The worst thing about being mad…
The absolute, definitive worst thing ever about being mad is…
Her thighs hurt. So does her back. She's been sitting in the exact same spot in the corner of her cell for the past eight hours. She can feel a certain heaviness in her bowels which reminds her that she'll have to go the bathroom soon.
Some of the girls here soil themselves on purpose, but she doesn't. The smell of shit makes her gag.
The girl in the corner hates this place, but she knows why she's here. She's mad. In that sense, she's unique. Every other girl they lock up in this place are completely sane, and all of them are girls, even the ones in their seventies. She knows they're all sane because they shout that they are at the top off their lungs until their throats close in protest. But she's mad. She knows she's mad.
Sane people don't hear the buzzing.
All the time the buzzing around her, in her skull. Not just noise but a solid screaming mass of vibrating air, filling each room she enters. The buzzing, the buzzing, never stopping, all the time. In her sleep, in the shower, in group, on the toilet. The constant numbing buzzing that goes on and on and makes her grind her teeth until she's sure they'll crack.
Sometimes it's quiet, in the background. The girl can ignore it then, act almost normal. But not now. Now it's loud, and there's nothing she can do now but wait until it goes quiet again. She's certain that if she tries to move, her head will split down the middle.
She takes a deep breath and blinks.
Sometimes, the girl sees things. She sees her parents, who are dead now and look like road kill. She knows her parents are dead because a policeman told her. She knows they look like road kill because she saw a picture of them in a book where they looked like… Sometimes her parents are clean and alive and happy to see her, and her mom tells her she loves her. Sometimes they're not.
She also sees a lady with a horse. She knows who the lady is, the lady is her real mother- her picture was also in the book- but she doesn't speak to her. Not anymore. The girl is glad she doesn't anymore. She doesn't like her voice.
Sometimes she sees pools of blood on the floor. She sees a knife in her hand. She sees the inside of a mask. She sees everyone in the room cut open. When she sees these things, she screams and screams to make them go away.
The girl in the corner is surrounded by the buzzing. She stares into the eyes of the lady with the horse.
You may be forgiven for thinking otherwise, but the girl is quite calm. She is not in pain, just a bit uncomfortable. She is not fearful, the lady doesn't scare her anymore. She's simple waiting for the buzzing to go down. Not long now.
Another thirty minutes pass. The girl stretches out her legs and gingerly gets to her feet. She steadies herself against the wall, before padding over to the door of the room. She presses a button to get the orderly's attention, and when he answers her call she quietly requests to visit the bathroom.
As she's led down the hall, the girl starts to feel a dull headache forming. Not uncommon after such loud buzzing. She shrugs it off. To distract herself, she tries to recall the plot of Casablanca. She's running out of movies.
Of all the gin joints in all the world…
The worst thing about being mad is the boredom. Contrary to what many believe, imagination is not limitless. Without stimulation, it dries up like a well in the desert. The girl has been staring at four padded walls for the best part of a year, the only relief comes from occasional trips to other parts of the building, never outside.
She has long run out of things to imagine, now she relies on things to remember. Because it's a vicious circle. Once the boredom reaches the point of suffocation, then her head is once more filled with buzzing loud enough to make her deaf. Then her parents come to her, looking like road kill, while the room fills up with blood before her eyes. And then the doctors decide that she's not getting any better, and she needs to stay put.
She wants to shake them and beg them to let her go. Tell them that keeping her here is making her worse, not better, because the boredom, the goddamn boredom, is drowning her. But she doubts it would help.
Her only comfort is Michael.
He comes to her sometimes, like her parents and the lady with the horse. Not often, very rarely. When she sees him, he towers over her. He's always covered in blood and holding a knife. His masked face peers down at her like she's an infant.
The girl may be mad, but she is not an idiot. She knows he's not an angel. She knows she should be terrified and angry. She know that she shouldn't pray for him to come, she shouldn't cry with relief when he appears, but she can't help it.
When Michael comes to her, the buzzing stops. And she is peaceful again.