ASYLUM

They say I need to separate illusion from reality. Apparently, I suffer from delusional misconceptions. At night I dream a dream of peace. I am in a jungle, or on a deserted beach. I am wearing something like a bikini made of leaves and twigs, but it’s comfortable. My hair is matted and filled with mud, but I don’t mind. I am alone, sitting, waiting, dazed and confused. “Where did I come from?” I say out loud, and then I see coming toward me the most beautiful creature my eyes ever beheld. Which isn’t saying much since all I have seen before are these trees. The figure walks upright gracefully with arms and legs, sleek and slender. His body seems to glow with the sunshine behind him. I am too awed to be afraid. I feel this being is greater than myself, filled with some knowledge I do not have. I will ask him my question. He is finally near me; his blue eyes sparkle, and his arms and skin are a lighter shade than mine. I am brown, and he is more of a golden bronze. He is different from me, yet when we are close, I feel we are the same- one in two bodies. He crouches down low next to me, and I pull away a little, unsure of his intentions. But he looks at me, into my eyes, his face open and inviting. “Do not be afraid. My name is Adam, and you are Eve.”

“Satiana!” I am pulled awake by banging on my cell door. It is not really a cell, but a small room with a cot hooked into the wall. The room is an awful shade of starch white that hurts my eyes when the lights are on. I hate the color of my white pajamas. I think the color is supposed to be cheerful, but it just reminds me of where I am; an institution somewhere in Boston Massachusetts. I am unsure of where exactly, I did not drive myself here, but one morning I woke up and poof, there I was; sleeping like a baby on a white cot, in a white room, wearing white pajamas, with white socks. Thank God I am not white. My brown complexion is the perfect contrast to all this filthy white. Filthy stinking white, I hate the color of white, or the non-color, depending on who you are talking to. The shade perhaps, a lighter shade of gray or black?

“Satiana?! Get up lazy bones, it’s time to take your medicine.” Satiana? I think, who is that? The name is not altogether unfamiliar to me, it is my alias, and as such has no significant connection to my being.

“I’m up.” I say groggily, and do a half roll off the cot into a crouch on the floor. For some reason I am barefoot, but being that I am so incredibly irritated, I will go that way all day to fit my mood. I won’t even comb my hair. I get up and walk over to the door, I know it is locked but I try it anyway. “I can’t very well get out unless you unlock the damn door.”

“Oops, sorry.” I hear a giggle from the other side. Martha’s on duty, and although I am her ward, we have become good friends.

“Here you go.” She hands me a cup with two tiny pills and another smaller cup filled with water.

“Thanks,” I mutter and gulp them down one after the other. The “medicine” is supposed to help keep us tranquil. Docile, if you ask me, so they can pretend to be helping without actually fixing the problem because we are too out of it to really know what’s going on.

“Alright, get in line for showers. Afterward, Joey will take you for breakfast. Make sure you eat all of it. No sense watching your figure in this place.” Sometimes I think Martha and I are the only sane people in this joint. Sometimes she thinks so too. But right now she seems to think she is my mother, which is fine with me because she might be.

“Thanks, mom. I’ll be sure to brush my teeth and wipe my ass and everything.” I make like I am going to kiss her and then turn abruptly to follow the other drones in line. As I walk away I hear her calling out more names behind me without missing a beat, she’s seen everything; nothing ruffles her feathers.

The shower is cold, as per usual. The white walls here are actually a white yellow. I hope from soap scum or rust in the water; I’d hate to think the accumulation of body flesh in one area could turn the walls yellow. I imagine that fat men once pressed themselves up against the wall, smearing their fat juices and sweat along the tiles, making it yellow. Their faces probably twisted with effort as they strained to reach their shoulders or backs with the rags. I hate fat people. Then I remind myself that this is the women’s shower and the fat men never would have come in here. Women are much cleaner and would never smear the wall with their greases. I start to calm down, to breathe and enjoy my shower. I lift my face up to the showerhead to let the water run down my face. But then I remember walking into a Wal-mart bathroom and seeing feces smeared all along the walls in a women’s restroom. Women are not better, they are worse! I start gagging and retching in the shower, choking on the water. Joey comes up behind me and starts patting my back. A young girl on her left looks frightened, her eyes wide, tightly clutching white towels in her arms.

