Why Were You Screaming Last Night

Note: I'm thinking of publishing this as a memoir, given that it is based on my own experiences. Should I? THis was also published in a magazine called Cause and Effect but its now dead so. . .Any suggestions on where I might publish this?

Why Were You Screaming Last Night?

By Kevin Limiti

A pale moon shines down upon me.

-Was I screaming? I ask

-Yes. You woke everyone up.

I feel bad about it, but I don’t remember screaming or being loud. I just remember sitting
at my desk working. My book had just been published and I’m a very famous person now. J.K. Rowling knows this. I’ve got about a thousand more years of life; plenty of time to write the greatest story ever told.

The woman with the Jamaican accent herds us into the cafeteria but there is not enough room. Everyone is staring. I feel neither embarrassment nor exclusion. I take my meal of a ham sandwich, ginger ale, and little packets of mayonnaise and sit on a blue plastic chair and eat. The food is great. It’s revitalizing; especially the ginger ale. You need ginger ale to live. It’s like alcohol.

I am sitting there taking notes in my notebook. I am a writer and I have to understand this experience for what it is. It seems like I’ve stumbled upon something grand, and that’s how I feel in the pit of my stomach. I see an Asian girl reading ‘The Perfect Blue’ and I know that book. I’ve read it, and now I want to read it backwards. That way I know what it’s really about. Just like the Giver. The Giver was good backwards, but forwards it is a mystery only some can discover. I am an inductee into it’s mysteries that began with Socrates shouting ‘ Eureka ” so many years ago. An agency dedicated to social good. Everywhere I go there are hints of people’s involvement. My father is a member, but he’s forgotten. His memory will awake now that I’ve ended up here of all places.

The hours are ticking away. I know I am dying, if I am not already dead. The Wayans Brother’s are on TV and it is genius and not a comedy. I weep as I realize how the whole thing is about me. These are all the mistakes I’ve made, all the lies I’ve been told, all the friends I’ve had, good or bad. In the end though, I get the thing that truly matters to me. I became the happiest person alive. The whole cross dressing angle was simply an elaborate metaphor of my attempts to discover who I am. Now I know.


I have to take a shower soon. If I am fearful and I hesitate even for an instant, I will die but if I’m strong and courageous I will pass and will become famous and wealthy. I feel my way along that stretch of hallway that is the green mile, as described in Stephen King’s novel. I am Rocky Sullivan as I jump into the shower without even taking off my boxers. I am happy though because I know I am alive when that cold water pours all over my body. I take my time and scrub everywhere, then I go to my room. I don’t sleep though. I cannot sleep. I try to write, but I want to get out of here. I don’t want to stay here any longer. I hate this place.

The watchman is there blocking my exit. He is my son. I know this because he looks just like me. I stare at him. He tells me to go to sleep. He is Folk. He is a doctor or maybe a nurse; reading Mario Puzo. I know it’s a good book and I really want to read it backwards, but he tells me he needs this book. He seems upset for some reason and I guess he’s either happy for me, but maybe sad. He must know how tough it is for me. Maybe he’s already gone through this. Maybe he is me. I want to go to sleep but I feel like I will die. I try to tell him this, but he just tells me to go to sleep.

Maybe I should just die then. I look under my bed. There are needles and syringes everywhere. There are white packets of heroin and cocaine. I can hear them calling. They want me. They’re coming after me. I see that guy again too, the big one with the goatee. He is injecting it into himself. I’m scared of him. I want to die. I want to go to sleep.

But I can’t. Too much is at stake here. My mind races backwards and forwards without stopping. J.K. Rowling sits in the next room, she is the overlord of this facilty located somewhere in Canada .

Of course, it had to have been in Canada . There was too much at stake in America . Way too much at stake. The cycle was in full effect; everything was coming full circle. First it was the Lord of the Rings, then it was Star Wars, then it was Harry Potter, then it was Fight Club, and it’s all me. All of it.

I knew for years that the government was becoming too oppressive, but it wasn’t until the last few days that I really began to see just how much in danger we were. Without the overall power to start up a movement with greater political power then in the 60’s, We were a national security threat, and the hints have been dropped so that in some way we could carry out the mission, and in essence gain the happiness we so desired.


