The Carnival

The pills had finally faded the image of my son’s face from my mind. Instead, Willy’s familiar circus played in my mind when I slept. I was usually trapped in the cages with the other animals, trained and disciplined by the ring masters in white scrubs. I liked watching the other animals perform. Like the elephants who would stampede in a circle while I dreamt that one day they would barrel towards the walls of the tent and cave it in on all of us. The tigers that leapt through the rings of fire especially mesmerized me, as the flames licked at their fur and danced in their eyes. But the snakes the ring master’s kept in the bucket– I hated them. They tried to hypnotize them into dancing. I knew you couldn’t train snakes. But they tried so hard keep them subdued, happy, and alive. Why they cared so much about the snakes and why they kept them around, I stopped questioning a long time ago.

Willy the clown liked to visit me outside of my dreams too, when we weren’t both stuck in the circus tent. Usually crawling out from under my bed, he dressed in his baggy stripped pants and dirty yellow shirt. His makeup seemed to drip from his face leaving streaks of old cosmetics on his top. I didn’t like his red lips, the way they seemed too big, too wide, stretching too far towards his ears. But he was my friend, always giving me good advice and keeping me company while I was trapped in this circus.

Willy startled me awake from these dreams by sitting at the end of my bed one night. As I sat up, he scooted closer to me. I couldn’t make out his eyes in the dark– his makeup made it look like he had two shallow black holes instead. He preferred to talk to me when it was dark, since he hated the nurses even more than I did. My ward usually called lights out at 9 p.m. and Willy would usually visit me every night soon after that. Lately he had been getting bolder and visiting me outside of my room though.

“Tom,” He whispered. “Tom, have you been doing what I said?” I nodded, and he bobbed his head along with me.

“No meds…” I said.

“No meds, right. The nurses?”

“Don’t know. I put them in my sock and flush ‘em.” Willy laughed, patting my leg.

“Genius, despite being here,” He gestured around us. “Get some sleep, Tom. It’ll be soon, you know. The nurses will see you’re serious. You’ll get out soon.” He hopped off the bed and slithered underneath it. Willy, the more I thought about it, was probably my best friend. He was the only person whose name I could remember, anyways. I trusted him more than anyone as he wanted to help me get in contact with my son and get out of this hospital. More than the nurses and doctors anyways, who only pretended to be concerned with my health and happiness.

A few nights ago, Willy had brought up a good point. I had come here a year or two ago– my son dropped me off and I walked in. He said I would get better. That after a while I would come home, and my brain wouldn’t be so confused. That he would call me and update me on his home search and relationship with this girl he liked. But then he left me here and I started the meds, and the phone never rang for me. The nurses wouldn’t let me call him either. Said something like he never left his phone number for them, and for the life of me I couldn’t remember the last four digits. I got so tired and stopped walking, not wanting to get out of bed. But they stuck me in a wheelchair, forcing me to be mobile every day even though I told them I wanted to stay in bed. They’d force me to do circus tricks like wheel around the rec room in circles­– to keep my brain active. I ate less, couldn’t concentrate, only thought of why my son wouldn’t call me. Willy said it was because the meds changed me. I wasn’t his father anymore– I was a drugged-up circus animal. Who would want to see their father reduced to that? Plus, I wasn’t his problem anymore.

I stopped taking the meds a week ago when Willy told me that. He was my best friend and I trusted him. He said we could find a phone and call my son myself, even if the nurses didn’t let me. I just had to remember his number. But to do that, I had to think clearly. Drug free.

The nurse came in the next morning to help me into my chair and give me my meds. I let her scoop me into the chair. I weighed next to nothing anymore, my muscles atrophied. But when she handed me the small paper cup with a few random sized pills in it, I politely declined.

“Tom, honey, you know the drill.” She shoved them into my hand. 

“The doctor said I didn’t need them anymore.” I held them back out to her. I needed her to leave.

