I'm Not Crazy

Voices

Day ?

Get up. Stare at the wall. Get fed. Get medicated. Stare at the wall. Get fed. Sleep. Repeat.

Get up. Stare. Feed. Medication. Stare. Feed. Sleep.

Wake. Stare. Force-fed. Sleep.

Wake. Medication. Sleep.

Sleep wasn't a problem. Not at all. I slept from lights out, past lights on and it was dreamless. My chalk was gone and the old glory if my past drawings had faded to smears of uneven coloring on the walls.

"Cheshy? Cheshy." no answer. But the whispers kicked up when I used my voice for anything at all. Hissing around the room for hours on end with no disconcernable location.

If I talked to myself the voices would ring out for hours on end. Many days the nurses found me in a crumpled heap unable to cover my ears but still trying. I didn't fight anymore and I had overheard them contemplating on taking me out of my straightjacket for good with the weak 'broken' spirit they were used to seeing from most of the patients who had been there longer. The nurse whose eye I gouged out never returned, but was brought up by the others and they decided, outside my door, against the notion and I continued to feel my arms as part of my body less and less.

On most days I say there quietly and daydreamed. Sometimes actual memories, or ones of my own invention, or random scenarios that had nothing to do with me. I dunno.

I guess my sister never had time to visit. Or Pa. I would hate it if Mum visited me though, with her proper habits and chiding remarks at my naive faults.

"Oh do straighten your back Alice you look like a cane."

And "Oh stop that swearing Alice. Is my daughter no more than a common sailor?"

Or "Do have the nurse tighten your corset dear. Last nights pastries are weighing on you heavily, aren't they?"

After a while (I keep no track of time) a man, the one who had helped drag my fighting body into this hellhole, entered my room just seconds before lights out. He looked at me with a gleam in his eye, and that was the last sight of him before the dark fell in. From then on I could only feel him.

That's painful. I don't want to think anymore.