The Metallic Taste
Arthur was a little boy when he was adopted into the Kirkland family. His biological parents could not sustain feeding four children and decided to let their youngest child live with a more affluent family. For several years, the little boy with thick eyebrows, sandy blond hair and green eyes grew up to believe that he was the son Mr. and Mrs. Kirkland.
"Arthur dear, please make sure you have packed enough clothes."
"Yes Mother."
The little boy was a cherub; he was polite to those older than him and he was kind to those around him. People were awed at how such a young kid could act more adult than those around him. Mrs. Kirkland was happy with Arthur.
However when he was 8, he got separated from his "parents." For an eight-year old to get lost in a foreign country, it was a distressing experience.
The Kirkland family decided to have a vacation in Italy before officially moving out to the US. It was a week-long trip around southern Italy. The cheeks of little Arthur puffed with joy and his eyes were sparkling with excitement because it was his first time to leave Great Britain.
"Mother, how long is the trip going to be"
"Not long dear. Now are you ready?"
"Yes."
"Come here now you two. We'll be late for the flight if we dawdle here long."
Mr. Kirkland voice was serious but he too couldn't hide his own excitement to have a voyage with the family.
The airplane ride was making Arthur edgy. He could feel his chest tighten but his mother gently held him close. Slowly, the child was drowsing throughout the journey. Once the plane touched down and all passengers already at the arrival area, the little Englishman wore a very wide grin. Mr. and Mrs. Kirkland were happy too that their boy was happy.
However, the happiness was short-lived.
On the third day of the trip, while the family was being toured to different vineyards, the boy with bushy eyebrows and green eyes disappeared. A frantic Mrs. Kirkland called the authorities and a furious Mr. Kirkland was about to punch anyone because of what happened. The patriarch was feeling frustrated.
Meanwhile, Arthur Kirkland was exploring a village outside of the vineyard they were visiting. His eyes were filled with glee as absorbed the scenery around him. He couldn't speak much Italian; he only basic phrases and sentences but even so, he enjoyed listening to the conversations of the people that he passed by. When the sun had set, the little boy felt frightened for the first time in his life. He realized that he walked too far and he didn't know where he was. A pang of realization hit him as he felt his stomach growl, asking for food: he had not eaten anything since lunch time and he was very hungry.
Aimlessly, Arthur walked around the place, looking for someone who could help him. His tiny feet were getting tired and fatigue was washing over him. He was also thirsty; his mouth and throat were dry. He could also feel his lips chapping because of dehydration. The little boy was already at his limits. Before he knew it, he collapsed in front of a bungalow house and a boy around his age found him lying on the ground.
For the next three days, Arthur Kirkland lived with the Vargas family. The grandfather can understand English but the man had difficulty speaking the language so communicating with the boy was a little hard.
During the boy's stay with the family, he was amazed at how the elderly man was the only one taking care of his grandchildren. The eldest grandchild was Lovino and the youngest was Feliciano. The family worked for the vineyard at the opposite end of the village. Arthur did not say yet that he might have come from there because he was curious about these people. They were different from city-dwellers in London who were being chased by an invisible being. These people moved through the life at their own pace.
"I'm not fucking well with speaking English, it's a shitty language anyway but your parents might be worried about you."
"…"
"I don't know what a father and mother is like but you should already damn leave this place. From your mannerisms, you're from the city."
One night, Arthur was sitting at the patio and watching the stars. Lovino sat beside him and both began a conversation. At first Arthur was appalled at how the other boy was trying to shove him out of the house but when he looked into the eyes of the other person, he saw sadness and longing. It will be rude if he asked about where the child's parents where. So the little gentleman quietly sat and continued to watch the stars.
"Big Brother, it's time to sleep."
"Let's go Feli…"
Arthur's attention was diverted when the younger brother Feliciano called out to Lovino. Both were speaking in Italian and the only word that the blond understood was sleep and time to go or something similar. When he was left to himself, he pondered about what it would be like to have a sibling.
The following day, Arthur said his farewell to the family. Mr. Vargas was kind enough to offer the boy a ride to the city and it was the last time that the little boy of the Kirkland household saw the Vargas boys. When both were already at the city's police station, Mr. and Mrs. Kirkland were waiting there, eyes puffy from lack sleep and/or crying.
"ARTHUR!"
Both called out to the boy and hugged him tight.
"Thank you, thank you Sir. How can we repay you?"
"No, no need. Such good child, you are wonderful parents."
Arthur watched as his father and Mr. Vargas exchanged words. His father was insisting to give some form of reward to the elderly but the Italian vehemently refuses. Mr. Vargas hurriedly left in fear of being offered something more but before he left the vicinity, Arthur saw a curt nod directed to him and he replied with a smile.
