Encroacher

Her

"The ability to find wonder in what others see as drab makes you extraordinary, not mad!"

"But its only a lamp! What could a lamp do?"

"Oh but didn't you know! Lamp is only its clever ploy! To instill a false sense of security. You have to make certain you keep a very close eye at all times, or else when you least expect it...They pounce!"

You could say a child's laughter is like a stroke to the soul. Should you by some means arouse it--instant gratification.

Thinking back now, as she chased me around the room with that lamp, cord still comically trailing behind, I'm sure it must have been bliss.

---

Officially she was the asylums head librarian, unofficially she was my caretaker. And as the youngest patient to ever enter the establishment i'm sure it must have been a blessing for the warden to have someone looking after me. 

So, it was like this, for the longest time, they simply let us be.

And to this day those are still some of the--if not all of the--fondest memories i have of place.

As the head librarian she had authority over every single book, newspaper and pamphlet in the facility. 

Though seeing as they were all carefully handpicked and then sanctioned by the warden--essentially censored for the type that would be reading them--her 'lofty authority' was made a lot less grand.

But even so most children's tales luckily made the cut and thereafter she read to me everyday. 

Unhesitatingly we devoured them all, like dessert sand in a rainstorm: there was just never enough.

After we'd read through all that we could find, we'd just pick them back up and read them again, over and over, until i could repeat every single one--word for word. 

It took some time but when finally we'd gotten bored of all the repetition, she began to make up some stories of her own.

Short little allegories with their claws burrowed deep in hard lined morals and her unwavering notion of: "What might be seen as right isn't always right however what you feel is right will never stray you wrong".

I recall she would never give word nor hint of the next story she'd tell until i could recount to her the moral of the last one. Often enough even after i did she'd call a quick two day hiatus so that she could come up with what exactly it was--the next story she wanted to tell would be.

It was endless fun, for the longest time, but like most things, it eventually had to come to an end.

It happened on my seventh birthday, that much i can recall, though i cant really claim to any more than that.

 I remember though, there was screaming.

To this date there's only one thing i'd prefer to keep quiet till the day i die, one thing i'd never willingly admit out loud, for however long I live: that the everlasting impression I have--solely draped over the overall abundance of good things to her memory--is of a woman with thick round glasses, fogged up over her eyes, being dragged away as tears stream down her face, crying out  at the men that held me back, things like "He's only a child!" and "Who do you think you are?!"

The scene was especially jarring for me then because it might as well have happened in the blink of an eye. One second i was reading with her in the library and the next i was there, no break in between.

I didn't know what had led to what i saw, suddenly, in front of me but i can only imagine whatever transpired immediately before was the aforementioned incident.

The only other thing i remember from that day for certain is that that was the date the men in white first arrived.

Exactly seven years ago.