Apologies for the delay!

Ok, well I think I have this mapped out till the end now, so hopefully updates might be more frequent. (A pig flies past). Well, we can hope. All four of us.

I still own nothing from 'Secret Window, Secret Garden' the book, or the film of same. Although Mort would be nice.

She didn't return to the cell for a week. A whole week Mort spent, alone in the cell. Nothing to do but stare at the walls, no one to talk to but John Shooter.

That is, if John Shooter had deigned to appear.

Mort spent the entire week alone.

Completely.

Alone.

It was driving him insane. Maybe Shooter was right. Maybe he couldn't look after himself. He spent most of his time asleep if he could manage it. God knows he'd managed it before in that damn cottage. But now, sleep escaped him as wakefulness used to. Tucked against the headboard and the wall, gazing diagonally out the window, was his default position.

I want company.

…

Anyone there?

…

"Anyone out there?"

But psychiatric-cell guards are taught not to answer the pleas of the clinically insane. Never answer the mad people; they might not be talking to you.

But Mort would talk to anybody. He was coming to a slow, painful realisation. He was completely and utterly sane.

And I can't stand it.

Being mad makes the world easier to deal with. You can live in your own little bubble of insanity; acting like a clown all day, or murdering people and then conveniently forgetting. Whatever floats your boat. It doesn't matter whatever happens in the real world because, Hey! You weren't there!

And now reality had finally pierced the misty bubble of Morton Rainey's mental state. He was finding it difficult to cope with. He could see things clearly. He could look back on the unnerving memories of his bewildering past, and remember just how confused he felt. It hadn't mattered then. But good grief did it matter now. A sane man in a mental institution. Ironically the best place to be driven mad in.

And no one would believe him.

Only the really mad ones thought they were sane.

So he was stuck.

It was Sunday night. Or maybe Monday night. Days went by as a nameless cycle of lukewarm food and daylight, followed by crisp, cold bed sheets and utter darkness. However long Mort shivered and tried to warm up himself and the sheets, they still remained cold and icy. The only tactic was to warm up in the meagre sunlight by day, and curl up in bed fully clothed every night, preserving the scanty body heat locked between his skin and his clothes. For all the world like some desert lizard.

Mort didn't feel as calm as a lizard. His head felt too small for all his thoughts, fears and paranoia's. Being sane was hard work. But it was work he was willing to do if there was just the tiniest chance he could escape this concrete hellhole.

A happy life, writing soulless romantic trash for the masses, married to Dr. Hatfield, and living in a big town house in a new neighbourhood.

The dream.

Growing old in this cell, watching life go by in seasons outside. No one listening or trusting you. Recurring visits from John Shooter just when you need to be sane.

Recurring visits from John Shooter full stop.

The nightmare.

However alone he got, John Shooter was not the answer. No, he must rise above it. Win favour with the Ghostly-Girl Dr. Carlton, and escape to a life of fast cars, loose women and trashy but money making writing. To Hell with artistic integrity.

She did come though, that 'Ghostly-Girl'. Paler than ever, with her thin pointy nose and mouse-like face and hair. It waved in flyaway strands, flouncing round her as she walked, giving her a halo every time it caught the light. An angel of salvation.

"Good morning, Mort."

She seemed to have difficulty saying his first name. She couldn't think of patients in number terms either though. Always Mr, Mrs, Miss or Ms. First names were too personal. You couldn't get that involved. If anything bad had to happen… well it was best you kept a clinical distance. Humour them. Don't make friends. You never knew when your friends would be taken away.

But Julie Carlton wasn't a numbers girl, either. She was a woman of letters. Experiment A vs. Experiment B. Letters, not numbers. Numbers were just words squeezed into another sort of letter. They couldn't name anything. No, everything was just words. Words, Words, WORDS!

Words are easy to manipulate…

"Morning."

Today he was alert. Ears pricked, eyes shiny, glossy coat. He'd even made some effort to brush his hair. For today, he felt, was the day. Step one on the Morton Rainey ladder to rehabilitation.

"So, how do we get rid of Shooter?"

Dr Carlton, who had regained some colour since sitting down, paled again. She seemed to Mort to be terminally nervous.

"Well, I think first you should agree to the use of medication to help prevent the schizophrenia you experience…"

And Mort's ears stopped listening. He wanted advice, not chemicals to shut him up.

"No!"

She leapt in her seat. He looked at her, imploringly.

"Look, I want help. Human help. Not some intoxicating rubbish that numbs my brain from dawn till dusk."

"Mr Rainey…"

"Mort"

"Yes, Mort. I have to act professionally, and so…"

"So that's the answer is it?" Mort clenched his teeth, imitating her in an impossibly high, girlish voice; "I know a way to get rid of John Shooter!" He stood up. "Bullshit!"

Dr Carlton flinched once more. She hated making people angry. She also knew, from experience that people in Mort's state of mind should not be made angry. It triggered off the nastier side.

"Mort, I think you should calm down. This will only make Mr Shooter stay longer."

Mort, who had started breathing rather too hard, and feeling a little ill at all the sudden adrenaline in his blood, sat down once more. There was a dizzying sensation behind his eyes. What was worse was that he could feel the long dormant consciousness of Shooter blinking, yawning and stretching in the back of his skull.

"Tell me how you make him go away."

"Well…"

Dr Carlton glanced at the door. It was thick and made of steel. There would be a man on the other side, beginning to wonder where his elevenses were. Most importantly though, he'd pay no attention to what she was saying, if he could even hear.

"Well… You, see I've had experience of this sort of case before."

"Really?"

"Yes. And, well, ummm. There is no permanent cure."

Mort had known this was coming. Somewhere, he must have. Maybe Shooter told him. It was like accepting an awful truth. Swallowing a big, leaden cannonball, frosted with ice. Maybe I could pretend there's a cure…

Sure you could Mr Rainey. Just like you pretend you're gonna get out of here, like your gonna marry that blonde woman in the stilettos.

"SHUT UP!"

Dr Carlton looked away. She scratched a few marks in pencil on her clipboard, and folded her legs. Mort had his eyes screwed shut, his hands squeezing the edge of the mattress till his knuckles were white. Occasionally she'd see his lips move, and sometimes he'd actually speak.

You got a good imagination, Mr Rainey. I'm a regular masterpiece. Maybe I'm better at running things than you are now? Didn't you make me up so you could pretend things were normal? I think maybe you're the 2D person now.

You don't exist!

Don't I?

"NO!"

Mort's eyes flew open, just in time to see the world slip sideways.

"Mort? Are you ok?"

He was lying on the floor, the side of his head throbbing where it hit the floor, and chest pumping up and down like a set of bellows.

"He's not, is he?"

"What?"

"Better at being a regular person than I am?"

Dr Carlton didn't answer. She knelt down beside him on the floor, and manoeuvred his broken glasses from his face. He watched her, wondering vaguely whether he should just let Shooter get on with it and start living inside his own head.

"Don't."

"What?"

"Give in to him. Also you should really learn not to think out loud."

She smiled again. It took effort. It was a smile that was really trying hard to make its wearer look happy. It almost managed it, but she still looked nervous.

"So, do you want to know how to get rid of him?"

"You said there wasn't a cure."

"Not a cure exactly. More a way of dealing with him. Sometimes, though it can be a cure."

Mort glared at her.

"What?"

The smile redoubled its efforts.

"He's your imagination, right?"

"Yes."

"Well, imagine he's not there then." That's what I did.

Mort's eyes glazed slightly in remembrance.

You got a good imagination, Mr Rainey.