“Is that right?” She popped her hip out and placed a hand on it. “Let me go find the doctor and make sure, okay?” She took the pills from my hand and left the room, muttering that our bickering needed to stop. I put her through this every morning now, making up different excuses every time.

I quickly wheeled myself out of the room once she was out of sight, going down the long hallway in the opposite direction the nurse went. I turned into the rec room and wheeled up to two men sitting at the chess table, leaning my elbows on it.

“Do you remember how to play this game?” I asked, picking up a piece that looked like a castle. One of the guys playing snapped at me and snatched the piece back.

“Just because you have dementia doesn’t mean we do.” He grumbled, making his move on the board. The other man laughed, violently slapping a few pieces off the board and across the room. The first man groaned and buried his face in his hands.

“Shit, beans!” The second man yelped, springing up and trying to gather the pieces. Several times though, he picked one up just to throw it across the room again.

“Tom doesn’t have dementia, do you Tom?” He asked once he finally sat back down. I shook my head vigorously.

“I just never learned to play.” I sat and watched them play the game for a while, holding my head in my hands. They moved the pieces around in hypnotic motions, and I stayed quiet even though I wondered how they kept the pieces straight and knew where to move them. Every once in a while, the second man would curse and flick a piece from the board and the first man would just glare at him.

“Tom!” I heard the nurse call, but I ignored her. “Tom! There you are!” She came up and swiveled my chair around.

“I was in the middle of the game,” I muttered, trying to turn back around but she held my chair with her foot.

“Well, good news Tom. The doc said you were right, and only needed to take these pills now,” She handed me a new paper cup and I looked inside. These pills looked similar to the ones in the cup earlier. Had there always been a red one though? I counted them, before realizing I didn’t remember how many I took normally. I never counted them before.

“But…” I started, and the nurse cut me off.

“Oh right, let me get you some water.” She hurried off, and as soon as she turned the corner, I slipped the pills into my hand then into my sock. The men stopped their game and watched me, but I ignored them as the nurse returned with a small cup of water. I pretended to tip the pills from the cup into my mouth and chase them with the water, before handing both empty cups back to the nurse.

“Good, Tom. I’ll make sure the kitchen ladies know to give you extra dessert today at lunch.” She winked, saying goodbye to the other men and briskly walking out of the rec room.

“What pills you got there in your sock, fuck! By the way?” The second guy asked, compulsively snapping his fingers as he tried to lean over the table and look down at my feet.

“I don’t know.” I fished them out and splayed them out on the table. He looked over them closely, then pointed to a few, saying,

“You know, I’ll give you my pudding today at lunch if I can have those ones. Beans!” His opponent groaned and tapped on the chess board.

“Take them, I don’t care.” I shrugged, and the man scooped all the pills off the table and popped them in his mouth quickly before he had a chance to throw them across the room like the chess pieces.

“Find, fuck! Me at lunch,” He said after swallowing, “and I’ll give you the pudding.” I shook my head and started to wheel away. I didn’t listen to what the man said as I left, but he seemed pleased about the extra meds.

Slowly, I wheeled towards the handicapped bathroom. Large enough for me to fit this stupid wheelchair inside, and the toilet was lower to the ground. I ignored the nurse standing outside as I approached, but he forced me to look at him as he said,

“Gotta go, huh Tom?” This was a male nurse, and I especially didn’t like the male nurses. They reminded me of my own son who drove me to this place and assured me I would be well taken care of. Who said he’d be sure to call me every week to make sure I was doing okay. Who promised he would come back and get me once he had a bigger place and a good job and could take care of me. Who said he wouldn’t leave me here to rot. Who I haven’t heard from since I got here.

