Chapter One - The Owl

It struck me as hypocritical. The Amherst Institute trained the staff to refer to themselves as "helpers" and, the patients, "clients". A narrative that the prescription circuit - what Chase liked to call the pill drop- dismissed with its sterile walls. It was my guess that they wanted us to see the downers we swallowed back strictly as controlled meds. Every capsule counted and every swallow and palette watched with a hawk's eye. No stock-piling for a long sleep or cigarette bartering.

"Good morning, Sarah. Did you sleep well?" Lucille, the heavy nurse on duty behind the security screen smiled wide. It made the thick powder around her cheeks crack into fine lines. Bullshit niceties that all the pill dispensers asked. At least Lucille made a point to give me a smile that reached her eyes. Appearing sincere was almost as good as the real thing.

I took the polka-dotted dixie cup of water and the white, coated Xanax with a half-hearted shrug. "I woke three times, but only to go to the bathroom. I guess it can't be helped when you have the bladder the size of a peanut." I had been sleeping better. It was god's truth. What wasn't worth mentioning was that I never dreamed anymore. Or that since the "incident" aka The Amherst Institute's advanced treatment, I woke up every morning having to storm my memory on who and where I was. All that mattered to the doctors and board of directors was that my updated file read "mood stabilized". That isn't to say that I was particularly aggravated by their detached parameters of success. Pointing out the little hypocrisies and sad ironies of mental rehab was a retreat from the icy numb.

"You're talking to the owner of a fifty-four-year-old bladder," she snorted. "I know all about it."

With a tip back and one half dry swallow, the deed reached my hollow belly. On an empty stomach the benzo would kick in faster and before long I would feel the decent, clear-headed calm. After breakfast I could expect the less fun lethargy and slow time drain. "Later, Lucille."

"Have a nice day!"

I passed the line of sleepy-eyed, scrub wearing "clients" but I didn't see Chase or Emily. My footsteps echoed out an imbalanced base to the stairwell. It didn't completely tune out the fists banging on the doors of the mood disorder hall. Those screaming hearts didn't get the privilege of lining up every morning. Nor did they take their own meds "in hand" themselves. Most of them had orderlies holding their head back while a nurse popped it down their throat for them.

Down the winding stairs, past the double swinging doors. I met with the bright fluorescent light of the cafeteria and the smell of bacon. A chalkboard sign hung from the end of the buffet sneeze guard. It confirmed the hot breakfast special: eggs, bacon, Texas toast, and ham steaks. My mouth watered as I piled my tray from each hot plate. Any change up from corn flakes, fruit, and yogurt had to be a good omen.

"Hey Sarah! Sarah! Over here!" Chad was leaning into his scrambled eggs to wave me over. I was thankful he never left time for me to stare dead-eyed into the array of tables and patients for a familiar face. Not that he had to extend much of an effort to stand out. His green eyes were large for his angular face. His auburn hair was a massive cowlick that looked blown out with static electricity at the ends.

I scraped a chair out across from him. "TGIF."

"For real. I don't think I could stand another episode of Golden Girls." On Fridays, Boomer patients were directed to art therapy shop so the recreation room, and by proxy, the HD television, was open to us corrupt youths. Cable only of course, and not even movie channel expansions. The staff said streaming would activate choice overload anxiety.

Emily's tray clatter down next to mine. The smell of her unwashed, blond hair was pungent and her eyes puffier and more bloodshot under her specs than yesterday. Another paranoid insomnia spell. There wasn't a nicer or more attentive friend if you could get over her leveling hypochondria. Her voice was high pitched but shaky. "Hey, guys. Did you get your dose?"

Chad and I shared a look and returned our stares back at Emily. My first thought was that she might be angling for a cheek pocketed extra. Or she was stuck on some paranoia streak that Lucille had given her a placebo. I decided to grant her the benefit of the doubt anyway.

I raised a brow. "Of course. Since when have we had a choice?"

"Yeah, didn't you get yours?" Chad's eyes locked on her shaking hands over his raised carton of milk.

She clutched at her country biscuit and began to peel some of the golden crust sheets off the top. Her eyes stayed glued to it as she spoke. "Yeah….yeah. I did.." The biscuit became a hot waste in her hands as she peeled off the last layer separating the hard crust from the soft, doughy middle. "It's just... that I know now that the staff or - maybe it's my parents - want me to stay here for good. They're putting hallucinogens in my dose so I'll go into more fits and have more bad dreams."

My stomach swam with kicked in with long term Xanax fatigue and an inkling of something else. Dread, but for what? This is different. She looks like she's seen a ghost. Chase and I both knew this was Emily's flavor of the week irrational suspicion. Last month she was convinced that her occasional evening panic attacks were turning into full-blown heart attacks. But there was something about the way she avoided my eyes. It was like she didn't want to even face the possibility that I wouldn't believe her. As if even a hint of disbelief would isolate her completely.

"Come on Emily. The management here is reserved about our meds but I doubt they're hiding MK Ultra shit like that. You might be reacting to an adjusted mg or something," Chase said.

