Muse's Web

This is a piece of fiction.

The patients here change just as much as the walls change their colors. I should know, I’ve been here since I was 18. This building is only 12 years my senior. I’ve seen these walls grow up and they have seen me grow up. At first the walls were an eggshell white, turned yellow over the small amount of time the building has been erected. After my first year they painted them blue with white stripes. It was supposed to be a color that calmed the patients. It seemed to work well for a while. Then the walls transferred the manic energy of the waves they somewhat resembled. It filled them with hatred. It took the staff four months to see what was causing the outbursts. They changed the color of the walls to a pale green. It seems to work well for a couple of weeks then the outbursts started again. Once again, the walls shed their identity of their former selves and became purple. The plum colored walls seem to calm the patients for now. I’m sure the outbursts with start again. I hate purple.

I have to sit here and stare at these walls from nine in the morning till nine at night. Of course, I do find some comfort in the fact they let us wander around from time to time. That’s only if we have proven ourselves more stable than a pile of Jenga blocks. That’s no problem for me. I’m not known for having any kind of “episodes”. All an episode is just an eruption of emotion around people who never feel. That’s why society has deemed it unacceptable. But that’s how I got here in the first place. There was a night that I just felt too much. I’ve always known that something wasn’t quite right in this head of mine. It’s probably because the death of my dog affected me more than when I was proposed to my freshman year of college. That’s usually a sign when one doesn’t feel right at the appropriate times.

He proposed. I had two small waterfalls fill the holes where my eyes should be. The salty stream of water was rapidly descending down my face. He thought they were tears of joy. He started to smile. I could have said yes. He wasn’t really my type of guy. I was with him because he provided security and comfort. I excused myself. The words out of my mouth weren’t “yes” or “no”. He was stunned, like he was the only witness to a murder. My face turned to stone. I told him I would answer when I got back. I climbed out the bathroom window. I ran. I was blazing down the street like a meteor. My tail was the tears shining and streaming off my face. I was going to crash, I knew it, and it was only a matter of when. I ran until I couldn’t run anymore. I ended up collapsing in a ditch.

When most hear this, they assume I was crying and that I ran because I couldn’t handle the idea of commitment. I let people think that. In truth, I ran because his dark brown eyes had the same shimmer in them that my family dog had after he was hit by a truck. I held him and sang to him while he died. I had found him on my way back from school. He was left there in a pile of gravel by the side of the road. He heard the crunch of the gravel underneath my feet and let out a soft whimper. I didn’t recognize him at first. I thought he was a fur coat that someone had dipped in crimson paint and discarded. I got closer and his whimper got stronger. I bent down, calmly pulled off my shirt and wrapped him in it. I walked home with him in my arms and sang to calm him. He was shaking. I sang softer. That’s when I saw that soft shimmer in my dog’s dark brown eyes. That’s what I felt that night when I looked into his eyes as he proposed. That’s why I ran.

I’ve only seen eyes shimmer like that once since the night I was proposed to. It was in this building. The walls were green then.

I awoke that morning as I usually do. This time it was to the soft sounds of a young new nurse on the P.A. This place is known for always trying to practice the newest ways of trying to heal their patients. It’s no wonder no one ever leaves here healed. The first step, the doctors always say, “The first step is always, always, always, to be honest with ourselves.” How can they expect the patients to be honest with themselves if the place where we sleep, the rooms we heal in, and the places we stay, can’t decide what they are going to be? Just because some doctor reads it in a book doesn’t make it the best way to fix people.

A male nurse named Watts knocked on my door. It is protocol. I could see his green eyes and black hair peering through the small slot in the door. The slot in the door allows them to view the patients at any time from relative safety. Watts crept in.

His soft soothing voice echoed throughout the room. “Jen, it’s time for breakfast. And you’ll want to get up, we have someone new here.” Watts was one of the few people who was kind. He has always had a genuine kindness to him. It was in his voice and it resonated through his whole body. Some of the staff here have this fake kindness that they wrap themselves in. It consumes them. I know it has to seep into their everyday lives. They would use it here, and before they knew it, it would be the same way they say, “I love you”, to their kids at night.

“Alright, alright.” I moved toward the bathroom area. I viewed myself in the mirror. It had been awhile since I really took the time to look at myself. I had these terrible bags under my eyes. It didn’t help that my pale skin, long brunette hair, and my black- rimmed glasses help accentuated those bags. I tied my hair back with a small green ribbon. I went back to Watts.