“Yes, please open the door. I can go by myself, though.” The nurse nodded and assured me he would be right out here if I needed him. I rolled my eyes and pushed myself into the bathroom. A long red string hung from the ceiling, dangling a few inches above the floor, with a small tag on it that read “HELP”. I scoffed, thinking of the nurse outside the door, probably salivating at the idea of rushing in here to ‘save’ me. What a big hero he’d be, saving a handicapped man with his pants around his ankles. Wanting to take what little dignity and humanity I had left by just being able to piss by myself. I shook the image of an exhausted, mangled tiger, pissing on already soiled straw from my mind, promising to myself that I would never let myself get that low– where I would have to wear a diaper.

I heaved myself onto the toilet and relieved myself. As I turned back towards my chair, I noticed Willy had snuck in and had taken a seat.

“Oh, I didn’t notice you come in.” I said, trying to keep my voice down so the nurse wouldn’t barge in.

“No meds, right?”

“Yeah, no, I gave them to a chess player.” Willy jumped up from the chair and clapped me on the back.

“Right on, Tom! Let’s try those legs then. See if no meds are helping your muscles gain strength again. Come here,” He held out a gloved hand that had several suspicious red and black stains. Ignoring them, I shakily took it in both of mine and attempted to lift myself from the toilet seat. My legs wobbled then quickly crumpled beneath me despite Willy’s support. I yelped and tumbled, pants-less, into a heap on the cold tile floor. Willy stared down at me, his smile dissolving from his face and his dark red lips frowning deeper than I had ever seen before.

“Did you lie? Are you lying to me, Tom?” I tried to scrape myself up, pull myself onto my chair, but my arms were too weak, too shaky, so I reached up to Willy, shaking my head. But he stepped away, crossing his arms behind his back. “I don’t help liars.”

“Please,” I looked up at him, unable to maintain my dignity and even just pull up my pants. Willy sucked on his top lip, looking at me for a moment, before he pulled the red string dangling from the ceiling, smacking me in the face with it as he did. He then crept behind the door as it swung open, and the male nurse hurried inside. I could still feel his dark eyes on me even from behind the door.

“Tom! What happened?” He rushed over and helped me fasten my pants before lifting me into my chair. I didn’t answer, just stared at the door. If I wasn’t a circus animal before, now I was. Defenseless and scared. The nurse wheeled me all the way back to my room. Dejected, I let him help me into bed.

“Maybe you just need a nap, huh? Sometimes, you know, the medicine might make you sleepy.”

“The medicine, right.” I mumbled, pulling the sheets up to my chin and rolling over. The nurse walked quietly out of the room, shutting the door with a slight click.

I was startled awake a few hours later by the female nurse from this morning as she slammed the door and her nasty nurse shoes clipped the tile.

“Lunch time, Tom. Didn’t think you’d want to miss it.” She crossed over to the side of my bed, pulling the covers from my clamped hands. “I heard, too, about your little mishap in the bathroom earlier.” At this I sat up, pursing my lips.

“It wasn’t a mishap.”

“Well, whatever it was, the doctor mentioned that maybe it’s time we started different underwear instead of trying to use the bathroom anymore?” I heard it as a statement.

“No. It wasn’t anything.” The image of the tiger played across my mind again and I shivered.

“Tom, falling off the toilet isn’t nothing…”

“I didn’t fall off the toilet.”

“Nurse Harry said…”

“I didn’t fall.”

“Well, you know you can have him go in there with you. Just like I lift you off the bed, he would lift you onto and off of the toilet.” I snapped my mouth shut and shook my head. “Well, those are your two options. I’m sorry you don’t like them.” She stared at me for a moment, chewing her bottom lip. “Let’s get you to lunch and continue this conversation later, okay?” She held out her arms for me to take. I refused, so she wrapped her arms around me anyways and placed me in my chair. She started to wheel me out of the room, but I swatted her hands away and said I could do it myself.

Once she left, I heard Willy scrambled out from under the bed. He seized control of my chair and I let him. I’d rather be in the hands of my friend than that of the nurse trying to force me into diapers. My nap had given me time to reflect and forget about him not helping me in the bathroom.