I admired the light of sympathy in Chase's eyes. It was becoming second nature for the three of us to treat each other like family.

"Yeah, and if that was the case, wouldn't other in-patients be complaining of nightmares? I haven't had any weird dreams." That was putting it mildly. Chase knew it, I knew it, the Institute staff knew it, Emily knew it. I wasn't capable of any dreams. Just heady darkness and the waking suspicion that one of the orderlies had come in and readjusted my sheets.

That brought her bulging, wide eyes back up to ours, but they still appeared far away. Remembering, reaching. For what? For Whom? "I know what I saw. I know what I'm capable of exaggerating in my own mind, but I still trust my eyes. A Snowy owl has been casing the institute for weeks. Seen any of those just hanging around outside of photos or like, Canada?"

My stomach dropped lower and I couldn't help crossing my arms over my abdomen as if stricken with menstrual ache. First the new feeling, negative of foreboding. now the extension into deeper, even more, physiological territory. It was frightening. "...Snowy owls? The white ones?" Inverted almond eyes piercing their amber deep enough to hear my thoughts. A black nail sharp beak. Where was this coming from?

"For real? Why didn't you tell me? That would have been a sight!" Chase exclaimed, tossing his emptied milk carton to the trash bin left of us. To an outsider it would have been hard to decipher whether he was humoring her or mocking her. The reality was, all three of us had a little bit of naive susceptibility. The thought of what should be a majestic creature turned my stomach but Chase wanted to believe. He wasn't eating overcooked bacon two corridors over from a padded room because he was society's idea of a functional adult.

"I'm telling you now. I've studied its movements and convinced one of the new nurses to give me computer privileges last recreation hour. Snowy whites gravitate to the northeast in their youth, but not when fully grown. Plus, he's been getting closer and closer to the dormitories."

My whole body turned to ice. It sounded like the hypothetical owl was watching for the patients, zeroing in on us all like prey. "Have you told anyone outside of us?" Another question occurred to me at the tail-end, as her lips quivered to answer. "And what exactly does this have to do with your microdose hallucinogens theory?"

Emily sighed and flexed her shaking fingers. "N-no it would be pointless telling anyone else. They wouldn't see it. Sorry, I guess what I'm trying to say is that I know that I saw the owl but I'm also pretty sure the owl still doesn't exist."

"Say what? So this owl is your proof that you're hallucinating?" Chase's brows drew together. "How? I mean just because it's out of normal habitat conditions or whatever doesn't mean it's not there."

"Well, that's the crux of the ongoing little mindfuck I'm trying and failing to recreate for you both...it didn't stay an owl."

I didn't think through shooting up from the table so fast. My tray of food clattered to the floor. I didn't pay mind to why my feet were power walking away from my beckoning friends and back through the swing door. All I wanted to see was the stairwell to my dorm. I didn't stop at my friend's concerned voices. I didn't stop when the elderly, aproned cafeteria employee asked if I was okay. I didn't pause to process why every step directed toward the wing of my room made me so dizzy. So dizzy that the railing became two railings. There was no time to stop what had been set in motion. All that mattered was that I get away. Memories were scarce and what I could retrieve after the "incident", fragmented. I knew the distinct taste of a bad recollection coming on. It was like pills half dissolved on your tongue. Acidic, metallic, bitter as gall.

I bent over at the top of the stairs as my body wracked with one dry heave after another. I hadn't even gotten to enjoy one slice of my breakfast Texas toast.

The door hinges beneath below the curving stairwell squealed. Erratic, thumping footfalls of Emily and Chase's advance on me. I turned.

"Sarah! What the hell?!"

"Are you okay? Are you sick?"

Both clung to my hospital gown sleeve, their faces strained. I couldn't explain something I was in the dark about. The body-mind connection is such a fragile, enigmatic thing. Counseling, regulated pill-popping wouldn't change that. Nothing could make me whole or make those episodes of memory recovery less of a shock to my system. "Maybe," I covered the next swaying dry heave with an exaggerated cough. "My stomach has been really sensitive lately.'"

They dropped their hold, but both their brows remained wrinkled. There had to be some boundaries between us. Not every secret revealed is cathartic. There is trauma in the world that can ruin a mind if it doesn't stay buried.

Emily crossed her arms and let her gaze fall to her feet. "Shit. It's something I said, right? I wasn't even thinking."

I had never been a good liar.

"Sarah?" Chase bit his lip.

I let out an exhausted sigh. "It's nothing. I don't even know what the hell I'm doing." I started back down the stairs on legs that felt like rubber, feeling their lulled eyes on my back.

Their combined hush made the clang of my footfalls on the polymer tread echo especially loud. It wasn't long before I heard the exit door edge out after me and felt their presence close behind again.

There was still ample time left in the recreation hour allotted to us. At least forty-five minutes I estimated.

Plenty of time to let my soured nerves turn to mush in front of the television. Plenty of time to repress the awful foreboding that had commenced with one mention of a white owl. An owl that may or may not be watching us all.