Let me explain myself: My name is Michael Callaghan. Things are going so fast that it’s impossible to write everything down. I feel so tired, but something is compelling me to write. As far as I can tell, I’m at some kind of school. This has to be a school for gifted children. Immediately as I walked into my room, there were books all around. Books I had known since my childhood. I saw Harry Potter and the Hobbit. It was very nostalgic. Was that their intention? I don’t know.


All I know is that I am obviously being tested in someway. Whatever way it is, I’m not sure yet. I can’t second guess myself; can’t analyze my actions. If I do so, then something bad will happen. I’m just not sure what it is yet.

I just walked into the doctor’s office. I forget everything he said except he asked if I smoked marijuana. I couldn’t exactly remember, only I know I did it whenever I could, so I told him that. He put me down as one joint per day type of guy, even though I mostly smoked blunts.

My mom came with my sister the other day. I don’t really remember much of what we talked about, only I was always trying to analyze what was going on and what I was doing here. I thought my sister might’ve been my wife. Now I’m not sure. I remember someone named Frank. We got into a fight. Was that why I was here? I cut him somehow, but someone told me I came out of it with bruises all over my forehead. I don’t remember it hurting.

So this is Queens . A nice cage; a nice sun; plenty of young black men and women who are actually as crazy as everyone thinks they all are. Two of the younger black kids are tossing around a football, a couple of them are playing cards, some are talking to the guardians; I am writing, because that’s what I do. I write.

It’s not as if I can stop what I’m doing; too many things flow through me. I keep on forgetting what I’m thinking, and I’m writing everywhere. My J.R.R. Tolkien book is full of notes all of the pages and inside cover. As I look over my notes, I feel more confused then I was before.

I wanted to see Transformers but nobody else wanted to so we watched Little Man instead. I feel like a racist for calling it a black comedy but that’s what it is. I just didn’t get it.

During our community meeting, we talked about how my girlfriend had been writing mean things about everything in her notebook. She apologized, but I knew she was a liar. I don’t care if I was her girlfriend, though how it ended up that way, I don’t know. I hate her.

I requested a promotion but it was denied on the basis that I didn’t have the proper paperwork. Apparently, it works like a points system, in that you have to get the nurses to
assign points according to how well you behaved. All I had to do was ask, so I resigned myself to make a commitment to do that.

Mom and Dad come to see me together, and it’s weird because it’s been years since I’ve seen them together where they are not fighting. Such a nice happy thing though. They even brought me diet Pepsi. They seem very happy for me. So am I.


I knew this feeling couldn’t last. I want to get out of here. This place is fucking bullshit. They won’t let me leave, and they are torturing me. They locked me in a room because I wasn’t quiet and I banged on the door but they wouldn’t let me out. I saw somebody get strapped up in a straitjacket just like in the movie. I beg my mom to let me go but she can’t do it. I feel sick now. I want to die.

I just woke up, I had to wait in my room, I got outside, I went to the cafeteria, I ate, I got the nurse to sign my points, then I left. I met up with one of the students, at least he looks like a student. He wouldn’t tell me very much, but he was apparently very normal. I had wanted to play chess for days since I got here, I don’t know why, I think to test my own intelligence, but our game is interrupted and we are herded into the gym.

I see my hated enemy, Jamaican nurse #4. He’s like, “Fight Club, Fight Club,” and does a kung fu stance. I watch him, my mouth open, astonished that somebody could be so insulting. After all, not only is Fight Club very important but I did not want these moments to be tampered with. So I chose to take insult to it, and bring it up at the next community meeting. A lot of the residents chose to back me up. They’re good people; Harry Potter’s offspring; the orphans who are only half-crazy and want to get out too. They’ve been here for months, and people wonder why they behave with such dissidence. I guess I probably would’ve done the same to, if this mental hospital became a way of life for me.

I met a very special girl today. Her name was Brianna. I liked her immediately because of the way she dressed, and the way she talked. She was a true punk rocker. We talked about a lot of bands like Rancid, specifically the song “Burn”. She said that she set things on fire to that song, and I could certainly see it and would’ve loved to have joined her; such a sweet, sweet smell.

