Smile
Arkham State Hospital is a dark building in the city center. It's funny how people act against their own instincts. Something tells you to stop but you can't. The need to know the truth seems to be stronger than the instinct of self-preservation.
I head to the window of the registry section and ask to see the file of Penny Fleck. A young fellow kindly helps me out and starts to search for the file amongst the huge shelves filled with dusty folders, all full of stories that ended in one and the same place. I feel uneasy being here.
- Can I ask you something? How does someone wind up in here?- I ask -Have they all…all the people commited crimes?-
- Yeah, some have. Some are just crazy, pose dangers to themselves and others. Some just got nowhere else to go, don't know what to do.
- Yeah, I hear you. Sometimes I don't know what to do. Last time I ended taking it out on some people...I thought it was going to bother me but it really hasn't...
- What's that?
- I've fucked up. I've done some bad shit. You know what I'm talking about, it's so hard to just try to be happy all the time...
- Hey, listen, man...I'm just a clerk. All I do is file paperwork. I don't know what to tell you. But you should see somebody. You know...programs, city services, stuff like that.
- Yeah...they cut all those!
The man seems uncomfortable.
- Alright, here it is. Fleck, Penny Fleck. Let's see…
He opens the folder and reads through the first page.
- Diagnosed by Dr. Benjamin Stoner…the patient suffers from delusional psicosis and narcisistic personality disorder. She was found guilty of endangering the welfare of her...own child...
- …
- You said she was your mother? Uhm, I'm sorry, I can't release these records without a signed authorization. If you can bring your mom here to sign, it will be much easier. I can't let this go without a signature, ok? I'm sorry...
I must have that file. I won't leave without it. I seize his brief moment of carelessness and slide my hands through the gap, pull at the folder and manage to snap it from his hands.
- HEY! Come back!
I sprint through the hospital corridor, I find an emergency exit and escape through the stairway. I run as fast as I can and stop only when I can't hear any more footsteps behind my back. I catch my breath and then I open it. It's so many pages. My eyes run across the words.
Patient: Penny Fleck…
Extremely bizarre behavior… physical abuse...
What's all this? There's so many words that I don't know, that I don't understand. I turn a few pages.
"ADOPTION APPLICATION"
My heartbeat stops. I feel like the air has been stolen from my lungs.
Parents unknown… child was abandoned…
Adopted? Then…Wayne was telling the truth. An awful sensation builds up in my stomach. My legs feel weak and I have to lean against the wall to keep myself from falling. I can already feel the laughter coming. My real parents abandoned me when I was only a baby? Who were they? It doesn't say. Why did they leave me? It doesn't say either. They didn't want me. Penny…why did you never tell me? You lied to me, Penny! Everything you told me was a lie!
My hands turn the remaining pages of the file. Attached to the adoption application is something that looks like the transcript of a dialogue between Penny and the doctor who was seeing her. As I read through it, it feels like I'm actually there, watching a young version of Penny in a white robe and a lost look on her face, speaking to the doctor.
- We went over this, Penny. You adopted him…
- That's not true. Thomas made it all up…
- You also stood by when one of your boyfriends repeatedly abused your adopted son...and battered you.
- …
- Penny, your son was found tied to a radiator in your filthy apartment, malnourished, with multiple bruises across his body and severe trauma to his head.
- I never heard him cry...he's always been such a happy little boy…
Laughter bursts out of my throat, getting louder and louder. No...this can't be real...
-HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHA
Penny allowed them to hurt me! Why did she not protect me? Where was she?
-HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHA
There's a press cutting attached to the papers. It shows the image of a small boy. Is that...is that me?
"Mother of adopted child allowed her son's abuse"
"House of terror for a mother and her son"
Tears stream down my cheeks, blurring my sight. I wipe my nose with my sleeve but to no avail. I can't stop crying. I don't want to read no more. But the memories rebel and all the sudden come back to me like an avalanche. Everything that I thought I had managed to erase from my mind suddenly reappears like a ghost and becomes real. So real. I feel like I'm back there, in that awful place.
I'm once again a little boy in that ugly, dark apartment. I'm maybe seven or eight years old. I'm not sure. I only know that I'm scared. I hear the voice of a man yelling in my mother's bedroom and I hear her crying. I'm standing behind the door, hugging my clown toy. Mom gave it to me for my birthday and I take it with me wherever I go. There's punches and more screams. I'm so frightened and I run and hide under the table, covering my ears with my hands so that I don't hear. Then everything stops and I can no longer hear them. The bedroom door opens and he shows up. I can see his shoes from under the tablecloth.
