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Insanity is in one's mind |
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Insanity is in one's mind
 Thud, thud... whack. Thud, thud... whack. The walls were white, completely sterile. It's how they always were. Thud, thud...whack. Well, minus the spots were the urine had stained the paint. Thud, thud...whack. There was even a spot on the floor where they had tied up one of the more extreme cases to the wall. The black boys would come in and clean the man's pants and the puddle on the floor. Thud, thud... whack. Of course, they never liked to do it directly on time. The floor had molded greatly under the guy so much that it had crumbled under him and the only thing that kept him on this floor was the fact that he was still tied to the wall. The grey tile linoleum was new in that spot. Thud, thud...whack.
He was here because of her. Thud, thud, whack! That nurse who had been there during world war II, at least. He had been simply walking down the hallway that echoed his rubber soled shoes. The three black boys who worked in this section of the ward, all sitting around with a mop bucket next to them. He had turned to leave before they saw him, but it was too late. They closed the distance to him and dragged him over, shoving the mop in his hand. He hadn't said a word as they laughed and poked fun at him. He began to mop the floor, keeping his green eyes upon the black boys the whole time. It was then he heard the click of heals. The sign of the Nurse. She was short, but her angry energy filled the room quickly and effortlessly. Her hair was grey and wiry, pulled back into a tight bun. One of her eyes was gray, a sign of blindness. The other was an ice blue that could chill you even if you had a raging fever. Even the black boys were afraid of her.
He scooted close to the wall to avoid her wrath. The black boys were doing nothing and were easy targets. He watched her as she rounded the corner. Her human like face contorting into something disgusting. She seemed to swell as she moved lighting fast towards the boys. She grabbed one of them by the front of the shirt, her mouth opened wide, either to scream or to swallow him whole. However, there was the small tinkering bell that tolled that signaled breakfast. People moved into the hallway slowly and the Nurse shifted back into her human mode. She hissed orders to the boys before she strolled off, her ice blue eye darting to him for a moment before she rounded the corner. It took him a moment to realize the boys were coming towards him. It was then he put up a fight. That's what landed him here in solitary.
Thud, thud... whack. Thank God he had a lime green tennis ball. That bounced off the floor, the wall and landed back in his hand. The door to his solitary opened. He had been denied breakfast and by the way the sun was positioned, he had missed lunch too. It was the Nurse. "To the rec room, Mr. Hansen." She ordered. Her grayed out eye slightly off from the ice one that was locked upon him. Todd Hansen stood from the floor and moved towards the door. She held out her hand, clearing her throat. Without words, he knew what she wanted. He sighed and put the tennis ball in her clawed, wrinkled hand. It closed over the soft covering of the ball before she pointed the other claw down the hallway.
The rec room was only slightly less depressing than solitary. People gathered in small groups or sat alone, simply staring out of the windows or other objects. The institute only had two groups of patients. Chronic and Acute. Todd was Chronic, only because he refused to talk or prove that he could. Acutes normally gathered together and they seemed to be the only people that would laugh, however strained it was. The chronics shuffled, their eyes lost on whatever was haunting their mind. But hey, at least there was people to listen to. Todd moved over to a table where some of the acute cases were playing a card game. They looked up at him nervously, hiding their hands from him like he might steal a card. He blinked his green eyes at them, his dark hair had been butchered by the Nurse. It would have been more noticeable if it had been brushed, but at the moment, it stood in all directions. That was when the bell of the front door opened. All eyes turned towards the door. It could have been a visitor, though there wasn't many of those for patients. Most people here had been left and forgotten. Most of the visitors were here to see their loved ones who worked in this god awful place. However, on the off chance, it could have been a new one.
The new ones always seemed to shrink against the wall, trying desperately to hide from all the eyes that were upon them. The black boys would then take the new one, or the nurse, depending on the sex of the new one. And they would be stripped down, thrown into a shower. Then as they stood there, naked and freezing, their temperature was taken the old fashion way. It was a humiliating experience, and it marked the first out of many more to come. Todd shifted his position so that he could see who was at the door.
 PrimoLevi · Fri May 20, 2011 @ 03:39am · 0 Comments |
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