Traveling Vivian

Chapter TwentySix- Contagious

Traveling Vivian

Part 26

Author’s Note: This is really short. This Is what I promised for my followers. I promised a lengthen chapter tonight.

During the days at the mental hospital, things were different than in the foster houses. There were set rules to go to bed and when to eat. The nurses didn’t really care much about us as in the foster houses. The nurses came to give us our medicine and then they would leave us alone. If we did not take our medicine, they wouldn’t let us go out into the hallways and eat. Since I was a toddler, nurses tried to watch me and cared for me more than the other patients. I knew I did not belong here, I was too normal. Most of the patients here had problems. They couldn’t speak and they acted like they had no minds. They wander through the hallways like ghosts searching for souls. I felt really out of place here.

The best part of being here was when I needed something to do, I had something. I could draw with crayons but they didn’t supply us with paper. They believed we could hurt ourselves with it so I used the walls. I would draw faces and the past. I drew my mawmaw’s face but it has been awhile since I last seen her so the memory of her face disappeared and the hopes of being with her again. I drew Linlee’s face on the wall right next to my crib so everytime I woke up, she was there to welcome me with a smile. I drew Lady’s face at the end of the crib. I made sure she was being burnt to death with red fiery flames around her body. Because I hope she was there…in Hell. I drew Daddy being locked up behind the bars. He was struggling to hold onto the bars, crying. He had four big men behind him, ready to beat him up. Because I knew that was what he doing and feeling. I also drew Spencer. When I got here, they took Spencer away from me because they believed Spencer could be the reason why I was mental. I was upset when they ripped him away. I needed him. He was my friend since I was a baby.

I looked at the clock as the time rushed by. There wasn’t a lot to do. I had to take pills but I refused to. When the nurse came in to drop them off, I grabbed them and pretended to swallow but in actuality, I hid the pills inside the cushion of my crib. They gave me a white little pill. I knew these pills were the ones they used to make us sicker. I couldn’t take it. I laid on my crib thinking what was to happen to me. Was I to be here forever? I really hope not. I had a life to live outside these walls.

Several nights later, there was a howl along the walls as I woke up, panting. The howling was louder and louder as my heart panicked. I wondered what was going on. Since it was night time and past our bedtimes, there was no switch to turn on the lights. I looked up  through the window and saw the moon lighting my room. I heard the wailing louder as the lights finally flickered and I rubbed my eyes. I ran to the door and pressed my ear against the door. I heard the nurses fighting with one of the six year old patients.

“Come on little girl!” one of the nurses yelled.

The girl screamed, “No! I want to die! No! I don’t want to live here! I want my mommy!”

“Your mom put you here for a reason! Shut up! Solitary confinement for you!” the nurse screamed.

I heard doors slamming and then another nurse started opening the chamber doors to the patients. She wrote down a few things in her notepad and then she opened my door and saw me against her feet. “Damn sick kid! Go back to your crib!” She yelled.

I looked up and nodded. But I didn’t move. The lady growled and slammed her clipboard on the floor and picked me up. “Come on brat!” She screamed as she lifted me up and threw me on the crib. My head fell flat against the pillow as I turned to the window. I did not like the treatment I was getting. I really hope someone could get me out and fast! The lady wrote down something and then she walked out of the door. She slammed the door shut and then walked down the hallways.

The air was getting chilly. I knew autumn was approaching. Last autumn, Lady and Daddy found out they were going to have a baby. They brought me to the fall festival and we had caramel apples, pumpkin picking and then Daddy and Lady went to the haunted house while I stayed with the pumpkin patch babies. This year, it looked like all I was going to celebrate was coloring pumpkins on the pieces of papers in the play room and having a slice of the caramel apple. It wasn’t a fall festival tradition but I was stuck here.

At night, things were worse. They didn’t provide enough heat to function this place properly. When the autumn nights came through, the place was as cold as winter’s day. The nurses threw us four blankets to wrap ourselves in but it was just too cold to sleep through. I shivered as the wind blew against the window strongly. I longed to be in a comfortable warm bed against the fireplace. So that was how I tried to sleep. I tried to imagine I was in my room in Daddy’s house. I had a comfy bed. Warm blankets and Spencer sleeping besides me. I had a fire going in the fireplace as I snuggled in my sheets. Then I would slowly drift to sleep.

The days became rough when every one of the patients came down with the flu. They tried to separate all of us but they couldn’t. It started with Wing B girls as they played with each other a lot more than the toddler section. Something must have spreading from there because the toddlers in my section got it. I didn’t play with any of the children. I stayed in my room as I listened to wind and leaves falling so I was the lucky one to not have it. However the ones who did had to be sent to the hospital. I watched every one of them go. One by one, they all disappeared.  Some returned, some didn’t.