They said that I was “resisting treatment”. That’s why I’m not allowed around the other girls anymore. Someone blabbed about me not eating, hiding my food in my napkin, which made all of the crazy nurses here believe that I was just as crazy as the nightmare had painted me to be. Someone lied about me, too, saying that I was taking pills and giving the others tips on how to trick them, but they won’t tell me who it was, even though I’m sure that I know who it was. Whenever I ask, they just tell me that I “shouldn’t worry about that, worry about getting well”. They tell me that if I don’t start gaining weight, they’ll have to send me to the nuthouse. They don’t know that I’m already in the nuthouse, I’ve been in the nuthouse for my entire life, it was just that no one knew about it. They don’t know about anything that’s happened, because I don’t talk. I don’t talk in the bathrooms in the morning, when all of the other girls are chattering while they brush their teeth, acting like this is just summer camp and we can leave anytime that we want, if we get homesick, we can just call our mommies and daddies to come and pick us up, whisk us home to where we’ll resume our normal lives. I don’t talk during meal times, I don’t talk when we’re all gathered around watching TV, I don’t talk when we’re allowed to write home and the others are wondering what their families are doing. I don’t talk in line for our weigh-ins, nor do I talk when we’re having inspection by the manly nurses that we all suspect are dykes, while many are chattering to break the awkward silence of standing around naked having other women turn us around at will. I don’t even talk during therapy- I sit and stare at the wall until the doctor gets frustrated, eventually sending me back to my room with a sigh, saying “well, maybe next week we’ll have a breakthrough. You can’t rush these things, you know.”
They told me yesterday that if I don’t start trying to work with the doctors and nurses that are “only here to help you get better” they’re going to send me to the loony bin. Then this morning, the burly nurse barges into my room, throwing my suitcase on the bed, telling me that I’m going to the psych ward, that it’s doctor’s orders. She stands in the door while I pack up my clothes- anally folding all of my clothes just so, making sure that they are creased perfectly, that they will all lay flat in my suitcase and won’t get all wrinkled. She stands there while I tiptoe into the bathroom (walking on your tiptoes makes your calves stronger- I heard that my first night here when we were all gathered around the TV, using the noise to mask us whispering about tips and tricks while all the nurses sat in the corner, looking in their Peoples and talking about the handsome new doctor that just transferred) gathering all of my shampoo and conditioner, my soap and makeup and hold it to my chest, dumping it onto my bed so that I can put it just so into my suitcase. When I zip up my suitcase, she huffs, “Are you finally done?” I bite back the many snarky comments that Miranda whispers into my ear and just nod my head, picking my suitcase up off of the bed and feeling that it is about to wrench my arm out of its socket. I look up, rubbing my shoulder, and she leans out into the hall calling to someone. I can feel the darkness descending before I even see the Nightmare walking toward me, along with another female nurse, and a male one. The male glances at me, mentally sizing me up and walks over to the bed, pulling out the rolling handle for the suitcase and pulling it off the bed.
The other female hands me my book bag while I stand in the door, scared, deerintheheadlightseyes staring straight at my Nightmare. I want to scream, I want to run down the hall and tell people what he did to me, tell the nurses to get him the hell away from me, remind him that he’s not supposed to be within five feet of me. And then I remember dinner times back in The Past when he sat there, his feet propped up, pushing the food around on his plate, bragging about his friend the Sherriff, calling to tell him what a good job he did on such and such investigation; recommending that he take the new spot on such and such committee; offering to send him to this and that academy so that he could be a “specialized” officer. Even if I said something to one of the nurses, he would just smile and say that I must be delusional. He did it so many times when I was growing up that I could almost tell which smile he would use- number 34 his “I’m Just Being A Happy, Helpful Father, I Know I’m Indulging Her, But She’s My Little Girl And Wouldn’t You Do It, Too?” I knew that smile. I hated that smile. I hated him.
I stare at him, at his wolf smile, at his eyes that were like mirrors, reflecting back at you the ugliness that he saw inside of you (and he saw ugliness inside of everyone. Everyone was equally ugly in his eyes. They say that Justice is the great equalizer, but in my mind it was really only because they had never seen My Nightmare’s eyes.) I feel Miranda herself cowering in the back of my mind- she was never quite comfortable around my Nightmare. She didn’t like anyone but herself inflicting pain on me, and she didn’t know quite yet how she could utilize the pain that he inflicted on me to make my pain exponentially worse. I could hear a high keening in the back of my head, like when you get hit in the head and your ears ring. The nurses were all getting closer to me, my nightmare still grinning at me like a wolf ohgrandmawhatbigteethyouhaveallthebettertoripyoutoshredswithmydear. I could feel the male nurse pinning my hands behind my back, the females running down the hall toward the nurses station, their jackets flapping like angel wings behind their backs, the doctor running, running toward me like a knight in shinning armor brandishing his sword, coming to save the princess from the dragon, not it’s not a sword, it’s a needle, the end glinting in the florescent lights, making it shine like Arthur’s Excalibur. I scream and scream and scream, the teeth are getting closer, closer, and they’re going to rip me to shreds, rip me, kill me and bury me in the backyard like a dog with a bone. They’re going to kill me, they’re not going to stop this time, I’m dead, I’m dead, I’m dead. I feel something cold sliding through my veins- is this Death? Is this the feeling that people get before they die? I thought that I would greet Death like an old friend, sitting and talking to him for awhile, whydon’tyousetawhileandrestyourfeetitmustbehardrunningaroundtheworldallthetime, what took you so long, sir? I’ve been waiting for you. Take my hand; take me off to Never Never Land. It’s getting colder, the edges of my vision are getting black, and I’m slipping, slipping, slipping……
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