I remember watching this movie as a child, about a brilliant man who got lost in his head. They put him in a grey cage with other lost men and left him to find his own way out. The movie always kind of scared me, the way that he was so utterly alone. He died before he found the path through the brambles.
Bill never liked the movie because the outfits were tacky: orange jumpsuits with names scrawled across the back. He always joked that they may have gone nuts on their own but they stayed that way to escape the cliché. It always made me laugh because I knew what color his favorite boxer where.
It turns out that they don't dress the patients in orange, too bright and upsetting of a color; now the patients wear a light blue that reminds me of empty skies, when the world is void of anything and everything but the chill of winter that seems to seep so very slowly into your bones.
The blue matches the pale robin's egg of the walls and meshes well with the buttery yellow of the ceiling and the soft white of the tile floor. The hallways look more like a nice hotel than a home for the insane, until you notice the bright silver bars keeping the life out and the living dead in.
The room I enter is done in shades of pale purple, bright white stars painted across the violet ceiling in glow in the dark paint. The bed is a dark brown, a soothing, grounding color, under lavender sheets and a thick, fluffy comforter. A breeze stirs the white lace curtains and for a moment I can forget that there are no sharp corners in this room, nothing that could be broken, everything bolted to its place, trapped like the rooms occupant to this fading room.
"The reflection lies and the queen searches for a demon in white."
He is standing in front of the rooms mirror watching it as a caged bird will, as if it can see a time in it was free, when it flew far beyond the reach of the monsters that keep it chained. He is so very different now, night black locks giving way to dirty blonde, skin pale and faded without his armor; different, but still so very beautiful, eyes shining with a light that even the drugs can't fully diminish.
"Bill? Do you remember me?"
He tilts his head to the side and his eyes catch mine in the mirror's surface momentarily before they focus back on his own.
"You are the knight come to slay the Dreaded Dragon and rescue the sleeping Prince, but the Prince will not wake and is long beyond rescuing."
The urge to reach out and hold him close to me, to breathe in his sweet vanilla sent is out weighed only by the whisper soft memories of short clipped nails peeling open the skin of my arms and the mournful cries of a wounded animal.
"Do you know the knight's name?"
He laughs then, bright and clear, like the bitter soft sound of glass breaking.
"Silly Tomi, the knight is an Icon and names are only for things that can die! If the knight had a name he would become more than an Ideal and the Prince would be Trapped."
"I thought that I was the knight?"
"No, no, no, no, no! The Knight has to go and search for the Prince and my Tomi can't leave me."
"Do you know who the prince is?"
"The Prince is a song bird dressed in Death's Cloak who sits in a window and sings so that his Knight can find him."
"I thought the prince was asleep?"
"Only when the witches come and slip Dreams into his food."
I move to sit on the bed and Bill's head follows me, a serpent watching prey it knows it will catch should it just move that little bit closer.
"What does the prince dream of?"
"Why his Knight of course! He dreams that he is locked in a room made of purple hyacinth and his Knight will come and rescue him."
"Can the prince still be rescued?"
Bill's face is serious as he moves to stand in front of me.
"Only if the Knight believes enough that he can."
"Oh, Billa."
One of the orderlies taps on the door before bringing in Bill's lunch. Bill hides behind me and buries his face between my shoulder blades.
"Billa-bi?"
"The witch come's bringing Poison Dreams to steal away the Knight. The dark clouds above her herald Nightmare Ghosts that come to turn the Knight from his quest."
The man's face is placid; this has been a near daily occurrence for the last five years after all. He will leave the tray for me to feed my twin and go to see to the rest of his patients. He trusts by now that I will see to it that Bill takes his pills.
"The witch is gone, Billa, and there are no poison dreams lurking in your food."
Bill peeps out from behind my shoulder and looks around for the orderly, eyes bright and face so very young.
"The Knight has slain the witch for another day. He has gone to make ready for the Prince's arrival and the Prince shall sing for him until he returns."
"That's wonderful Bill, but you need to eat so that the Prince can remain strong for his Knight."
Bill eyes the plate distrustfully and pokes at the fluffy eggs and fruit that lie out before him.
"Are you sure there no Nightmares hidden within?"
"Yes, Bill, would I lie to you?"
Bill's smile has always been as melancholy as it is bright and it tears into me a little.
"Only ever when you lie to yourself as well Tomi-my-knight."
He pops a piece of fruit into his mouth and plays with his drugged juice. After he finishes his lunch he lies down under his magenta comforter and begs for a story. I tell him the one about the star that was prettier than any other and because the other stars where jealous they made nasty rumors about the one star.
Bill is asleep before I can finish the story. Bill is always asleep before the end, before he can learn about how that star shone so bright that it eclipsed all the others until it was just the Bill-star shinning all alone. The Bill-star had never been alone before and when he looked for his Tomi-star he found him wrapped around another. So the Bill-star went off to find a Knight in Shinning Armor who wouldn't leave him for another star. But the Knight-star was really a Wicked-Witch who fed the Bill-star lies in the shape of poison dots until the Bill-star shattered into thousands of fragments.
I leave a soft kiss on Bill's pale lips and chuckle softly to myself. Bill is waiting for his Pure Knight to come and wake him and I am so irrevocably tarnished. I close the door softly and walk down the pale prison hallway and through clear glass doors into a freedom Bill hasn't known in years.
Before I start the car I pull the ring out of the glove box of my car and slip it on, a promise to a woman I never should have given and a reminder of what I lost because of a careless mistake. I drive home to a wife whose name I don't remember and twin boys I can no longer look at.
Not for the first time I wonder whether it is Bill or I who is locked in a cage. As I start the car I glance back at the bags packed in the back of my Escalade and throw the pills in my hand out the window. Soon the Prince will wake and the tainted Jester will take him away to find his Knight.