Entry Five
Everything is Fine, Nothing's OK
Blue Book,
Today, I will begin my entry with the ideal joke. Actually, since I
really suck at keeping people in my good humors, let's just pretend that I just
said something funny, you laughed, and we move on.
Did I ever get the chance to explain my current situation in
eloquent words, Blue Book? I don't think I did, but I don't have much time to
read back my previous entries yet. My handwriting also sort of makes my eyes
hurt. Lots of curves and...ah hell....
Anyway, we have a little thing Marcus calls "sessions"
earlier. It's mainly where a group of people who sit around in a circle and
divulge in our life's stories and personal angst. O woe. At least, that's how I
see it. Stupid, really. The only thing I learned about throughout that whole
entire thing was that there are people more fucked up than me. Or maybe I am
crazy, and I just don't want to admit it. I think that's Marcus's whole
reverse psychology of the whole thing. Either way, it's pointless.
More important stuff...OK....
A new staff member arrived today. I think I mentioned that earlier.
He was the one who hosted the "session". Said his name was Dr. H.
Wendel, but I have my doubts. Don't ask...I come from a place called Ophelian
City, and after spending a good deal of my youth there you learn how to catch
people's bluffs. There's just something about him that makes me cagey. To top
that, he's got a strange gleam in his eyes that I swear to God I've seen
before, almost like looking into a mirror in a way. The way he looks at people
brings a chill on the top of my skin that makes me want to huddle into a hole
and wait for winter to come. I'm not sure if that makes any sense, and I don't
care--that's how I feel. Regardless, the guy seems to be the most sensible out
of the staff (not more than Sarah, mind you, that is, despite the brief glances
Dr. Wendel and her share while passing the hallways. I'm not stupid. They
either know each other, or they want to be alone in a very, very dark place.
Maybe with candlelight. Maybe with music. Maybe with nothing more than the
terrible sounds humans make sometimes. Not that it's any of my business). To be
honest, I don't think saying that Wendel is the most sensible of the staff
really says much.
Dr. Wendel sits in the most comfortable chair in the circle. He has
hair the color of blood (with a cut that looks like a five-year-old did it.
It's uneven; one side is longer than the other. I'm tempted to ask him one day
if it was intended to be that way, but I'm afraid of getting hit--while he
seems like an overall nice guy, his sturdy stature is a wee bit intimidating,
y'know). His strands shine in the overhead gleam as he patiently listens to
everyone divulge in their petty woes about what's bothering them today (for
instance, because of his diabetes Yuri has to be on some sort of diet, thus he
is restricted from eating certain foods--ones that he likes--during meals. Mind
you, Yuri is a crazy fat man with a European accent who tried cutting out his
own stomach once. Claims that he once tore out his organs and asked me one day
if I knew what it was like having your intestines strewn across your bathroom
floor, though I've learned by now to just ignore him. I think I'm starting to
get too used to the crazies around here. By now I'm really starting to wonder
if it was Yuri's intestines he was talking about strewn across the bathroom
floor, though). Everything else is just all that general mental shit you'd expect out
of a group session in a psych hospital. Dr. Wendel pretends not to notice, not
to cast any judgment, as he sits the quietest of all us all, jotting down
notes, though sometimes I think he's just doodling to pass the time. Neither
would surprise me.
Everybody wants to get better. Nobody wants a cure. Everything is
fine when nothing's OK. That's the drill.
If I look closely, I wonder if my skin will start to crack and
bleed. Is that normal?
It's ironic once you think about it. The sessions are used as
therapy--getting out your anger so you begin to forget how to hide it. I think
it makes the feeling worse. Instead of eagerly waiting for my turn to start
talking, I pray that the guy next to me takes his sweet ass time until the
house is completely finished. Thank God or no god.
After the session, Wendel has me step aside and we talk awhile.
Maybe I'm crazy, but sometimes I think he acts as though he really does know
me. H. Wendel is a man who is everything and everyone I hate and love, who
I admire and dread of becoming. Those eyes are a reflection of a thousand years
lost in time and have been thrown into a ball of one, youthful looking man.
Anyway, I don't even know what I'm saying. This guy wants to know if there was
anything else I want to say that I didn't feel comfortable with divulging in
front of a group. He noticed how uncomfortable I was. Bastard. He asks me how
I've been sleeping. I give him a funny look as he asks me again. It feels as
though he's implying something. I don't know. Honestly, I can't really say a
whole lot. Shit, I don't even know why I'm writing this down like it's
something important. Of course it's important.
