Escape
Day fourteen since my escape, all the while it is getting colder, crisper, the air itself starts to feel clearer the higher up into the mountains I go. Yet I cannot say that I feel cleaner, its been two weeks since I last showered and its not only me that's noticing. On my last visit into town the people were giving me a three foot radius and all I wanted was some bread that wasn't stale and some cheese that didn't smell like my feet. It's not usually hard to come by such trivial things but most stores close their doors to me. You may be wondering how I even manage to afford simple necessities such as these and how it is possible that I record my daily events for you who are yet to find my body in the coming years when I am dead and gone. Fidgety fingers and a knack for finesse do come in handy for one in my position.
It's been two weeks since last I showered but I still dream of hot water and lovely latherable soap. The last shower I did have was in the asylum and it was a bittersweet one at that. You see, we are only allowed ten minute showers in two minute intervals, how it is that it works I am not quite sure, but the chief of staff seemed to think it did so I couldn't really dispute it now could I? If I remember correctly his name was Grimier, yes, Archibald Grimier, a small portly man with round metal spectacles who sweated a lot. He often carried a folded linen hanky with him which he would often whip out to wipe the sweat from his brow, then with stubby little fingers, he would fold it back up and place it once again in the breast pocket of his fine navy blue pinstriped suit which he wore every day.
There were of course others in the asylum, not only myself. It was a large Victorian house that sat upon an even larger hill surrounded by woodland and wood life, very idealic save for the inside where the criminally insane, mentally unstable and socially dangerous were housed. Most of the time it was quiet: one could move from the arts and crafts activities to outdoor walks and back again without being disturbed, sometimes there were sport days in which we could pick almost any sport of our choosing and play it from daybreak to dusk. But there were also the "bad days" as the staff liked to call them, days in which the entire house went crazy: the hardened criminals would pick on the unstable who would whine to the socially dangerous and we in turn would lead the rebellions right up to the head of staff. Our little rebellions caused no more than a ruckus in the scheme of things for that day and most of the staff were sympathetic to our plight, only scolding us before sending us back downstairs for some hot tea and biscuits.
Our little rebellions, try as we might, never did make it all the way to chief of staff's office. Try as we might, for the moment Grimier was untouchable, a visit to his office the ultimate punishment for those who disobeyed the house rules to the extreme. Rule breakers such as I.