August 13-Oh! Much to tell! So much! I don’t even think I’ll be able to remember it all. Or even fit it all on this green notepad. Green. I’d almost forgotten what it had looked like. This room. All of it. It’s all so colorful. I can almost feel my brain leaping from the stimulation it’s received. Not literally. It’s a metaphor. The walls are all white, but everything else has so much vivid color. I was in awe at first, and to tell you the truth, I still am. Oh my! It’s so lively. So lucid. A corporeal epiphany, as it were. Oh my! I thought that maybe I was dreaming when I first opened my eyes. But, no no, it’s all real! Well, before I get too ahead of myself, I must tell you how I arrived at this place (or at least left the other place). This may be long.
Well. On July 27th I had decided to leave (which I put--the decision, that is--in my other notebook so you probably wouldn’t know about that). Anyway, I decided to leave. I had the cartoon cow folded up in my hand and the pencil tucked between the elastic of my pants and my body. The day before the 27th the nurse had showed up to start giving me food, again (which I apparently never needed). She opened the door on the 27th and I was standing right there. I felt so criminal afterward, but I knew it had to be done. I kept her from closing the door and immediately I was upon her. I grabbed her by the throat and squeezed as though she was the one who had attacked me. I pushed her to the ground, in the direction of the locked door, but as I had decided, I was going to go to the other door by the desk in the foyer.
And then I saw her. Why did she torment me like that? Why did she have to show up again? There was a dew on her. Or maybe she’d been rained upon for there were drops of crystal clear water sliding off her petals. She was most beautiful at this moment. More than any other time. She almost literally took my breath away. She was so incredibly vivid and entrancing. There was a certain sorrow that had entrenched itself within the fibers of this instant like a tick burrowing into a dog’s back. I knew quite well that this was the last time I’d ever see her. And then with a flash, she was gone.
Then, all of a sudden, the nurse fought back. While I was more or less mesmerized by the rose, the nurse had gone into my room, grabbed the top of the toilet, and belted me on the side of my head with it. I fell to the ground, but she didn’t hit me hard enough to immobilize me. I was back on my feet quickly. The nurse began to pull back to take another whack at it. But, at that moment, my anger had reached its climax. I knocked the toilet top from her hand to the ground and lifted her up by the neck.
Through gritted teeth I said, “Leave me be, woman!” and threw her against the outer wall of my room. She quickly folded, and began to cry. I, at that moment, felt the sharpest and most wrenching remorse I had ever experienced. But, I was on a mission.
I turned down the hall. Either because I was in such a frenzy at that moment or the complex could somehow shift its shape, the hall seemed to have been lengthened a good twenty or thirty feet. The man’s (the man who was to my left) door was wide open--something I’d never seen. I looked down the inexplicably lengthy corridor and there stood the mannequin with the engraved “G” on his forehead blazing red. I took a few steps forward and with the voice of a demonized cherub the mannequin whispered “There is nothing for you this way! The only way out is through that door.” With that, he pointed in the direction of the door behind me. But, I was stubborn. I pressed on toward the front door, for the way behind would be too difficult to overcome. The mannequin then began growing larger and larger and getting nearer and nearer without ostensibly moving. The hall was being shortened. And within a second or two I was overcome by his presence. He looked at me with his entrancing and ghastly white eyes and roared, “There is only one way!” And again he pointed towards the door behind me.
I turned toward the door and could feel the blood being pulsed through my ears. And then came that hum. That persistent and ominous and ever so sonorous hum. The same one I heard when I was in the presence of the tree. And again, everything seemed to come to a standstill. I began to run, as fast as I could (which was not fast, at all) toward the door, with a pressure on my body becoming evermore prevalent as I inched closer to it. When I got to the door I had been depressed to my knees. The small cactus was in front of the door. Without any thought, I grabbed it with my right hand and rifled it to the wall on my left. It shattered. I began to vigorously try the handle but the door would not budge. I began hitting, scratching, and screaming at the door all in a vain effort to get the bloody thing open. I looked back behind me toward the mannequin as if to ask for help. He had his palm out with the orange rose in his hand as though he were offering it to me and as though he had never been animate before. But I didn’t want the rose; that's precisely why I thought I'd destroyed it. I focused my attention back on the door and not four seconds later I was clobbered on the side of the head with the toilet top again by the nurse. This time, however, I hardly even felt the blow. I absorbed it and moved on in my seemingly useless progression. She began hitting me harder and harder and with much more frequency, but again, I kept absorbing the thumps. “You will not leave!” she hissed. With her last swing, she missed me and hit the door handle right off. The gateway swung open and I was met with the same blinding white that I saw with the tree. I was sucked out through the door. Everything was white around me as I began to fall from and to nowhere. I closed my eyes and I could see the people. The three people in the other rooms. They merely stood staring at me in a disturbing tableau. And that’s all I remember. I don’t, however, have the pencil or the cartoon cow.
Throughout the whole ordeal there was hardly an ounce of fear within my bones. Even when the mannequin became very animate and should’ve been very frightening, I was hardly even spooked. Not that I have very much pride in that, I just find it strange. Maybe my frenzy was what kept me so resolute on my task.
Well, anyway, for the longest time I could only see black. Dark black; nothing else. Then, I opened my eyes. There was a man who came into the room (the room I’m in now) who I believe said, “Hey there, sleepy head.” I don’t know if he was talking to me. My eyes were open but I couldn’t do or say or really feel anything. I sensed it more than anything else. Then my eyes closed. They kept opening and closing, and the open periods began to become longer and longer each time. Throughout all the opening and closing of eyes, there were people who came into the room. Everything was incredibly blurry and dreamlike, however, so I couldn’t really make any sense of it. As the days progressed, I was able to move my legs. Then, my arms. And my entire body began to feel lively again. My initial thought was that the nurse had really pummeled me badly, but I had been so possessed that I hardly felt anything.
Even though my body felt lively, I still could not function completely and properly. I was able to utter a few moans, but I couldn’t really formulate any words. And, to reiterate, throughout all of this, there was a number of people who came to visit me in the room. Eventually, I said my first word: “Water.” I was quite parched from being bed-ridden and having my mouth open for some time. No one was in the room to hear me, however. Then, the one man who called me “sleepy head” heard me and quickly adhered to my request. And yesterday, I was finally able to function, if only in my bed. Blasted nurse. She really did a number on me. I was quite incapacitated. But, it’s all over now. I am finally out of that vile complex. The only downside is that the rose isn’t here. I wish she’d come back.
And then, when I had come to my senses, I asked the doctor (the one who called me “sleepy head”) for a pencil and a pad. He sent the nurse (yes, another nurse) to get me what I desired. She is nice. So is the doctor. Well, I am still quite exhausted from all the proceedings, so I will be taking a nap now. I will write more tomorrow. That was very long. |
Submission Name: Morose Thorn (Chapter 5)