“How’s about we try to find the phone now, huh Tom?” I nodded, not having an appetite anyways. “How are those numbers coming along in your head?” Willy patted my head and wheeled me around the ward, skipping the lunchroom and the rec room. I pursed my lips and scratched at an age spot on my cheek.

“I think, if I remember…” I knew I used to have a trick to remember his number. It was similar to mine, yet slightly different. 7788? No, no, that was mine. Willy kept walking me around the ward as I thought, and I didn’t pay attention to where we were going. 7887? Maybe, seemed familiar, and yet not quite right. Willy patted my head again. A phone rang in the distance.

I snapped out of my thoughts and looked back at Willy.

“You hear that too?” I asked. Willy nodded, wheeling me down a long hallway faster now, towards the sound. “Maybe it’s him?” I muttered, biting my lip and straining to listen for the phone ringing. We came upon a set of double hospital doors, and Willy kicked them open and quickly pushed me inside. The ringing was louder now. We stopped outside of someone’s room.

“In there, I think.” Willy noted, putting his ear against the door, then peeking inside through the window. “Yeah, I see it.” The ringing stopped.

“Why is it in someone’s room? This is the higher security ward, why do they get phones and the rest of us don’t?”

“They are so drugged up here, they never get out of bed, Tom. They couldn’t use the phone if they tried. And this way the nurses don’t have to move them to get to the phone. Duh. The numbers?” Willy explained as he tried the door, then knocked gently. If they were so drugged up would they be able to answer the door?

“I… I don’t know them, Willy.” He turned back around to me. I heard a large thud and scraping against the floor. Moments later there was scratching on the other side of the door, and occasionally the handle would jiggle. My blood ran cold.

“Seriously? Tom, are you taking this seriously? Do you even want to talk to your son?” Willy knelt down in front of me now, grabbing my face in his cold hands. I wanted to wheel away, but my hands lay as limp and useless as my legs. The scratching at the door picked up pace. I could barely make out random noises the person behind the door was making– animalistic groans.

“That nice gentleman behind that door is willing to let us use his phone. He mustered whatever strength he has left to crawl over here and is trying to open the door. Am I supposed to tell him, just get back in bed, my friend here doesn’t remember the number?”

“N…no, I’m trying, I just…”

“Just what, Tom? Want to become like him? A circus animal trapped in his cage?” Willy slowly licked the red paint staining his lips. “Your son could help you. You know that if you just talked to him, told him how much you hate it here, he would come get you. He’s the only thing standing between you getting better or you becoming like this guy.”  

“I haven’t, I haven’t taken my pills.”

“Sure, but you think the doctors are that stupid, Tom? The food. The water. It all has to be polluted. Why would they be so eager to give you extra pudding? Why, even after not taking meds for like a week now, are you not feeling any better?” Willy’s eyes were darker now, and I couldn’t tear my gaze away from his hollow face. The man behind the door whined, his scratching incessant.

“Tom, I want you to get out! You’ll end up like him if you keep guzzling down all the shit the doctors say is good for you. They’re going to put you in diapers, for God’s sake! How fucking old are you!” Spit dribbled down his chin. Was his mouth foaming? I blinked a few times, trying to clear my vision but it seemed the lights kept getting dimmer. Willy dropped my face and I sunk back into my chair, shaking.

“You were my friend…” I faintly said.
“I am your friend. I’m trying to help you. If I have to scare you to make you believe me, I will. You need to get out, all you have to do is remember four numbers, but you can’t even do that!” Behind us, the door to the ward clicked and opened, a breeze of fresh air rushing in to cool the sweat prickling the back of my neck.

“Tom! What are you doing in here?” The female nurse. She would surely put me in the diapers now just to punish me. She turned my chair around to face her. “Are you okay?” Her eyebrows scrunched up as she looked at my face. Willy had gone. The hallway was silent.

