Conundrum One, 2 (504 hits)
Category: NoneRating: 2 on 8 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by ripple (View user info) at 2006-05-22 14:14:59 EDT
1st one: http://www.ubersite.com/m/87744
x
Between the ages of twenty-three and thirty-eight, several important things happened to Maria. Superficially, she became unattractive: she gained too much weight and lost her teeth. Secondly, she failed to notice her pregnancy and gave birth to a daughter while in the bathtub. It was a minor miracle that Elsie did not drown. Finally, her son and husband committed her to a mental institution.
This first asylum did not try to appear beautiful. It was a drab, broken building holding drab and broken souls. No one really knew what to do to help the committed; therefore, they were treated with the dignity and respect reserved for society's dregs. Maria stayed there for twelve years, until the synapses in her brain all but ceased to fire from too much electricity and experimental therapy.
xxx
Fear is a strange and funny thing. Many fears are horribly baseless, most other simply illogical. Amy's biggest fear on her fifteenth birthday fell into the latter category. She was mortally afraid of schizophrenia. Then it seemed that the scariest thing would be to hear people speaking and not know if they weren't real. She celebrated her birthday with her friends, and wished on her unorthodox brownie for pure, life-long sanity.
x
Amy woke before dawn in her best friends house, still wearing jeans and a skewed tank top. Her breath reeked. Amy walked around and over her friends who had, for the most part, stayed where they dropped the night before. She walked into the bathroom and brushed her teeth three times, spitting furiously into the sink. It made her feel better. Walking back into the main room, she saw fragments of grey light shining through the tiny basement window. Very quietly and carefully, Amy walked upstairs and sat out on her friend's deck. Basking in the tinny, magical light, she felt so at peace . . .
When she woke up again, the sun was streaming down upon her vengefully. Almost silently, she crept back down into the dark basement filled with sleeping breath. The mysticism of the morning was gone.
x
When she went home that afternoon, Amy slept. Though she slept deeply, she would wake, startled, at random intervals. It was during one of these sudden wakings that the man stepped from behind the shadow of her lamppost, materialized from nothing. Nothing heard her wish after all.
x
Amy's crisis the next morning rivaled any conundrum ever conceived by man or god or all things undiscovered. Somehow, she had pulled the voice from her mind, remembered it vividly. She spent the day sitting in her room, facing the wall, telling herself she wasn't crazy. Half the time, she almost wanted the voice to appear again so she could find a logical reason for its existence. The rest of the time, she convinced herself that schizophrenics don't know that they're speaking to nothing; because she knows about it, she is perfectly sane. She is just a reasonable, normal girl. Absolutely.
xxx
"I can't deal with this again, do you hear me?" Elsie screams at Amy's father. "You have no idea what it does to people! She will never be right again; if, by the grace of some heartless god, the medicine makes her 'better,' she'll just be in a daze! I can't take it." Elsie breaks down crying, her mascara darkening the black circles under her eyes, Jim looks at his wife skeptically.
"What do you propose we do?" He asks Elsie calmly. He knows all of her histrionic tendencies and tries to prepare himself for Elsie's suggestion.
"We should commit her," Elsie spits out, hating herself for even thinking it. "It's the most merciful thing we can do."
"El, besides the moral implications of THROWING YOUR DAUGHTER'S LIFE AWAY, there are also monetary considerations." Elsie looks shamed, but for which reason, Jim doesn't know. Jim continues. "That nice place we have your mother? Do you have any idea how much it costs? We only make so much!"
"I can't have her in the house, Jim. Do you have any idea what it's like, as a fourteen-year-old, for your mother to chase you around the house with a butcher knife? And then, less than a year later, to find your older brother's body? You. Have no. Idea." Jim sighs. He really doesn't want to have an idea, either.
"How about this: we let them keep her here for a week or so. They can observe her, do whatever. When they give us her prognosis, we can make a decision. And you know which I'm going to favor." Elsie nods. A truce. They settle themselves into the uncomfortable chairs in the waiting room, carefully avoiding each other's eyes.
xxx
"Dawn is breaking everywhere / Light a candle curse the glare / Draw the curtains / I don't care 'cause / It's all right. I will get by / I will survive. I see you've got your list out / Say your piece and get out / Yes I get the gist of it / But it's all right. Sorry that you feel that way / The only thing there is to say / Every silver lining's got / A touch of grey."
Dr. Linus Clark rests his head on the mountain of charts in front of him. He hates his job so much. He hates the patients, the nurses, the administration. The only thing he likes about it is that no one cares enough to reprimand him for listening to Grateful Dead while he dictates. No one cares that the blaring music in the background of his dictations makes him hold his lips very close to his hand-held recorder, and no one cares that the poor transcribers in India (or wherever it is the hospital out-sources to) have a hell of a time trying to figure out what it is he's saying. They're the only ones harmed by the spitting and the harmonies, and Linus cares even less about them than he does about his patients.
He contemplates taking a nice little nap to get him through the evening shift, but the door to his office opens before he can fall asleep. 'It was a bad idea, anyways,' Clark consoles himself, 'I'd probably drool on someone's chart or something.'
"Doctor?" Linus pretends to pour over a random chart.
"Hmm . . . "
"Doctor!" Linus sighs. He recognizes that voice. It belongs to that young, overachieving resident. He thinks that Cameron's a stupid kid, too idealistic and eager. This is not the profession for him.
"What is it this time, Cameron?"
"The Jacobsen girl. There's something extremely bizarre about her."
'No there's not,' Clark thinks. "Oh really," he says, unenthusiastically. "What?"
"She says she's not crazy."
"So do thousands of other lunatics. She's as insane as the rest. Trust me on this one. This isn't 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.' Normal people don't come to be here accidentally."
"But, Doctor, you haven't seen her yet." Cameron fails to hear the apathy and sarcasm in his superior and tries to drill a sense of urgency into Clark's jaded skull.
"Fine. Never mind the dictations, I'll go look at this one damn patient." Cameron looks wounded, but follows the good doctor out of the office like a dejected puppy. The almost silent stereo echoes around the empty room as the door slams behind them:
"Oh well a Touch of Grey kind of suits you anyway / That was all I had to say / It's all right ... "
User Reviews
Submitted by Beano312003 (user info) at 2006-06-27 08:03:45 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I'm +2ing but feel I should +1, don't want to ruin the run though and I think it's just your writing style that I don't like (or can't read easily) and that ain't your fault!
Submitted by ripple (user info) at 2006-05-23 11:57:54 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by supadupapupa (user info) at 2006-05-23 01:40:06 (#)
Ranking: 2
this was nice! I really want to read the next installment, but it probably won't be out for a while, eh?
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might be sooner than you'd think- i've written more than I've posted.
Submitted by Rocktsrgn (user info) at 2006-05-23 11:16:39 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Good story. there's something about the crazies that sucks me right in.
Submitted by Stagger_Lee (user info) at 2006-05-23 03:51:11 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by supadupapupa (user info) at 2006-05-23 01:40:06 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
this was nice! I really want to read the next installment, but it probably won't be out for a while, eh?
Submitted by runswithscissors (user info) at 2006-05-22 16:35:33 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
105 hits.....2 reviews.
That is just wrong.
Submitted by MonkeyingAround (user info) at 2006-05-22 14:48:59 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
that should have said please... I think the key stuck or something... gah
Submitted by MonkeyingAround (user info) at 2006-05-22 14:48:26 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
wow...nice....*begs* more plese.