“It’s alright,” Joey tells her. “She does this every morning.”

After breakfast, I am ushered into Dr. Smith’s office for our one on one bi-weekly session. Save for the presence of Dr. Smith, his office is by far my favorite place to visit in the entire asylum. There is nothing truly remarkable about his office. Wood-paneled walls, beige carpet on the floor that is not particularly fluffy, some meaningless awards framed on the walls. There is a plush brown sofa bed pushed up against one wall where I immediately take refuge, sprawled out on one side, facing his massive wooden desk, which holds a laptop, a blue globe paperweight, some pens, a stack of papers, Dr. Smith’s elbows with his hands tapered into a steeple beneath his chin as he stares at me from behind his spectacles. His demeanor says he is less than impressed with my behavior. I am sure that he is unaware that his position and peppered goatee make him look rather comical. I would laugh, but I think it would make him angry, which makes me want to laugh even more. Instead, I turn over to my stomach, my feet pointing in the air.

“Sup?”

“Ms. Lewis-”

“Please, call me by my first name.” I interrupt him.

“Karen-”

“Satiana.” His lips tighten at my second interruption. He should be used to it by now. I’ve never been any good at formalities, and I’ve been coming into his office long enough for him to know that I only answer to Satiana. However, in his defense, I’m never the same in a consecutive visit, so he rarely knows what to expect.

“Satiana then, I needn’t point out that you are a 24-year-old adult sprawled out on my couch as if you were some brainless teenager.”

“No, you needn’t. I am well aware of the fact.”

“I don’t understand you; you must like being here. Why do you insist on acting out?” Dr. Smith, like Martha, figures that I am completely sane- if that gives you any indication about the type of person that gets hired for these jobs.

“It’s fun.” I twiddle my thumbs to annoy him more. A part of me likes the freedom of the institution, the freedom to do what I want, when I want, without any inhibition. To be as childish, stubborn, and pigheaded as I feel, without receiving any strange looks because that isn’t “how you behave” in polite society; here, that is how you are expected to behave.

“Did you take your medication this morning?” He asks me this every time I come into his office in a good mood. I can feel a look of pure innocence wash over my face. It feels like a lie, and even more so because it is true, except I’m not in a good mood. “Yes, I took it.” I don’t add that I think I may be immune to its effects on account of all the pills I popped before ever coming to the asylum.

He writes something on a notepad sitting by his elbow and I hear him mutter something about upping the dosage. I don’t mind; I could use a change of mental scenery. The asylum, if nothing else, helps to stimulate my imagination; and I am curious to see what it would really be like to be one of the drones who sit down in their chairs at the press of a shoulder, or who stare at the TV for hours, spittle running down their faces. What must they be thinking? What dreams lie behind those vacant eyes, what thoughts? Are they trapped? The inner being struggling to break out of the un-responding body? Or are they free; free of the captive shell of flesh and bone to explore the mysteries beyond?

“Well, let’s get down to business. First, is there anything you would like to tell me? How are you feeling?” That’s one thing I like about Dr. Smith, instead of waiting for me to volunteer information, he will dig until he finds the root of the problem. Unlike some of these phonies who charge by the hour and expect you to gush out your life story without any provocation. They don’t really care if you get better or not, so long as they get paid- hand you some prescriptions and see you in a week. But not Dr. Smith, he makes me feel like he really wants to know me; it feels sincere.

“Actually, I am in a pretty good mood, considering all these weird dreams I keep having.”

“I remember, we talked about dreams before, what are they about this time?” Dr. Smith takes a pen and a pad of paper from his desk and then holds the pen poised above the paper, waiting for me to begin. I have no doubt that he is ready to write down every word I say so he can analyze it later. This makes me feel very nervous, much like a guinea pig or lab rat must feel in their little cages while giants with white lab coats stare at them.