“It’s nice Jen.” He pointed to my ribbon. I always liked it when I could get a compliment out of Watts. When he says something he means it.

“Do you know who the new person is?” I knew I could try to get some information out of him. He was always nice and friendly. I knew it wouldn’t hurt to ask.

I could tell he was curious in the way a sly smile came across his mouth. “Why?” He was being coy. I hated when he did that.

“I was just wondering.” He wasn’t going to let me peek into his mind without a bit of a fight. Besides his sincerity, he also had a really strong sense of wit about him. You couldn’t get anything by him without him knowing, and letting you know that he knows.

“Ah, okay Jen.” We were approaching the dining hall. He always had to be on hand for someone trying to tunnel their way out through the floor with a spoon or something like that, even though it never happens. He always stopped our little small talk conversations about a minute short of the dining hall. It is always interesting to see him switch into patrol mode. The adrenaline gets pumped through his veins. I see it sometimes. It’s tiny, but I can catch it if I try. It’s like one thousand small horses are using his blood stream as a race track.

He opened the door for me when we got to the dining hall. I quickly scanned the room. Everyone was sitting their usual places. There were no new faces. I even cleaned my glasses twice just to make sure that I hadn’t missed anything. I looked at Watts. “You said there was a new person.”

“Jen, remember that we have an assembly after breakfast? That’s when we introduce new members.”

I had completely forgotten about the morning assembly. Assembly was when all the patients healthy enough for social interaction were crammed into a room that had a few people too many. It was a room with a very small stage area where people could talk. Sometimes they had a guest speaker that is somehow related to our healing process. I think one of the doctors read something about trying to recreate the outside world. It’s kind of like our theatre. We all see some of the best performances come across that stage, too. The room also doubles as the rehabilitation room. I’ve seen people in the middle of sessions claiming that they have become sane, rational human beings. There would even be applause from everyone, especially the doctors. Then three weeks later they would be right back in the same chair saying the same exact thing they said three weeks ago. It is a vicious cycle.
After breakfast we were all funneled into the assembly room. On the stage was one of the doctors and a new face. He was a young man, who they said was twenty. He looked like he was pushing thirty. He had sandy brown hair. His eyes were dark brown. It was like looking into two giant puddles of syrup. His eyes were rich in sadness, the same way that the dark brown syrup that resembled his eyes was rich with sugar.

The doctor waved his arms and silence fell over the group. “Good morning, everyone.”

The doctor never meant anything he ever said. What he wanted to say was, “I can’t believe I crawled out of bed for this.” But he didn’t say that.

He continued, “Everyone, this is our newest inpatient, Robert Holden.”

Everyone clapped.

“Would you like to say something Robert?”

Robert just stared. He was like a Greek statue of Apollo. He looked defeated, almost like he had lost his lyre. Finally, he spoke. “Hello.” His quiet voice demanded the attention of the room. “I really don’t know what to say.”

“Okay, Robert.” The doctor led him off the stage. The doctor shot a look toward the back and Watts came through the crowd. “Watts, please show this young man to his room.” Watts nodded. I knew I had a chance to get Robert’s story.

“Watts, can I head back with you?” I made sure to seem like I wasn’t desperate to go back with him. Watts has seen enough people be desperate while he has worked here. If he sensed it in a person he wouldn’t listen to them at all.

“Okay, Jen.” He smiled. I guess he thought I just wanted to make a new friend. I never really had a lot of friends here. He was happy to be a facilitator in this change in me. It turned out that Robert’s room was right next to mine. Watts showed Robert his room first and then he came into mine. “Go talk to him. He seems lonely.” Small roses appeared on my cheeks. “Don’t be embarrassed.” He smiled again.

After Watts left, I was stuck to my chair. I was petrified about talking to Robert. I didn’t know what to say. I never do. I’ve always been known for never really following through on anything. I could be desperately thirsty and spend twenty minutes deciding how I wanted to drink a glass of water. I’m fickle.

When I finally got the nerve to go over he was waiting for me. As soon as my knuckles scraped the door he opened it. “Hey.” His voice was still quiet, but it was friendly. He made room for me to enter. “I like your ribbon. Green is my favorite color.” He smiled but it was different than Watts. Robert’s smile was kind of sad. It would be the type of smile that a guy would give after being turned down by a girl.

“Thanks.” I started to blush again. It was still that sad smile, but it was much more inviting.

