Perceived Lunacy

The Underestimated

When the door to my cell swung open this morning I felt the thinnest bit of happiness, but the most I have felt since I have been on this side of the fence. When Arnold handed me my pills and clean cloths he also gave me a small card board box and told me to get together my belonging and then join him in the hall. Dr. Stafford and the others had approved my transfer to wing A.
        Standing in this almost empty cell I can’t help, but wonder what they expect me to fill this box with. Sure the inmates in wing B are allowed more possessions then I had in my padded cell in wing C, but none of these things belong to me. There is a little blue hair brush with thin plastic bristles, I drop that in the box, I slide out the bottom draw of the bed side table and remove the extra pair of slippers, the small stack of socks, and the extra blanket for when the heater is out from the monthly black out and drop them in the box. I have all the things that “belong to me” now I just need the only thing that I belong to in this hell whole. I take one quick glance at the door to make sure I am not being observed before I yank the handle to the top drawer and send it clattering to the floor. There, wedged in between the panels of wood on the back of the drawer is my one and only belonging. I quickly pull the small, tattered photograph out of its hiding place and fold it up, careful not to create any new fold marks on the old paper then already there, and shove it into my sports bra close to my heart. I put everything back in its place and then gather myself and my “belongings” before shoving into the hall. I follow Arnold under the buzzing lights of the hall and to the elevator that I haven’t been allowed in since two armed orderlies escorted me in on a gurney.
        Stepping out into the open air for the first time in months overwhelms me. When the wind picks up my ash blonde curls whipping them wildly around my face I have to use all my will power just not to smile. My eyes are pinched shut by the brilliant light of the sun only making me want to open them wider to take it all in. The small little window covered with mesh in my cell couldn’t do justice to the beauty of outside that I remembered to fondly. Even though it is almost ruined by the perfect symmetry in the way the bushes are planted and the pristine-ness of the cut and leafless lawn I am as close to home as I can be on this side of the fence.
The short walk from the brick building that has been my prison for the past months to my new jail leaves me longing for that breeze again. Arnold nudges me along gently, but coldly in through a rusty old door at the back of a large building with a big white doom on top. The inside is all the same. The same clinical looking lobby. The same orderlies lazily going about there business. The same horrible unnatural lights that seem to turn everything a sickly green color in their glow, but I don’t care because I know that I am one step closer to the wilds. I am one step closer to freedom where the breeze is ever changing and the air never sleeps.
Arnold escorts me down the hall until he stops in front of an open door and directs me inside where there are two small beds that don’t look anymore comfortable then the ones in wing B, a large window on the far wall with thin white curtains draped around them, beside the two beds is matching tables and a whole dresser full of drawers.
“You’ll have a roommate over here,” Arnold says pointing out the obvious, “It will be nice to have some company won’t it?”
“Yes I think it will.” I reply reluctantly, a small smile creeping across my face. With out another word Arnold swishes down the hall, his scrubs rubbing nosily. My smile grows with the realization that I will never see Arnold’s fake compassion ever again, at least not from him.
The bed nearest gave barely a hint that anyone had occupied it except for the glass of water on the bed side table. My inmate seems to be one of them, a successful cure. A dull lifeless shell. On the dresser is a lamp and some small worn down pieces of charcoal. Pieces of paper are stacked beside it with things like apples and the landscape outside the window drawn with extreme accuracy. Lined up along the back of the dresser is a bunch of round rocks organized from largest to smallest. I pick up the smallest pebble and turn it over and over in my palm. What I wouldn’t give to have this as my bed rather then these mattresses.
“You can put that down.”  A sharp voice startles me. A middle aged woman with a pinched expression stares back at me from the doorway. “You must be Delaney, Dr. Richards told me you would be here when I got back.” The woman says," her disposition no more thrilled then before.
“You are?” I ask sticking my hand out mechanically for her to shack it.
“My name is Beatrice.” She says while giving my outstretched hand an apprehensive glare as if deciding if I will spread my disease to her by a hand shake or not. “I don’t mind you being here I would just appreciate if you kept to yourself on your side of the room and let me have mine.” She says sticking her large triangular nose in the air. With her black hair pulled back sleekly she almost reminds me of s black bird with her loud squawking.
“Yes, of course. I just was surprised to see they allow you to keep those in here.”  I say nodding my head in the direction of her collection of rocks.
“Oh yes, we are allowed a lot of things. I just keep these because I like to have something to draw when the subject matter runs out.” Beatrice crows. I can sense that Beatrice is done talking so I turn on my heels and head back to my small corn of the room.
        “It was nice to meet you Beatrice.” I say the pleasantries mechanically and without feeling. Beatrice gives a small huff of fake agreement. “Oh Beatrice!” I exclaim, “When do we tend the garden?” The inmates of wing A tend to the grounds spending hours out doors racking leaves and weeding the garden. It’s supposed to help assimilate the cureds to everyday life.
        “Every other morning. We are going out tomorrow.” Beatrice answers seeming to be astonished that I would bother to bug her again. Tomorrow morning… Tomorrow morning I will use my one and only chance… Tomorrow morning I will be free.