Sanity

3

I got back to my room in, surprisingly, one piece without vomiting, or falling over, even though I felt like doing both...repeatedly...The nurse smiled as I hobbled over to a white mattress in the corner of a concrete room that, seemed to be mine. The walls were bare enough, the ground hard and cold enough. I sniffed as I shuffled over to the mattress. There was an outfit laid out for me and I smiled. No more hospital gown.

I got down on my knees and ran my hand over the starched "scrub" fabric. It was better than feeling exposed in this horrible gown. I looked up from my position on the ground and notice that there were pieces of paper taped to the wall right by the, I guess you could call it, bed and random notes were written on them.

Pick yourself up. Don't worry, it will all be over soon.

You are special. Believe in yourself!

And so on. The notes made something inside of me twist and turn. I felt like...like they were written for someone else and not me. I couldn't feel anything when I looked at them and I reached out to touch the crinkled paper. It felt like crunchy, fallen leaves on an Autumn day...my eyes got watery and I would have cried except I could still feel the nurse's presence...she was still standing in the doorway.

"Yes?" I muttered, rolling my eyes. "Is there anything else you need? Want?"

The nurse smiled and shook her head, closing and latching the door behind her. I fell to my knees on the bed and looked down at my hands, white, blue and purple veins sticking out like yarn along the translucent skin. I shuttered and made a mental note to never look in a mirror. What had they done to me?

The last I could remember was being at least ten to twenty pounds heavier than I was now. I don't remember being able to feel my bones like this. My ribs felt like they were almost sticking out of my chest.

I took in a deep breath and held it; placing two hands on my stomach I flinched in disgust as I slowly let the air out of my lungs, the pressure decreased.

The momentary relief covered up the embarrassment of my new body. Yeah I had always wanted to be skinny but never this, like, scarily skinny. I was practically a walking bag of bones. One step away from death...at least I felt close to death. Is this what cancer patients felt moments before malnutrition and radiation took their life? I was being pumped up with who knows what kind of drugs and I was obviously missing some kind of key nutritional aspects within my diet.

I grabbed the clothes that were in a pile and quickly changed. It felt so good to get this horrible gown off. Pants and shirt. That was the way to go. Having that awkward slit in the back was so, so annoying.

I laid back on my mattress, relieved and slightly uncomfortable. There was a strange hard lump under the sheets and, slightly startled, I sat up. Sticking my hand under the covers, digging under the sheets, I felt something hard, leathery and thick. It felt beautiful, soft.

I pulled the entity out from underneath the covers and was shocked to find a leather notebook that had to be about four by seven inches. A small piece of charcoal was taped to the back. A note on top of the journal said, "For you, Janice. Draw for me."

I shuttered.

What is that supposed to mean? I opened the book and felt a hot, uncontrollable urge overtake me and I rubbed the stale piece of charcoal between my fingers and, with a smile plastered to my pointy face, I drew. The small piece of charcoal, when pushed against the paper, caused small bits of black to fly off of its tip. As I quickly scrapped it across the paper in short swift wisps, the black dust fluttered onto the white sheets and white walls. I didn't care.

My lines turned into a jaw, the smudges eyes, and the wisps, hair. I didn't recognize my drawing. I didn't care about that either. The charcoal seemed to have a mind of its own. My hand being the tool instead. I was only a tool, a puppet in the hands of this small piece of charcoal. Yeah, it called the shots.