“You want to know something about me?” His voice had much more certainty behind it than I had heard before. I had a feeling that I was going to hear something that was only going to be told once.

“Yes.” I looked up to see a change in his face. The sad smile faded like the last rays of light during dusk. That alone was enough to command the attention of me. I wanted to listen.

“You want to know how I ended up here.” He couldn’t look at me. He was too busy staring out the barred, fenced window.

“Yes.”

“It was a girl that did me in. A simple girl made me lose my mind.”

So love got him here. I didn’t really think him the type to fall in love. He went on. His voice got stronger after every word flowed from the tip of his tongue to my ears.

“It was love?”

“No. It wasn’t. It was greater than love. I had the opportunity to truly create.”

“A muse?”

“God made me an artist by nature.”

It makes sense. It made me wonder whether or not the infectious pain in his eyes was cause just by this interaction with his muse or something else. One can never tell. I’ve always thought that a true artist is one that is constantly suffering. Take a look a child birth. A woman can create a life within her, but is riddled with pain during the birthing. So, it makes sense to me that to create, an artist needs to suffer, much like the woman suffers through child birth. Show me an artist who is happy and I’ll show you a fraud.

“She changed what I painted, how I drew, and how I saw the world.”

He was right he was dealing with a muse, not just a girl. I wanted to say something. I couldn’t. I noticed the tears streaming down the side of his cheek. It wasn’t a tear out of sadness. That tiny kiss from an airy spirit was out of need. There was a long pause in our conversation. I really didn’t want to fill it with anything.

“I painted for her.”

He created for her. People always create for a purpose. Even children who make macaroni pictures for their parents do it out of love.

“She must have been really pretty.” I wanted to take it back as soon as I said it. Robert wasn’t the kind of guy to base things on appearances. He looked too smart for that.

“She got me and that made her better than me. That’s what made me want to create for her. I wanted to be as good as her.” At this point he was sitting next to me on his bed. His voice sounded foreign.

“What happened?”

He took a deep breath and headed back toward the window. “It all started with my father. It was just to two of us. We moved around a lot. He wasn’t in the army.” He laughed. “It was just the opposite; he was a recruiter for delinquency. He was a con artist. He was a disgusting human being. He was my father. I spent my whole life trying to not be like him. He destroyed things, I made them beautiful. I was able to mend them.”

Robert was a born with a spirit that was made to rebel. Circumstance happened to turn his rebellion into creations. It’s like seeing flowers growing from a grave. It makes me wonder how things so pretty come from moments of sadness and grief.

The tears trickled down the sides of his face. Those dark maple eyes started to remind me of my dog’s eyes.

“It’s kind of strange. All I wanted was someone to be honest with me. Instead, I got the grandmaster of lies.”

“What did she do?” I wanted to know what could have broken a person.

“It turns out she was using me from the start.” He sighed. “It turns out that my father had run one of his scams on her family. She was honoring her family, by destroying me. She went around town putting the paintings that I had given her in heavily trafficked areas. She left a sign that said “These gorgeous pieces of artwork were made with money stolen from you.” I saw my work decimated. Everything I made for her, destroyed. She had held my mind captive and turned it into her own personal Joy Division.”

It was at point I realized Robert couldn’t function here. If one person lied to him like that, I could only imagine what the all the phoniness around here would do to him. I had to help him.
It took a while for me to even say anything. He was walking around the room. He didn’t know what to do with himself. “I could help you.” It came out. My words were like snow. When he walked through them he froze.

“Help?”

I could sense the shock in him. He bolted toward me. “With what? I’m destroyed and I can’t create anymore. I’m a piano without any strings. I have no songs left to sing.”

My tongue wasn’t native to my mouth. It was quiet and strong. “It’s impossible to get better here. They don’t mean what they say.” Those words struck him like lightning.

“What do I have to do?”

“ Look for something beautiful.” He understood.

“Do you think I could borrow your piece of ribbon?” I took it out of my hair. After that he asked me to leave. His dark eyes begged me to comfort him.

I waited for time to pass in my room. I started singing the same song that I sung to my dog. My voice was quiet and calm just like it was before. The walls devoured my notes. I knew he could hear me. I fell asleep singing.

The doctors and nurses were trying to keep patients out of his room the next morning. I caught a glimpse of what they were hiding. It was strangely pretty. He was swaying back and forth in a hypnotic fashion. He was held to the window by the green ribbon that was in my hair.

Author's Note

This is a rough draft.