your food," she sighed. The girl shook her head, continuing to stab her mush with the plastic knife. The official just groaned, and said, "I know you don't think it tastes good, but just picture it as cake, or something."

"If I am just a piece of cake, if I'm just a piece of cake, then you're just a piece of meat, you're just a piece of meat to me," the girl sneered at the official.

"I didn't say...ugh, never mind," the official exclaimed, throwing her hands up and turning around. "Did you need some water to take those?" she asked me.

"Oh, u-uh, yes, yeah, please," I stuttered with a nod.

"Alright, I'll get that right for you," she smiled at me. I sent her a small, shaky smile and looked back down to the pills.

"My condolences, I'll shed a tear with your family. I'll open a bottle up and pour a little bit out in your memory. I'll be at the wake, dressed in all black. I'll call out your name, but you won't call back. I'll hand a flower to your mother when I say goodbye, 'cause baby, you're dead to me."

I looked up to see the girl staring at me again, this time a murderous look in her eye. She was holding the white, plastic knife like she was ready to start plunging it into somebody's neck. My mouth fell open in fright, and she kept singing;

"I need to kill you. That's the only way to get you out of my head. Oh, I need to kill you to silence all the sweet, little things you said. I really want to kill you, wipe you off the face of my earth, and bury your bracelet, bury your bracelet, six feet under the dirt."

She was cut off by the official coming back into the ward, a cup of water in one hand and some papers in her other.

She handed me the water, then asked me, "You're Ophelia Jones, correct?"

I nodded as I downed the pills with the water, not daring to look across from me.

"Well, honey, I think the doctors said you're good to go to leave the ward whenever," she said with a smile. "Would you like me to escort you to your room for the day?"

I nodded fervently, wanting to be out of this cursed nurse's office.

"Alright, well, let me get these out of the way," she said, taking the tray and cup off my lap and setting them on a rolling cart. She reached over and took out the IV in my arm.

"If you'll follow me, please," the official said, taking the cart and starting to walk.

"They call you Cry Baby, Cry Baby, but you don't fuckin' care," I heard the girl sing from behind us.

I stopped dead in my tracks, my heart stopping.

I turned back to face her and muttered, "How did you-"

"Oh, ignore her," the official said. "She's been singing that nonsense ever since she came here in August."

I nodded, mostly to comfort myself, but the look of success in the girl's eyes stirred a memory I didn't want to remember.

"Aww, is Lia crying?" Strings mocked from my ceiling.

I was fourteen, sitting in the quiet of my room. I had unscrewed the blade in a little plastic pencil sharpener and had it poised above my wrist. I was scared of the thought of blood springing from my wrist, but I wanted the headaches to go away.

Tears had leaked from my eyes and onto the carpet below me.

"Is Lia a little cry baby?" Strings laughed.

"N-No," I whimpered.

"Ha!" they cried in my ear, making me jump. "You are! You're crying like a little baby!"

"I am not!" I shouted at it. I was lucky my parents were out of town for the night, for they would have come up to my room and asked me what I was screaming about.

"Cry Baby, Cry Baby!" Strings screamed, dancing around me.

"Stop, please...," I sobbed, clenching the little piece of metal in my palm. I could feel the edge biting into the skin of my fingers, but I ignored it.

"I don't care that you're sad! I will always be here, Lia," Strings said, without a trace of their trademark, mocking smile.

I fell asleep on the floor of my room, blood dripping from my fingers and onto the carpet, creating a physical and mental stain that I would never be able to remove.