“Well, I wanted to watch TV after lunch but I got confused…” She wiped my forehead, nodding along to my words.

“Well, let’s go. Do you need to go to the bathroom?” I shook my head and she wheeled me to the rec room, mumbling, “But why in the world would you go in there, Tom? You knew that wasn’t where the rec room was.” I just stayed quiet. She set my chair right in front of the TV, clicking between channels, asking me which I wanted. I didn’t want any of them, so I just stayed quiet and let her fiddle with the remote. Finally, she stopped trying to talk to me and just left, leaving the TV playing an old cartoon about a circus. I watched her leave and huddle up with other nurses, muttering quietly to each other. I knew they were talking about me.

Soon my eyelids drooped, and my head sank to my chest. I slept for a while, but when I woke up, my chair was wet. Why would someone spill water all over me while I slept? Slowly my mind cleared the post-nap fog, and I realized I was sitting in my own piss. Seriously? I heard Willy behind me laughing, but I didn’t turn to give him any satisfaction. One of the men from the chess game walked in, stopping at the doorway to burst out in laughter.

“Fuck Tom!” He started quickly snapping before running out of the room, screaming how I’d shit and pissed myself in front of the TV. I just sat there, frozen in my own excrement. I could hear several people running in my direction, only a few being the nurses. Other patients loomed in the doorway, giggling and pointing. I was a circus freak show.

“Oh no, Tom. Let’s go get you cleaned up, huh?” That same nurse pushed me past the other patients and back to my room. She said I didn’t have a choice anymore, if I wasn’t going to tell her when I had to go. She cleaned me up while I laid on my bed, motionless. Then she pulled the diaper up and over my hips. She told me she was going to have my chair cleaned, but for now I should probably just rest, and she would bring me some dinner later. I just pulled the covers up to my chin, listening to her take my chair, my dignity, and my freedom out of the door with her.

“You’ve done it now,” He began. Willy. I squeezed my eyes shut so hard I started seeing stars. “Tomorrow their gonna lock you up next to our friend with the phone. Can’t walk by yourself, can’t take a piss by yourself, can’t remember four numbers. What can you do, huh, Tom?”

“Go away.” I whispered, hugging the blanket around my shoulders.

“I’m just saying, as your friend. You really gotta think and try a lot harder to get better.”

“What else can I do? I’m doing everything you’ve said.” I cracked one eye open, seeing him sitting in the armchair beside my bed. My son should be there instead of Willy. My son should be helping me get better. I should be with him in his new house instead of rotting here in a diaper.

“Well, you can’t take anymore pills, you got that down. No dinner now, you know. All the food they give you is laced.”

“Laced with what?”

“Laced with whatever shit they used to take away your legs and your memory, and now! Now Tom, you’re sitting in shit! Literally! They’ve ruined your life. It’ll only get better if you remember your son’s number and get out. As soon as you step out the doors of this mental hospital, you’ll breath in fresh life. You’ll skip down those steps. I promise you.” I could almost feel the fresh breeze against my thinning skin. “Get some rest, Tom. Tomorrow I’ll show you. You can’t live like this. You know that.” He crawled under the bed and went quiet. I laid in bed and stewed in his words. He had a point. Willy was smart and he wanted what was best for me– his friend. And he was right, I couldn’t live like this.

The nurse tried to pry me out of bed to go to dinner, but I refused. She brought me a tray of food to my room, but I let it sit and get cold on the table. I wouldn’t dare touch it. I needed to remember. I needed to get out of here more than I needed to satisfy my stomachs growling. She came back in a half hour later and expressed her disappointment in me, that the doctor was getting concerned with my sudden decline. She handed me a cup of pudding.

“You have to eat this, at least. You have to, Tom.” I promised her I would, just so she would leave me alone. I gingerly held the pudding and for a moment I almost caved. I wanted to slurp it down, my stomach turning over and over itself. As the door clicked shut behind the nurse, Willy emerged from under the bed. He took the pudding from my hand and gazed into it.