(OK. Let me see if I can explain this in a simpler way. Maybe one
day, if I look back on this or, God forbid, anyone decides to read this crap,
they'll find it easier. Seeing that my memory isn't so spectacular, it's hard
for me to repeat things based on what I vaguely remember.)
"I hear your brother is the head director around here. Dr.
Marcus Wolfgang, correct? Graduated from the State of Louisiana?" He
continues to give me that strange gleam in his eyes. Fuck. Why do I keep
feeling like I've seen that before?
I try to hide the fact that I don't trust him all that much and tell
him that he is. Marcus Wolfgang is the owner of the whole land, king of his
own isolated nation of psychotics. I refrain from calling the bastard a doctor
and we continue.
"I also hear you don't get along well with him." I tell
him that it's none of his business. He then smiles wryly and hands me a card,
which I know I'll eventually throw away later since it's not like I ever keep
things like that anyway. "If you need me, my office is in S13 on the
second floor. I monitor that corridor sometimes."
Trying to be the peace-keeper, are we? I bet Marcus sent you to
act all nice and friendly, I reply. He just gives me that same,
almost-suggestive smile and walks out of the room.
The point of this all is, Dr. Wendel is a doctor, but doesn't look
or even act like he should be, and all of those are definite red flags. Am I
the only one who notices this or what? He looks like a party-raver, a
sex-fiend, an addict, everything that a debaucher and Ophelian could and would
be. He's a faker. Liar.
I'm in the room by myself, and I don't leave until the lights go out
and the After-Hours are starting to draw near. No one should ever be walking
around After-Hours. In the After-Hours, security systems are raised. No one
walks the corridors when the lights go out. No one. Or you're dead.
Well, I've haven't any complaints. I don't like being in the dark
for long. Terrified. The darkness is the only thing that protects me. I feel
like something's watching me. There're spiders crawling in the corners. An egg
sack in a web and a hundred thousand million billion eyes are watching me
wanting to feast on flesh to tear me open and crawl into my insides and rip me
apart from within.
Watching. Waiting. Surveying. Hungry.
Maybe it's just paranoia. Who knows for sure? Is this my condition?
Fuck.
Something's very wrong here. Part of me wants to know why. It wants
to know the reason I can't remember certain things very well. The other part
is...er...it doesn't want to know. It thinks this type of ignorance is
wonderful. It Hides.
As I walk out of the room to saunter to my quarters (it was nearing
midnight and I wasn't even in my bed robes. O the audacity), Sarah is trying to
be sweet and generous again: She has a red poppy flower with her that she
leaves in a vase next to my room. She tells me she heard I liked flowers. I do,
my mother used to be fanatical about them. Sarah tells me that it's sweet, only
to then inform me that I'm blushing. I guess I kinda am.
I really liked her. Sarah looks a bit like my mother in a way, but
that's not why I feel that way, because that'd just be weird. I like her
because she reminds me of nothing I desire, and everything I've come to covet.
I like her because I don't want her. She's here and there and faraway with that
distant smile of hers that's so happy it's sad and no one can truly see it no one
but the moon and its shadows.
That was when we sort of inadvertently got onto the topic of my
mother, and I'm not sure why. I don't like talking about my mother all that
much, but Sarah says she was just interested in hearing a little about her. My
mother was an archeologist, you see--she studied many of the old cultures, had
classic novels and records. Sarah' eyes light up as I tell her this. "So that's
where you know all those old songs!"
Evidently, I turn a little redder. Sometimes, when I think I'm alone,
I tend to hum. I didn't think anyone ever heard me. I try to look away because,
damn that woman! She's fucking smiling and laughing at me!
When Sarah says that she'd like to meet my mother someday, I tell
her that my mother's dead. Supposedly, she pulled over on the side of the road,
over a gas line, went to sleep and decided to never wake up.
She killed herself. But I saw her. They're wrong. She didn't kill
herself.
I saw her. She was alive and dead. Nonono, she was sleeping only
sleeping. How could I not tell?
There are blue flowers around her grave. I leave the red poppy
behind as it drops in that dark, endless corridor.
--Alexander