Psych Ward

* * *

She raised her eyes to the whiteness of the ceiling. She couldn't remember falling asleep, only being woken up again and again, flashlights shone in her face, flickering beams stabbing her retinas like daggers.

"Go to sleep, Go back to sleep, It's okay, you can sleep," voices of staff members had whispered throughout the night. Like they did every night.

How stupid to be woken up every fifteen minutes, just for someone to check you were still breathing, Naomi thought.

The lights above her bed were on all night, but by the overlap of her shadow against the wall she could tell it was morning. Naomi sat up in the white bed and turned to look out of the window that was glued and nailed shut. The sunrise today was a lazy one; vague purple, pink, and yellow clouds lined the horizon, lighting up autumn trees that outdid the sky. The surrounding sky had a grayish tinge, as if it couldn't be bothered to be blue today. "How beautiful," whispered Naomi. Now that there was no night in her world, every day looked like the definition of beauty outside her perpetually closed window. If only she could go outside.

Sighing, she threw back the crinkling blankets and stood among the shouting noise of the bed-wet-protection mattress. The heavy breathless blankets always made her sweat, and her skin stuck to the plastic pillowcase. She needed a shower.

The door of her room was open as always, so she shuffled out into the main entryway.

"Morning sunshine!" came the voice of Ms. Courtney. Her smile was too big, under eyes that held a shimmer of aggression. She was one of the people who watched her breathe and not sleep. "Want to take a shower? It's almost time for breakfast," she said, taking out rough white towels and rough white body soap and squirting shampoo into a paper cup without waiting for an answer. Naomi took the towels, everything else balanced on top, and headed back to the room. The bathroom door was open, but this time she was allowed to close it for her shower.

Naomi had been taken off green yesterday. Nobody had to watch her bathe now. What a privilege, she thought. What a fucking privelege.

Shucking off the oversized sweatshirt and pants, She stepped into the shower and let the water slip over her, embracing her in warmth.

* * *

I was sweating. My heart rate was going crazy and I was sweating. The scream of the autistic kid Justin kept going on and on and it wouldn't stop. There was nothing I could do to make it stop it went on and on and on. My vision was going red.

Then I started to scream.

Mr. James backed away in horror as I collapsed to the floor. He said something into his walkie-talkie and then they were all over, everyone everywhere.

"Don't touch her."

So they just stood and stared at me. Stared as I screamed.

* * *

"Naomi, it's your turn," said Mr. Mike, glancing up at her over the top of his oversized glasses. She jumped, lifted her head from where she had been carving a word into the rotten wood of the armrest with her fingernail.

"What do you want me to say?"

"Naomi. If you had been listening you would know. Pay attention," he snapped in his deep voice. The other patients turned to gaze at her in their uninterested way.

"I am so very sorry Mr. Mike," she said, "What were you saying?"

He shot her an angry look before replying, "What are your coping skills Naomi?"

"Coping skills?" she had heard this one before, "Listening to music I actually like, talking to people I actually trust, reading a book I pick out myself, being outside," she put extra emphasis on the last two words, raising an eyebrow for the whole group to see. She watched Mr. Mike's small black eyes widen, then narrow into slits. He glanced back down at his clipboard.

"Monica, it's your turn."

* * *

I didn't want to go home. I didn't want to didn't want to. They would make me go to family therapy again. The mean lady with the long legs would make me say things I didn't want to say. But I had to do it. Just go with the doctor into the white room and talk and talk and. That's when I started to laugh and laugh and laugh until . . . .

I was screaming.

The doctor came out, and asked me what was wrong, he asked over and over, and I said shut up shut up shut up.

"She's hearing voices again," the doctor said, and they listened they listened. They believed.

* * *

The new boy that had taken Monica's place was tall. He had long brown hair and piercing blue eyes. Naomi would have called him cute if he weren't so sunken, so skeleton thin. She watched him sit down in a cushy group seat, across from her. His long fingers swirled over a word carved into the wood. Hope. He looked her way. She gulped and stared at the white wall to his left.

* * *

"Naomi, wake up." It must have been two in the morning. I uncovered my head from underneath the breathless blankets and opened my eyes. Mr. Mike and Mr. Robin was there, and Mr. Mike was holding a syringe. Then they were wrapping rubberbands around my arms, they were dabbing me with alchol and taking two pints of blood for testing, and I wanted to pass out but I couldn't. I couldn't stop watching the bright red leak out into the tubes.

"Why," I whispered, still watching the crimson. Mr. Mike exchanged looks with Mr. Chris. I knew why. It was because I had collapsed yesterday when they had tried to take my blood. Screamed on the ground. They were scared of me.

"You did a good job Naomi, now go back to sleep."

And they left. As the blood rushed from my head, and the world spun around me, I sank back under the blankets and started to cry.

"Go to sleep." 

* * *

Mr. Chris had blood on his pants. Squatting down with his flashlight, Naomi could see the red stain, bright and new, right on his knee.

"Mr. Chris, are you bleeding?" Naomi asked. She rubbed her face on the green sweatshirt they had given her, trying to make it look like she was wiping sleep from her eyes and not tears. Mr. Chris was one of the newer staff. No need to ruin first impressions.

He was squatting because she was on green, so she had to sleep on the floor of the main room, where they could supervise her constantly.

"You're not allowed to cover your face while you sleep here, Naomi. It's one of the rules," said Mr. Chris. Naomi started to sob.

"What's wrong?" he asked with a worried look on his face.

"I don't want to be on green I'm not going to hurt myself or others I can't use the bathroom with people looking I'm not crazy Mr. Chris why do you have blood on your pants?"

"Oh. Because. Because I was in a restraint tonight," his green eyes were ashamed. "I'm sorry," Mr. Chris whispered, and stood to leave. His knee left a bloodstain on the carpet.

* * *

The gym was too loud, so loud, why couldn't we go outside? As Marcus hit third base, everyone cheered, flinging their arms into the air. I wanted to get on my knees and beg. Beg them beg them to wrap me in a straight jacket and let me lay on the grass outside under the sky in the quiet. Out there out where other colors were. Nobody noticed as I trembling left the gym. Sunk down in the hallway. "AAH" BANG "AAH" BANG "AHHHHHHHH! Ahhhhh....." screamed a someone in another room. It sounded like a woman. It sounded like a girl. It was white here, always white always loud. I squeezed my eyes shut. It never stopped.

I went into fetal position. I started to hyperventalate. A door opened, and I looked up, crazed. It was the new boy. I remembered his name was Layne. I began to laugh and cry and laugh.

"Naomi?" he whispered, and came nearer. I crawled away.

"Don't touch me," I managed to say.

So he lay down beside me and sang a song with no words.

It was home.