The Words on the Walls

III

I lay in bed. Or, I lay in what I was to call my bed. Yes, it was technically a bed. Yes, it was the kind of bed I expected I'd have when I was told I were to live the rest of my life here.

Unless improvement shows, they had said. Then you can live on your own. But for now, you need supervision. We wouldn't want you hurting yourself. I scoffed. Like they would care if I hurt myself. It would probably please them. I wouldn't be another thing for them to deal with if I killed myself.

I had thought about it. But no, killing myself would only satisfy them. And commiting suicide is such a childish way to deal with problems. Commiting suicide isn't even a way of dealing with anything. But they wouldn't know that. To them, commiting suicide is brave. To their warped minds, taking your own life is considered something to be respected for. Another example of how stupid they are; once you die, there is no one left to respect.

Even though I was expecting this type of bed, I was still disappointed when I saw it. It and its quilt blanket with red, brown, and orange squares. It and its too fluffy pillow that becomes less and less fluffy as you sleep, until you wake up to find that your head is resting on simply a strip of fabric, the fluffiness having spread to either end of the pillow during the night. It and its low legs, so that it is practically sitting on the floor. It and its mattress that is neither hard nor soft and, after sleeping in it for a night and compressing it, the springs that could be felt through the sheet. They wanted to make you comfortable so that you didn't escape, but not so comfortable that, if you do escape (or on the rare occasion that you get let out), you don't want to come back. Or do anything to get yourself sent back here.

That's how the world works nowadays. They have certain requirements that must be met, like keeping us from trying to escape, for example. But they only do the bare minimum, like not caring if we do escape. For example.

I looked around my room, my cell. The white walls and ceiling. The steel door. The grey carpeted floor. The absence of windows. The absence of pretty much everything except the walls, bed, and door. I rollled onto my back.

"Why am I here?" I asked aloud. I have taken to talking to nothing but the air. The sound of one's own voice can mask the feeling of being alone. The air around me, however, seemed to scold me for asking such a question. Because the answer was obvious. So was the question, given that I asked this almost every day, every night.

"Because you were foolish," I answered myself. "You wrote those things down. Those thoughts. Those beautiful, twisted, unbearable thoughts. Those illegal thoughts." I rolled onto my back and stared up at the ceiling. The horrible, normal ceiling. It stared back. Mocking me. I continued to explain to myself. Maybe, after explaining for uncountable many times, I would understand.

"You are here because.... Because Mom found your journal. Mom told Dad. They were scared. They felt society's fears. They had been fed lies. Everyone had been. You had been. But you were foolish. You wrote about why the lies weren't true. You wrote about them. You wrote about opposing those lies with your foolish thougts. Those beautiful, twisted, unbearable thoughts. And Mommy and Daddy couldn't stand it. They couldn't stand anything but normal. They don't understand anything but normal. They don't even know what normal is." I tried to make myself angry at them. I always try. Being angry passes time. It never worked. It never does. It never did.

"Never does. Never did." I repeated the words over and over in my mind.

"Never does. Never did." I tried to find significance in them.

"Never does. Never did." I searched for some point in repeating them. Some point, something else to explain to myself.

"Never does. Never did." I couldn't find a significant point. There was nothing to explain. Such is life.