Note: Okay, it wasn't a one-shot, but all of these chapters were written the same day, in a bout of insanity and confusion and caffeine abuse. They all kinda stand alone, in that you need to read Shadows to know what's going on, and they're in chronological order, but they're not really chapters of the same story. They're more like companion pieces. It may be that none of them make any sense, but I decided recently that I didn't want to ever have a piece that I considered finished that I didn't put out there. Not everything I write needs to be the best thing I've written, which doesn't mean I don't have to hold myself to a standard-but why write something that no one ever reads? I'm not going to just put out anything, but since the few people who reviewed part 1 seemed to like it, then…hey, here you go….
"I don't like it here," he says, and I can't tell if he's mad at me or himself or the other patients. "I'm not crazy."
I give him a lame smile. "Luke..."
"Han, I'm not!" He grinds a stick out angrily. "I know I have some pretty serious emotional problems, but I'm not…." He sighs. "I have a firm grasp on reality."
That's sure a matter of opinion. I've heard him go on about how he's guilty for something I can't get him to explain, how his whole life was planned out before he was born, and other weird, delusional stuff. Sure, he doesn't see things that aren't there like some of these people. He doesn't kill baby animals for fun. He doesn't have screaming fits and need to be tied down. But he's still crazy. Gods fucking know it's a kind that don't make him dangerous, except to himself, and if it weren't for the spice it might not have even gotten in the way of his life a whole lot. But the fact is, it did. So the theory is, we get Luke clean and get him therapy, and he can act like a normal person, even if his particular brand of crazy never goes away. He can make it day to day, which I guess is a lot more than you can expect for a lot of the people in here. Some of them haven't spoken in twenty years. Some of them can't speak without insulting someone. Some of them speak to imaginary friends. Luke just speaks like someone in a bad mood, all the time. If there's such thing as a "normal kind of crazy," I think this might be it.
Luke lights another soft stick with trembling hands, seconds after finishing the last one. I guess it's how he's dealing with withdrawal. He's actually doing a lot better. A week ago he could barely stop tearing at the sheets and sobbing, it hurt so bad to be sober. His body was punishing him for years of abuse, and then suddenly taking away the spice that he'd begun to need to even feel alive. Then one day, the real bad part was over, and now he's just sad and weak and pissed as hell, his fingers shaking slightly as he chain-smokes, his eyes still sunken and dim but at least they're dry. He's been able to sit up and to walk short distances, and he seems to spend most of his time in the game room of the mental ward, the only place they'll let him smoke. He knows he's going to be hardly allowed to smoke at all when he goes to the rehabilitation clinic, so I think he's trying to take advantage of it while he can, which is really only gonna make it harder when he has to cut back. "What?" he asks, meeting my eyes. "You don't think so?"
I sigh, "Kid…I think…I think there are a lot of different ways to be crazy."
He clenches his jaw. "Yeah, well…. I'm not saying I'm not depressed. But I don't belong here."
"You'll be out soon."
He smirks. "And then I'll have a whole building full of drug addicts to deal with. Which will be a lot better."
"They'll be people who can relate to what you're going through."
"I don't like people."
I laugh openly. Sometimes he says weird, angry, hostile things that have got to be ironic because who would say something like that in all seriousness? I don't know if he's trying to be funny. Maybe he's aware of the ridiculousness, but he goes ahead and says it anyway.
He looks at me with a frown, out of the corner of his eye, looking bothered by the fact that I'd laugh at his misfortune. He holds onto the frown as long as he can, taking a drag and blowing the smoke out, but then a hesitant smile pulls at his mouth. Yeah, he knows.
And damn, it is so good to know he has a sense of humor, even if it is dark.