“Look, look here,” He pointed to the side of the cup. I couldn’t see anything, but I nodded anyways. “They crushed up your medicine and mixed it in. You eat this and they win. They keep you confined to this bed and that diaper. Plus, forget ever calling your son.” He turned and dumped it in the trash can beside my bed, wadding up tissues to place on top so the nurses wouldn’t notice.

For days it went on like this. A nurse would haggle me about eating and getting out of bed, but I’d ignore them. All I wanted was to remember four stupid numbers and I couldn’t. The medicine had already eaten away at my brain enough, I decided. The nurses would bring in food and sit with me, telling me to eat. I’d spit out anything they tried to force in my mouth. At one point, the doctor came in with his clipboard, chewing on the end of his pen while he asked me questions.

“What’s going on, Tom?” “You’re refusing to take your medicine, huh?” “Well, why won’t you eat?” “Let me talk to the nurses and we’ll see what we can do for you.”

Eventually they put me on an IV. I would tear it out when the nurses left, Willy encouraging me from under the bed. Other than that, he left me alone now. I was too tired and discouraged to put up with him, and I think he got the hint.

Finally, a nurse came to speak with me. A week after they put the diaper on, and a few days into the IV.

“Tom,” She began, sitting at the end of my bed. I was too weak to sit up and look at her, so I just listened. “Tom, what do you want?” She patted my leg and paused for a beat, probably hoping I would answer. She continued, “We want you to be comfortable. We want you to be healthy. You’re working against us. Please tell me what you want so I can help you.”

“My son.” I croaked. My throat was so dry.  

“None of the nurses have been able to contact him. We’ve tried, Tom. I promise you. Have you thought that maybe he doesn’t want to be contacted?”

“My son,”

“Tom,” She heaved a sigh. “Do you remember when you first came here? Why you came here?” I wouldn’t reply. “I know it’s been two years, and it’s gotten hard for you to remember things. But Tom, your son called before he dropped you off. A week before. I know you probably don’t remember but he said you had gotten violent and too consumed with the characters in your head.”

“So?”
“He told us he didn’t want contact with you after you came here. He wanted you to be protected from yourself, and he wanted distance. We’re trying to make you comfortable here, Tom. Happy, if we can. Your son, he’s trying to move on. I’m sorry.”

“Can I call?” The nurse ran her tongue across her lips and sighed again.

“If you will let me put you in your chair, and eat something for me, I will let you call him. But I can’t promise he will answer. We’ve been trying this whole week to get in contact with him, but he hasn’t answered.” I thought for a moment and could hear Willy growling from under the bed. If I could just call my son this once, I wouldn’t have to listen to Willy anymore.

“Ok.”

The nurse spoon fed me pudding. It was gritty. For sure my medicine was crushed up and mixed in. Willy wasn’t wrong about that. But now I didn’t have to remember the numbers or sneak around. After finishing the pudding, she put me in my chair and wheeled me to the rec room. All the other patients fell silent and watched as she took me over to the phone and punched in some numbers. I watched her fingers carefully. The beginning of the number I recognized as my old number. The last four, 7871. How could I have forgotten. Four numbers.

Then the phone rang for a long time. Then the line went dead. The nurse hung up the phone and redialed. 7871, ringing, ringing, dead tone. She huffed, glancing over at me before trying again. 7871, ringing, ringing, ringing, someone answered.

“Can you stop fucking calling this number?” My son’s voice. The nurse quickly took the phone off speaker.

“Sir, Mr. Harrison, your father, is wanting to speak with you. He’s been having a hard time here recently.” She smiled down at me, listened for a second, then passed the phone to me.

“Hello?” I croaked.

“Are you dying?” My son asked.

“I don’t know.”

“I’m remarried. And she’s pregnant.”

“Oh.”

“Well, if you aren’t dying, why are the nurses calling me so much? They’ve called like three times every day this week.”