We spend much of our time talking together. Even right now, she is sitting next to me. She asked me what I was writing, I said a memoir, and she told me that was really cool. I liked that. It was difficult to talk to her sometimes because she was apt to stare at the walls and ceilings for no apparent reason from time to time. So I’d have to try and say something to her, and she would apologize and say she was just spacing out for some reason.

I blame the medication; all that chemical goodness meant to balance us out into good productive citizens? What was the point? They destroyed our happiness; or tried to. I’d rather be crazy and happy, but with other crazy people like these.

Our conversation went something like this today:

-Who here would you like to go out with? she asked

My heart did a double beat. A very pleasant and familiar one though.


-You, I admitted, Why?

She shrugs and said, I like you too.

-Why?

-I dunno, because you’re different?

Later on, I gave her my home phone underneath the table. We have to be sneaky, because the guardians do not appreciate anything remotely sexual going on.

-That’s awkward she said, smiling.

That’s the last time I ever saw her.

The next day, I’m told that I was being discharged. I had gotten a lot of points for good behavior and I was now allowed to eat in the private room, listen to my CD’s (I played the Dropkick Murphy’s Do or Die), and even play the Playstation 2. The social worker told me I had done well, and that I was going to be put in a nice transistional stage where I went to another hospital but this time only for partial. That hospital was a lot more fun, I assure you.

I told one of the nurses that I was going to publish this as a memoir when I got out of there. She told me that she’d have to see about the royalties.

Now that I’ve finished delving into my past, I’ll update you on the present. I never spoke to Brianna again, which is a god damn shame. I’ve never had to go to the hospital for psychosis again, they’ve taken me off almost all of that sedative medicine but I still have to take lithium, and I currently feel quite happy. I’m not exactly clean and sober, but I don’t care to be sober for the rest of my life anyways; as my friend once told me, “Smoke weed and fuck bitches; every day.” Words to live by. There is nothing else to it. I think I’ll just end it here.

Hi there,
Uh, this is really confusing. I don't understand it at all. First you say you're a famous author, then you're being taken to a gifted school, then it's like a prison. I don't even really know what else I'm sure of. I know, I hate it when people tell me my stuff is confusing, but I try to fix it, so please try and fix yours. Good luck!

I think I kind of disagree, careless.
I believe it is meant to be a bit confusing because it is displaying that this character is mentally unstable and the confusion relates to his own. I find this story intriguing and different for that matter.

I am not going to rant about random punctuation errors or grammar errors that I may have found, I will leave that to someone else. But there still is a few things I want to pick out. First of all, I want to clarify, this actually happened to you? Because that is crazy, for sure. I am not saying your crazy or anything, I just find that an extremely unique experience.

Here is my first thing:

My book had just been published and I’m a very famous person now. J.K. Rowling knows this. I’ve got about a thousand more years of life; plenty of time to write the greatest story ever told.

and:

J.K. Rowling sits in the next room, she is the overlord of this facility located somewhere in Canada.

One thing I liked most about your story was how you reflected to actual books and people. It makes the reader catch on and connect in ways. Like how you said someone was reading Mario Puzo. I was actually read Omerta the other day. But anyways, that is all fine and dandy, especially maintaining the random theme of Harry Potter through out it, but the beginning kind of threw me off, when you said these two things about J.K. Rowling. So I am guessing, this guy published a book and is extremely happy he did so, and I can understand the elevation of thinking your story might become as grand as J.K. Rowling's did. But you kind of make it seem that the character actually knows J.K Rowling at points. It might just be the affect of having a mental disease, but it kind of throws the reader off. And I had no idea that J.K Rowling owned a mental institute. I am not sure if she does or not. It is at this point in time that I wonder if the character is thinking someone else is J.K Rowling. I was a tad bit thrown off, and if you could give me some clarification, that would be great.

I like this story because it puts the readers mindset into the character with the thought of reading books backwards, and finding hidden meanings when you read the book backwards. That was my favourite part, for sure.

Now there are other parts that just ram together. I am thinking that you are actually supposed to have breaks at some points in your story, and most likely you showed those breaks by having an extra blank line, or something of that effect. If that is so, YWS doesn't really show that really well. I would suggest putting in random stars or dashes, anything to let the reader know there was a break and to help with the understanding. If your story was just all together, I would suggest you actually do that and break it into similar parts so the reader can keep their wits together.