After resting for one whole day, the family returned to Great Britain. Unlike the trip to Italy that was filled with excitement and delight, the trip back home was solemn and a dread-like emotion was hanging over. Even Arthur could feel the distance between him and his parents despite the fact that they were sitting close to each other. When the family arrived inside the house, Mr. Kirkland retreated to his study while Mrs. Kirkland was busy taking out their luggage and segregating clothes that need to be washed and clothes that were still clean.
The little boy wanted to share his experience to his family but seeing that they were ignoring him, he went to the library of the house. It was not an extensive collection but there were books that were intended for children to complicated books about quantum physics and philosophies from different eras and centuries. Arthur took out a colorful hardbound book and he silently began to read.
The leaves were green because of chlorophyll.
The seas and oceans look blue because of their reflection of the earth's atmosphere.
Blood was red because of the oxygen being carried by RBCs (red blood cells) and blood has a distinct taste of rust.
The day ended with Arthur being left to his own self in the library. He was not called for and he continued to read the books until he felt his eyes dropping. The blond boy was in an uncomfortable position when Mrs. Kirkland saw him but the woman let him be and went to bed.
The next days were only filled with iciness. There was lack of interaction between the family members and this went on until they all immigrated to the US. The moment that the family landed on the country, Arthur Kirkland no longer existed. He was referred to as a series of numbers. Instead of heading to a homey place filled with sunlight and well-placed fixtures, he was sent to a room with metallic walls and sunlight did not enter the place.
"Finally I will stop playing mother to a child I barely know."
"That's the point. We are scientists and any emotional attachment will not do us any good."
The shine inside the eyes of Arthur slowly diminished as the days of being locked-up began to increase.
At first the little boy was asking about his parents; when he would be allowed to go outside. However the people around him didn't give a reply, much less talk to him. Seeing that nobody was talking to him, he kept his mouth shut and let hands stick needles into his body, probe his innards and whatever they needed to do to his body.
He lost track of time. His body became a property of science.
"Is there any progress?"
"There is progress but it is not statistically significant."
These sentences were commonly exchanged by the people who visited Arthur's cell. Green eyes were lifelessly watching the events around him as time moved on. For years, this was the only life that Arthur knew about: being experimented on.
However on his eighteenth birthday, "MOTHER" came and visited. It was the first in many years that the now adolescent man saw the other.
"Hello Arthur, how are you?"
"…"
"Do you know why you have been chosen? You are here because of your family's history. Every generation, there is a member of your family who becomes schizophrenic. According to our analyses, among your siblings, you are the most predisposed to the illness. I know you're a bright boy and you understand what I'm saying."
Arthur only nodded at what the woman who once claimed to be his mother was speaking.
"We are trying to induce your development to the illness and try to carefully examine you at how you will cope with it. We hope to find out if we can finally find a cure for the illness."
When the woman left, something inside Arthur broke into shards. He wondered if there really was a God or a Divine Being out there because he had to ask this Entity, "What did I do to deserve this kind of life!?"
Four years later, seeing that the experiment was not making any progress, the laboratory had to shut down. The scientists were trying to think of a way to dispose of the subjects. Killing them was not an option; so the only thing left to do was to have these people committed to an institution. Instead of lumping them to the same place, they were scattered across the country. The scientists known as Mr. and Mrs. Kirkland returned to their roles and had Arthur institutionalized to the Behavioral Unit of WW Hospital.
The day when Arthur entered the white halls he accidentally bit his tongue too hard and it bled. It really was true that blood tasted like rust. Since that day, the new building became his cage. The days of his childhood were long gone; his mind was slowly mudding his various conscious thought processing and he was also loosing grip of reality. Even if he did get out of this new cage, he will be forever stuck inside the cage known as mind, an eternal prison that will go haywire at any moment even with medication.
"You son of a bitch, didn't I tell you that you do NOT have schizophrenia?"
"Then what do you call my illness?"
"Are you an idiot? What you are going through is medically induced. What a dimwit."
"Medically induced?"
"Yeah, don't trust that doctor… he's feeding you the reason of your stay here."
Arthur's eyes widened when he looked at the person across him. His delusions were getting worse by the day and he was slowly losing his ability to think clearly. There were good days when he could be normal but the days when his illness gets the better of him, it was difficult to handle. Rather he didn't know that he had these episodes. He only knew that it happened because he was told so.
'… Then just die…'
END.
A/N:
Thank you for sticking with me until now. To my dear readers who took time to read this work, to the people who reviewed, alerted, favorite, you have my gratitude. This was an experimental fic born from a muse that was obsessed with mental institutions settings. Anyway, I'm planning to intern at a behavioral ward soon and maybe I'll update this story or revise it some way such that it will really fit to what it really a mental institution is like.
To those wondering what I do in RL, I am an undergraduate psychology major ;)
It might seem that having schizophrenia is hopeless but it can be curbed to a certain point. By that I mean that there really are medicines that can help ease the symptoms but not cure the illness itself. There are also side-effects to these medicines such as developing OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder).