Reality
She opened her eyes and saw the same things she saw every day: the plain white walls of the room, the barred window, too high on the wall to allow a view to the outside world; the plain, white, metal table with a single drawer and the hospital bed she laid upon, her arms and legs in tie-down restraints. Just another, typical, lonely day in the psych ward. It was cruel.
That was a funny word: cruel. Isn't that what he had said? 'You eyes can be so cruel'. She laughed, an odd, maniacal sound, high pitched and shrill. "I'm the cruel one? Me? Me? ME? She clamped her mouth shut, knowing at any moment the orderly would come in with the Ativan. That was the drill: act up and get drugged up.
Sarah remembered everything; the mistake she made was telling her father, who told her step-mother who called the shrink that threw her in this hospital. Cruel, yes, very cruel.
She thought about Jareth almost every night. How could she not? She dreamt about him and those dreams were so very real. The shrink said she wasn't dreaming, couldn't be dreaming. The medication, the antipsychotics they were giving her, would prevent dreams and hallucinations. And yet, dream she did. First, it was a reliving of her time in the labyrinth; meeting Hoggle, Ludo and Sir Didymus, getting bitten by the fairy, having the fierys try to remove her head. As she got older, she dreamt of Jareth: in the tunnels, in the Escher room and ultimately in the crystal ballroom. He was so beautiful and so unattainable.
Cruel, that no one believed her. How long had she been in this bed? In this ward? In this hospital? Long enough for Dr. Spitzer to have given up on 'curing' her psychosis and schizophrenia. Today, she would meet her new shrink. "Oh goody." She laughed out loud again. The door swung open and Paulette, the nurse and Philip, the orderly came in. "Time to remove your restraints so you can perform your morning absolutions and go to meet your new psychiatrist." Paulette was pleasant but Philip was a bastard. She scowled at him, remembering him fondling her breasts and touching her womanhood through her panties. She hated him but when she reported him, they didn't believe her. Yes, very cruel indeed.
She ate the bland oatmeal they gave her and drank the orange juice, using it to swallow the pills they made her take: the pills that didn't help. They made her feel lousy, groggy and fuzzy in the head. She struggled to remember things but all to no avail. As she sat in the new shrink's office, she felt an uncontrollable urge and decided to act on this impulse. "I wish that Jareth, the Goblin King, would come and take me away…right now!"
The door to the office swung open and the doctor walked in. Sarah looked at him, first in shock, then in complete awe and finally with the biggest smile she had smiled in the eighteen months since she'd been locked away. He was tall and slender with pale blond hair and crystal blue eyes. He smirked and spoke in a clear, warm baritone with just the hint of a British accent. "Hello, Precious. Are you ready to come home now?" She leapt into his open arms, kissed and was kissed back by the goblin king.
"Jareth, take me home." And, as the pair faded out into nothing, so did all memories of Sarah anyone had ever had.
The end