-Arthur! Where's my boy?
I hug my knees, trying to somehow hide myself. But he finds me.
-What are you doing there? Come with me.
I don't trust him. He frightens me so much. I try to hide away in a corner. But he grabs my arms and pulls me out of my hiding place. I hide my face in my clown toy and start crying. When the man sees me, he slaps me and snaps the toy from my hands.
- If you cry, you won't be seeing this damn toy ever again!
- No! Please! Give it back to me…
I reach for my clown but the man laughs and hits me again. This time I land on the floor. My entire body is shaking. Where are you, mom? Help me! But mom doesn't come. The man's fingers dig into my small arms and he shakes me vioently.
- Laugh, come on, laugh! Laugh like this clown!
I try to do as he says and between the sobs, I force a small laughter.
-That's it! Laugh! Laugh harder!
I laugh and cry at the same time. I don't know what he wants from me, I only want him to let me go. Suddenly his arms lift me up and he tosses me on the couch. He grabs me by the wrists and holds me still. I can't possibly defend myself. He is too strong. And while he unbuckles his belt and pills down the zipper of his trouser, I can't do anything but crying.
- Come on, your mother will be sad if she hears you cry. You don't want to see her sad, do you, Arthur?!
- No, sir…
-Then laugh! I SAID LAUGH!
I feel the weight of his body on top of mine, I feel a terrible pain, I hear my own screams and then my sight blurrs and everything becomes dark around me.
I bend over. Between the laughter that crawls up my throat, I dry heave and throw up what little I had in my stomach. I feel as if the paper in my hands was corroding my skin and yet I hold onto the folder as if my life depended on it.
Why, Penny? Why did you allow this to be done to me?
I laugh so hard that I lose my breath. My throat burns, it feels like I've swallowed pieces of glass and they're cutting me from inside. Tears fall from my eyes and run down my face non stop. Nothing I do, whether it's laughing or crying, gives relief to the pain I'm feeling.
I've got to get out of this place.
I walk the streets hugging the folder to my chest, my face wet, laughing and sobbing. I don't even try to wipe away my tears anymore and I don't mind the looks people give me. It's as if I was in a different dimension than everyone else. Time comes to a halt. The world has stopped turning for me.
A song I heard somewhere echoes inside my head.
Smile, though your heart is aching...
I pass the same place from where I just came. I think I'm walking in circles, but I don't know for sure. And I realize that I have nowhere to go. I don't have a home to go back to anymore... I don't have anything. I'm alone. My sight is blurred. I don't understand how I haven't run out of tears yet.
Smile, even though it's breaking...
A body can't contain so much pain. The cracks finally break and I feel that inside I'm bleeding out. My chest ends up breaking. I can't stand on my feet anymore and I fall on my knees in the middle of the sidewalk. I can take no more. My body convulses in silent crying. A time comes when one no longer cries with the eyes, but with the soul.
When there are clouds in the sky, you'll get by if you smile...
Through your fear and sorrow...smile...
And maybe tomorrow you'll see the sun come shining through for you.
People pass and nobody seems to mind seeing and adult fallen on the ground, crying like a child. I look up to the sky, covered in black clouds. How can there even be a sun behind all that darkness? God, if you are there, watching me from your height, tell me...why did you put me in this world? This world that never wanted me.
Light up your face with gladness, hide every trace of sadness...
I thought that my purpose was to bring joy and laughter to people...but I don't know how to smile anymore...I only feel pain in every corner of my body. My heart is wrapped in thorns.
Although a tear may be ever so near, that's the time you must keep on trying. Smile!
What's the use of crying?
You'll find that life is still worthwhile...if you just smile...
The wind blows, sweeping the fallen leaves on its way. A little brown bird flies over and lands on the sidewalk, just a few inches away from my hand. It remains still for a second and seems to look at me. I imagine it's him who sings to me.
Smile, though your heart is aching...
Smile, even though it's breaking...
But when I reach out my hand to touch it, it scares and flies away. I wish I was like you, so I could have wings and fly far away from here...from this place of sorrow and suffering.
I am condemned, a walking dead. They teared off my lungs and yet I keep breathing. They mutilated my heart and still it refuses to stop beating. I'm trapped in this stubborn body that holds on to life. I wish I had never been born...