Then there was also a TV show that seemed to be about your characters life and I kind of felt the pain that the character was feeling, but I was also confused. If the character was that famous, and you based this story off of your own experiences, then you were famous? Or was the character thinking the story was about him, and that was why he was in the mental institute. If that was so, then that would explain why he was so confused in the beginning and saying he was a famous writer, for unless you are actually a famous writer, I don't think this character was. Then to go off of that, there was this:

During our community meeting, we talked about how my girlfriend had been writing mean things about everything in her notebook. She apologized, but I knew she was a liar. I don’t care if I was her girlfriend, though how it ended up that way, I don’t know. I hate her.

When it was talking about his life, it said something about cross-dressing. And then this part is says that he had a girlfriend, but then he was also her girlfriend. Is your character actually a girl, and not a boy, because through out the story I was under the impression that he was a boy. That could have been a bit of a slip, or it again could have been another mind problem with the character. I recommend clarifying somewhere in your story if the narrator is a guy or girl, because that threw me off.

Otherwise, I found your story fascinating. I have no idea where you could publish it though, I don't know much about things like that. But it is good, and I did like it if that counts for anything.

~Incognito

I know your trying to go for a memoir and therefore you want to focus on the feelings and the thoughts that went through in the very moment that all of this happened, but you need to keep in mind that people who have no idea of what your story is about will be reading this. Therefore you're going to have to make some changes in the style.

They way I see it is that you're focusing too much on the mental aspects of the character. All I am getting is the fact that there is this boy who is in a sort of hospital or a rehabilitation center, but I'm really not sure of what's going on or whether he really is in a sort of hospital.I would suggest that you describe more of the setting to give the reader a clearer idea of where the story is set.

Also are all of this things stuff that he wrote or are they things that he is thinking at the moment? You should have some sort of indication between what he wrote and what he is thinking. Maybe you could use italics or something. Or... if he is just reading what he wrote you could start of by indicating that he is reading what he wrote and put the writings in italics.

Then it is also hard to tell whether all of the story is happening in one day or if it's happening on different days, maybe you could add dates or indicate "day one" or "day two".
You could also change the present tense once in a while to indicate what happened in the past and what is happening in the present. I mean, the whole story is in present tense, but then at the end you say that you've been talking about the past and that you will end by talking about the present. That is really confusing.

Another point that is sort of confusing is that you make so many allusions to books and I recognize some of them (like Harry Potter), but others I haven't really read so it's hard to get them, maybe you could expand on the descriptions or explain those allusions a bit. However, personally, I prefer to read something with one or two strong allusions than many weak allusions, so I would try to eliminate some.

Finally I suggest you revise this paragraph:

During our community meeting, we talked about how my girlfriend had been writing mean things about everything in her notebook. She apologized, but I knew she was a liar. I don’t care if I was her girlfriend, though how it ended up that way, I don’t know. I hate her.

I thought your character was a boy but the you said "I was her girlfriend" don't you mean "boyfriend".

I hope this helps you improve your work instead of discouraging you from publishing it. Remember, you're getting all of this from a total stranger, perhaps someone who knows you a bit more can help you improve it better. Good luck!

Well, between the three of you, you all said a lot so I'm not gonna reply to everything.

What I will say is that I realize it's kinda a tough one to swallow but I feel like, besides a few minor grammatical and obvious continuation errors (for example the thing about the boyfriend was not on purprose. That was an accident) it is a "finished" piece. That is to say that although a piece can never be truly finished in my mind, I really like it. Actually, it's my favorite thing I've ever written, honestly.

But since the reactions I get from this piece seem to be so consistent I will try to address them.

Firstly, yes I did make it purposefuly confusing. I did this for a number of reasons, but mainly because I myself was very confused and was hoping to convey that confusion.

Secondly, unfortunately yes this did actually happen to me.

Thirdly,J.K. Rowling is not an overlord of a mental facility in Canada. That was just my imagination. Also the line about being famous is just delusions of grandeur that I was having.

Or was the character thinking the story was about him, and that was why he was in the mental institute

That's part of the reason I ended up there.

I hope I don't sound too egotistical (though I am) but I knew a lot of people weren't going to get this. I'm still unsure if I should publish this as a memoir. I just heard memoirs have been raking in the dough recently