“Maybe I am.”

“I’ll be there to get your body when you do. But stop calling.”

“I love you,”

“You’re crazy.” The line went dead. I handed the phone back to the nurse. She smiled, probably thinking the phone call ended better than it had. She wheeled me back to my room and put me back into bed. In a few hours, she would be back to feed me dinner.

I hardly slept that night. Despite finally eating and drinking again, my mouth was so dry, my tongue like a rock scraping across my chapped lips. I groaned and tossed and turned, my stomach grumbling, complaining about the sudden reintroduction of food to my system. My head began to gently pound as the sounds of a circus banging around my head and stomach began. I buried myself under my covers, sticking my fingers in my ears.

I envisioned the elephants ram the inside of my head, hitting right on the temples and along my hairline with their sharp tusks. Their huge feet stamped the veins in my head, restricting the blood and making me lightheaded. I could only lay there helplessly. Then I felt the scaly snakes slipping down my throat, scraping against my dry pipes, their tongues flicking out like little bursts of flame licking at the lining of my esophagus. They choked me and I gagged, desperately trying to generate any spit that I could swallow and wash them down. Inside my stomach I knew the ring masters had set up their rings of fire and were conducting tigers to make the leaps over the flames. With every flick of the ringmaster’s whip, the tigers grew angrier, and I felt them dig their obscenely sharp claws into the lining of my stomach.

I lurched up and over the bed, dry heaving and coughing. In the dark, I saw snakes erupt from my mouth and hit the floor, slithering quickly under the bed before I had time to blink. The elephants in my head started stampeding, ramming the walls of my skull over and over until finally, I sunk back onto the bed and passed out, my vision going white.

Willy woke me up the next morning. He was dressed up in a suit. I sat up and rubbed my eyes, almost laughing at him. What an odd sight, a clown in a suit. His makeup had been touched up, too. My tongue was glued to the bottom of my mouth and my throat felt swollen. Willy hopped off the bed and offered me his hand. Reluctantly, I took it. Last time he had let me fall. Something felt different this time though. Willy seemed happier, brighter. The room wasn’t dark like he normally liked. In fact, it was brighter than I had ever seen it. What a lovely morning.

He helped me slide my legs over the edge of the bed. I hesitated, but he nodded and urged me forward. In the next moment, I was standing up next to him. The grin on his face was unnatural, stretching much further towards his ears than normal. But I was standing. I took a confident step forward, Willy letting me go. He was right. I had stopped taking my pills, and I had finally been able to talk to my son. The nurses had finally taken me seriously.

Together we slowly walked out of my room. I glanced down the hall but didn’t notice any other patients or nurses. Willy must’ve noticed my confusion, as he assured me they were all just still sleeping. I believed him. How could I not trust him after I was actually walking now? After I had finally gotten the call I wanted? We made it to the front doors, and in a moment we were outside. The sunlight burned my eyes. I couldn’t remember the last time the nurses had let me come outside.

I fell to the dirt, my body heaving with refreshed sobs. Finally, I was free. No more chair, no more diaper, no more nurses. I tore out handfuls of grass and smelled them, breathing in the sweet smell. New life, just like Willy had said. I sat there for a while, until Willy helped me up and told me we needed to go. A sleek black car had pulled up to the front steps of the hospital, and my son stepped out. His face was fuzzy and I couldn’t make out his facial features. But it was him. I know it was him. He opened the back door to the car and we all stepped in. We all pulled silently away from the mental ward.

The nurse found Tom’s body the next morning, not expecting to see his pallor face, mouth agape, lips cracked and bloodied from lack of moisture. She sighed, having known it was coming, but didn’t realize it would be that morning. He had finally started to eat again. But still after the phone call he had seemed dejected– ready to die. She called a doctor in, who held Tom’s chart.

“Ah yes, the schizo.” He chuckled to himself while he checked for a pulse, then called time of death.