Unfinished: Rock Springs Number Six

My fifth hospital visit to Rock Springs Behavioural Hospital in Georgetown, Texas. This short story is unfinished.

Third strike, third visit, third apocalypse. The hallways are long, the chairs are comfortable, the walls are a soft celery. I heard from this paint commercial that green is a calming color, so I understood why they picked it out. Who needs a clonazepam when your walls are green? Nobody, that's who. 

I got put in the detox unit. What was I detoxing from? All of my stimulant friends, all of my downer friends, all of my healthy friends. To hell with it, I thought. Nobody needs me and I don't need them. We're all dying and we'll be dying and everyone will die without getting to say goodbye to the right people. Nobody texts back when you need them to.

The detox unit was quiet. Serene, almost. All the dregs coming off their own version of heroin. Greasy with their eyes folded over in cigarette slumber. I pictured the letter Z above their heads, sticking out all purple and times new roman. There were at least seven Z's in the unit. Through bedroom doors and squatted down on the television-watching chairs, all Z's. I got there around nine-thirty, so it made sense that everyone was sleeping. When you're depressed, television doesn't matter- nothing matters. The only things that matter are dreams, and sleeping is the gateway to that heaven. 

After the whole squat-and-cough ordeal, I was anxious to get to my room and start reading Catcher in the Rye, one of my favorite books. It's one of my favorites because I think I am Holden Caulfield. I knew I was him because he started talking about the curbs, and how as soon as he came to one he thought he would fall into the sky and never reach the other side of the street. I find myself feeling stupid things like that, too. 

I got to my room and met Gillian, my roommate. She had these deep, brown doe eyes caked in mascara - so much mascara that I thought her eyelashes were spider feet. She had a cute little body with voluptuous, skinny hips and a tiny waist. I was immediately jealous. 

I told them it was suicidal thoughts, and I wasn't lying, but it was mainly the drugs. I knew I was spiraling into the cocaine rabithole, I knew I was sailing the adderall sea. I was getting so into stimulants that my love for downers was almost entirely gone. If I could starve myself and be sleep deprived my whole life, I would be happy. But I knew it wasn't right, and Alaska told me all the time. I loved Alaska like a sister. She told me about how bad I was, and how stupid I was, and that she'd find me a new job. I wasn't ready for a new job, though. I loved the grimy curry smell, I loved the stools that squealed when you moved them, I even loved the cameras that made me paranoid every time I walked in. 

I used to drink on the job, that's why the cameras scared me. I also used to do LSD on the job, but the cameras weren't clear enough to see my eclipse pupils. That, I could get away with, but Lucy and I haven't spoken since my last trip, with six of her sisters. It was way too much for me. I can handle an ego death maybe once every few months, but not that kind of ego death. Never again. 

My dad was the first one to visit me. I hadn't seen him in years, practically. It gave me a shiver as I turned into the cafeteria and saw him at the visitation table. I showed him my tattoos, and talked about how I couldn't cut myself anymore because of them. He said that was a good thing. He didn't understand it. 

I went to bed dreaming about jail and bags of cocaine. Sordid, dank little dreams. They kept me alive, though.

This isn't the psych ward. 

This is misery at its best, smiling through the pain, teeth gritting, fingers shaking (and it's not the coffee). Everyone here was a small, cold, wet kitten that needed a warm blanket and a cup of chamomile. I could have felt love for those people.

We got about five smoke breaks a day, and thank god for those smoke breaks. The currency at hospitals is cigarettes. I'll trade you a camel for a marlboro, and so on. It was cold for the first few days, and I spent them sucking in the nicotine and exhaling a shiver strong enough to seize me. 

He got to the unit on Tuesday. He had these beautiful, long eyelashes and light brown puppy dog eyes that looked so tired, all you wanted to do was tuck him into bed and kiss him on the forehead. I caught him sneaking a look at me several times, and each time I thought, ooh, he wants to see what my mind is like. I wanted to switch brains with him and read his memories. I actually wanted to. I like my men seasoned, and twenty-four is the perfect age for me to wrap my legs around. I would look around corners for this guy, I really would. 

Stephanie was this ray of goddamn sunshine. She even looked it, too. She had golden amber eyes and this petrified smile, and this dark hair that looked like some twelveth color I couldn't humanly imagine on my own. Her personality is what I really wanted to steal. She had this steely happiness to her, and this marine corp sadness that made me realize how much of a twenty-six year old she really was. Some people have seen some s**t, and you could tell she did. Probably more than just once, too. 

In art therapy, I was thinking of Emily's tattoos. She had one that was a third eye, and it had all these bluey-green clouds above it and yellow-pink drips coming down from the lower eyelid. I thought I would draw it with oil pastels. I was so meticulously placing my fingers with the pastels that I thought it might take a century before I was done. But when I was done, I couldn't stop looking at it. I had birthed a masterpiece, in my mind. I wanted to show Emily. I thought of her awkward chuckle reaction, and the way her timid brown eyes would look back at me. I wondered if she thought I was crazy. 

I gave my third eye picture to my mother when she came to visit. She said "ooh" and "ahh" about it. I know she didn't like trippy things as much as I did, but I was so goddamn proud of it. She talked about my living situation, and immediately, my stomach dropped. I knew I'd get kicked out if I kept up with the drugs, the way I had been living before the detox unit. Suddenly I wanted to flee, and cry, and run into Stephanie's arms. But I was in this stupid cafeteria, lonelier than I had ever been in my life. Not even the quiet hum of the back of a police car could top this feeling. I had to go. 

He was looking at me from across the day room. 

Reviews

[Asante]

This unfinished story is absolutely beautiful, whoa. I won't go into quoting bits and pieces, I won't dissect this in that way -- the entire piece flows like one long dream in gunmetal gray. I empathized with things that you'd felt and experienced throughout this story; partly by relation, and partly by way of your awesome descriptions.

Can't wait for the finish! Amazing job.