Here goes a rambling little narrative. I just want to write something right now, so it isn't likely the most amazing piece, but just an idea.
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I looked back over my shoulder, sweat and flyaway hairs sticking to my forehead as I braced my arms against my knees, doubled over in exhaustion. I had made it. All the weeks I'd stayed there, too fearful to run. How could I have imagined--this--the sense of peace, and how much cleaner the air was out here? A limp cotton gown hung on my shoulders, trapping sticky damp air around my legs. One cloth tie had come undone, revealing the sharp outlines of my collarbones and shoulders. But I cared nothing for my appearance--I was free.
The echo of security guard's shouts and footfalls had long ago faded in the distance, leaving the noises of my body crashing through thickets of thorny briers, and scraping by the rough bark of trees. A plastic bracelet hung on my left wrist, a luridly green tab that held the words psychiatric ward three.
Beside a number and a barrcode read the name Shannon Barceley. I felt a faint pang as I looked at the words, remembering the woman who had once patted me on the head, and whispered to me
"Shannon, Shanna, Baby, it's alright. It's alright. I'm here, Shanna."
She had been there on the day they put this bracelet on my arm, and had been there at visiting hours. But then she slowly visited less and less often. Now it had been two months since I'd been in the family room, a lounge of sorts filled with magazines and puffy corduroy couches where people sat and talked, laughed. Visited. She hadn't come, not this week, nor the next. Soon the same activities day by day became so tiresome, so relentless, I felt my mind curling itself into a cocoon, letting me live and act and behave based on the tired stimuli of the daily routine. But no more. I grinned spitefully, brushing the wisps of hair from my eyes, wiping droplets of sweat from my skin. I had made it. Now the whole world was mine, so far as any person could walk or run.
I stood up straight, stretching every stiff, knotted muscle in my back. My mouth felt dry, and I dipped my hand into a pocket of the flimsy shift I wore. Cold plastic met my fingers. Hadn't I snatched a vial of flushing agent? Examining the syringe more carefully, I found that it read Halpeirodol. No, I couldn't drink this. It was Haldol, a drug infinitely stronger than Thorazine--and what they'd planned to stick into my arm, pushing the stopper. They thought I was insane. Hardly. I had known exactly what I was doing. Save for the premature scuffle, that is. I must have missed the flushing agent they'd planned to put in my IV, and grabbed the sedative instead. Cursing my poor luck, I put the syringe back in my pocket, thinking of what a wonderful weapon it would be. If someone tried to hurt me, one prick, a push of the stopper, and they'd be pumped full of anti-psychotic, soon to feel its 'tranquilizing' effects.
So far so good, I mused, now turning round to orient myself. The institution was to the West, and the town to the East. I followed the long shadows of the trees, my feet prickling with each step on the pine straw and rocks, my eyes twitching warily, watching my path for snakes. Briers scraped my face and snagged my hair, pulling a few auburn strands from my head. But I kept going, trudging along wearily like an old dog in the desert. I finally collapsed in the shade of a towering oak, the mosses that grew along its roots soft as any mattress I'd slept on in recent times.
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This is it so far. Feedback is welcomed. Come on, tear it up like lions on an antelope carcass... Please?
Cheers!
--voxina
