Asylum

Asylum

A Story by tmac1124

Every day is the same here at St. James’.

For those on the outside the sun rises, the sun dies.

But for those within these stone walls the sun no longer exists.

It is barely a memory.

Our spirits fade within this place made to help us, and by the time we’re released…

…we are only shells. Useless.

 

Whitewashed stone walls line the way - blank, and empty, and white. People file past me at random, two by two. Always two. One always in a pale blue, the other always in white. Always. 

 

This place seems to carry no smell other than the ones given off by the sanitary gels. Only those who have been here long can find the faint traces beneath it.

 

In this place I doubt that I still exist, the only real color is the red of my companion’s lipstick. Bright and dark… Like blood… 

 

This place is so white it makes me pale at the thought of it.

 

Even the patients, in their white uniforms (for clothes carry expression and these have none) seemed to be drained of all color, their skin matching the white of the walls almost.

 

In all of the rooms I have been in here, there is only one thing worthy of mention, a freeze frame memory, the edges covered in some safety strip or another, taped above one of the hard, lumpy beds near the flat, white pillow. This memory somehow seems so unworthy and still so priceless at the same time, showing only a man, a woman, and a small child; all of them together and all of them smiling huge smiles that are only ever seen in moments like those.

 

A smile is such a rare thing here. It seems so out of place in this den of sorrow, of loss. (But what the specific loss of this person or any other is I can only guess at, for there are many things lost to those who are forced to live here.) 

 

A place only describable as a pathetic excuse for a cafeteria or dining hall is open throughout much of the day serving cold, tasteless food; lukewarm mush. Cold, tasteless nurses feed us as though we are children, unable to feed ourselves.

 

The faint but distinctive smells of bleach and chlorine assail those who must live out each miserable day here. It’s a wonder that none have thought to use them for their own ever-desired demise, but I suppose that even those precious cleaners (poisons to us) are confined and held close.

 

This is a place of endless dependency, and of endless solitude. Beyond these walls the people give this building and those held captive within it a wide berth, believing that we are those that have gone against God; that He hates all who dwell here.

 

Because of this we are without family or friend, even the patients avoid each other as though we were deathly ill and severely contagious. We become strangers to all. Strangers to God.

 

Blood means nothing inside of this colorless world of ours.

 

Fluorescent light shines through the halls, blinding all who dare look at their plastic guards. One and then the next pass, then all of the others to follow until the light becomes darkness.

 

Everything here is padded. If I were a glass ornament I could not be kept better.

 

So padded are we that Death’s cold hands cannot penetrate these walls (though we still walk about as though Death has already grasped our souls with his ever greedy claws). Claws as cold and hard as the iron bars, as thick as my slender, pale wrists, that block the already too-small windows.

 

We who are the inhabitants in this ever white hell are kept as though prisoners. Outcast by society, and yet, stolen away by the nothingness.

 

Nurses, ever present, await sunny days when they may walk us like some dog in a world where we no longer exist as human beings. These days become a kind of social gathering, where nurses may speak to one another in the garden, free of us for a time.

 

To patients these sunny days are both sacred and sacrilegious. No longer existing but still there, our minds so volatile that the doctors believe that somehow the sun might damage us instead of heal. 

 

Our nights, spent behind the lifeless grey, iron doors closing off our rooms, bring only blackness and terror. And the cruel world beyond uses that terror and this place to scare children into bed “‘less they end up in a place such as this place one day”.

 

This is our place of imprisonment. Here we are nothing.

We are less than nothing!

We are those who have lost our faith in God and humanity; we are those who are both alive and dead.

Confined.

Outcast.

We are driven to madness and beyond.

© 2015 tmac1124


Author's Note

tmac1124
Descriptive piece. Is the imagery realistic?

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Added on April 24, 2015
Last Updated on April 24, 2015
Tags: asylum

Author

tmac1124
tmac1124

Toronto, Canada



About
I write because I love it, and because I want to share that love with others. I began as a poet and have grown from there. Now I enjoy writing a multitude of short fiction, essays, poems, and the oc.. more..

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A Story by tmac1124