“Well, in my dream, I am in a garden, and it’s a very nice garden, kind of like a rainforest, only the ground is dry. It’s really pretty. I feel like I have just woken up, and there is a man with me.” I pause, I kid a lot with Dr. Smith. I can say almost anything to him when it comes to messin’ around. But I feel kind of like my mind is being invaded when I talk to him about my personal stuff. I want him to help me, I feel sometimes as if there is something wrong with me that needs to be helped, but other times, I feel like it is as simple as a choice. I could choose to act like everyone else, or I could choose to be myself, or rather, act in any manner that I would. But when it comes to my thoughts and dreams, I have little to no control, and this is what worries me.

“And in the dream, we are both naked.” I stop again and look up at Dr. Smith. He stops writing and then rolls his eyes. I doubt he does this with any of his other patients, but we have come to a kind of understanding.

“I didn’t say we had sex, but that we were naked," I explain. "It felt completely natural in the dream, not like when I take a shower in the morning with the other drones. I don’t even think I looked at his penis.” Dr. Smith’s face begins to turn red, which makes me laugh. The man is married with children and still blushes at the names of body parts. I wonder how he handles some of his more rambunctious patients who hold nothing back-if you know what I mean. “And, that’s it.”

“That’s it?” Dr. Smith looks over the rim of his glasses at me. “Not much of a dream, is it?”

I jump to my feet, “Excuse me! What do you want pervert?! The nakedness not enough for ya?! I’m barin’ my soul for you and you gonna ask me if that’s all?” Dr. Smith sits calmly behind his desk, waiting for me to finish.

“I hate you! Stop patronizing me! You’re not my father! What do you want from me?!”

“The rest of the story.” His pen is still held over the paper, waiting. He knows me so well.

“Fine.” I sit down. “You want the story? The guy called me Eve, like in Adam and Eve, and his name was Adam. And it was weird, ok? Like it gave me the heeby jeebys. I mean, I thought the darned thing was real before I woke up in my little white room. Which one do you think I thought was more real, a little white box or a garden? C’mon now, Adam and Eve? I ain’t no Christian; I don’t think. I mean, I heard the stories, same as everyone else. But it felt like I was there.”

“Like you were Eve?”

“Yeah.”

“Interesting.” He scribbles something on his pad.

“Well?”

He looks up from the pad, “Did you see God?”

“Excuse me?”

“Did you see God?”

“Are you serious? No, I didn’t see God. I think I would have mentioned if I saw God," I stare at him in indignation.

”Alright, that’s all.”

“You mean I can go?”

“Yeah.”

Stunned, I stand up, and walk to the door; I pause with my hand on the knob. “Dr. Smith?”

“Yes?” He is still looking at me expectantly.

“You’re a crackpot!” I shout at him before I slam the door shut behind me. I am irritated.

What is this man getting at, what did he mean, did I see God? And then he just let me go… I head toward the smoke room hoping to find someone who would give me a cig. When I get there, Charlie, the blackest man I have ever seen, is sitting on a bench wearing his blue nurse's uniform smoking a cigarette and talking to John, another male nurse. I walk straight up to the two of them and look down at Charlie. Holding out my hand I say, “Yo, give me a cigarette.”

Charlie rolls his eyes toward John as if to say, look at this mess, then reaches into his pack of Newports. Handing the cigarette to me he says, “You know these things can kill you right?”

“Is that why you smoke them?” I shoot back with the cigarette in my mouth leaning down to get a light from the lighter in John’s hand.

Ignoring the question, Charlie asks, “Why are you always hanging around us anyway? Why don’t you go hang out with some of your friends?” He gestures toward some of the drones walking vacant-eyed around the premises.

“Because I don’t fit in with them. I like being around you guys.”

“Well it’s not right, you always being around us; you’re a patient.”

“You spend just as much time around here as I do,” I say, my irritation rising.

“Yeah, but the difference is, I can leave.”

“I can leave too,” I pout and blow smoke into the air.

“Yeah, right, I know you can.” He looks me straight in the eyes as he says this, serious.

I roll my eyes at him. “I’m going to find Martha; you make me sick.”

“I love you too,” he says to me as I am walking away. I don’t turn around or respond.

(To Be Continued)