Crazy

All I had in my room was a modestly sized square mirror. It was grotesquely placed level with my face when I sat up in my bed. Like a living nightmare, I sat up from sleep in the night to see my reflection staring back at me—mocking my disgrace. Mocking my shame. Mocking my insanity.

          Feeling the pain linger in my body, I calmly shuffled my feet over to the wall and tried ripping it off the concrete surface; that was hard to do seeing I had bitten my nails right to the bed out of boredom. But still I tried to remove the reflecting surface from the wall. My arm muscles had grown weak and just this simple task felt equivalent to pulling a cinderblock from the wall.

          You’re so pathetic, my mind whispered to sensitive ears. And with one final puff of breathe, I quit, whining softly in frustration. What? Can’t even get one damn mirror off the wall? Next you won’t even be able to stand up. But I couldn’t…No! I could! I wasn’t done fighting. I snuck my fingers under the sides and pulled with all my strength until with a gentle POP, it flew off the wall and into my arms; at least I could still do something…

          I hugged the mirror close to me and sat back down on my bed. Out of pure masochism, I held the mirror out to stare closely at myself. But I’m sure the person I was looking at couldn’t have possibly been real. Maybe I was really going crazy. But she had the same sad, grey eyes like me. They were the exact same shade of slate like me. But her hair wasn’t like mine. My hair was a sun-kissed blond. Her hair was a dull and flat blond covered in knots and kinks. But most of all, her cheek bones protruded from her frail face. It looked like she was sucking in her cheeks. Her skin looked too tight on her pale face. It was all wrong…But why was this girl looking back at me?

          Because when I looked into her eyes, she looked back at mine. And when I touched my cheek she touched hers. And when I felt the tears roll down my face and fall off my jaw, her face mirrored mine. See Jane, that’s you. You did this to yourself!

          “NO! That’s not me!” I shriek, trying to push away the voices of myself. “That can never be me!” I cry out as I throw the mirror to the ground. Fragments shatter in front of me and onto my generic shirt. The tears are blurring my vision, but I can’t stop myself from collapsing onto my knees and grabbing the large shards of mirror and smashing them to the ground yet again. “Not me,” I mumble softly.

          That’s when the heavy, windowless door bursted open with panicking doctors and nurses. I looked up frightened and—guilty.

          “Honey, what did you do?” A nurse with short gray hair says to me while trying to pick me up and pull me away from the crime scene. But I felt like a limp noodle.

          “Mary, she’s bleeding profusely from her hands,” another person says all scientifically. I look down at my hands and see the jagged lines oozing out blood. There are also drops on the floor by the crime scene.

          “Jane, what did you do to get those cuts?” Nurse Mary asks all motherly, pretending not to know she’s dealing with a suspected schizophrenic.

          “The mirror,” I mutter.

          “Yes, I know dear, but what did you do with the mirror?” she asks cleaning my cuts and wrapping them in gauze and medical stuff.

          But I don’t respond. They can stop playing this game. I know they know exactly what I did.

          “Jane, you need to speak to us,” my assigned doctor says strolling in with pen in hand. He’s middle aged with graying hair. Typical doctor appearance. But I don’t trust him for shit. I can see that barbaric look in his eyes behind those intelligent framed glasses. I’m just glad I live in the twenty-first century.

          I just look down and ignore his eyes burning into the back of my head. Then he sighs exhaustedly.

          “Fine. Staff, check the room for anything sharp or easily breakable. I’m kicking up her meds.”

          Like obedient children, the nurses and staff all go on a treasure hunt looking for hidden knives and such. I hope you hid that pocket knife well, my mind mocks. And when the room is considered “safe”, the staff all file out and clearly pronunciation “good-bye Jane” like I’m mentally retarded.

          When I finally hear the door close and bolted shut, I breathe a sigh of relief. I’d rather rot in here alone than live in ignorance.

          I collapse back onto my bed and let the tears continue to cascade down my face. I had been changed into a monster. I was a monster.

But then a presence wakes me from my misery and into anger.

          “Jane, what have you become?” she whispers to me in a trembling voice. But I just roll over away from the presence. “Jane! Please answer me!” she pleads.

          “Answer you? That’s what got me into this mess,” I whisper angrily.

She pulls my arm to get me to face her.

          “That’s not fair to put all the blame on me and you know it!” she hisses.

          “Yes it is! No one started coming to me until you showed up!” I seethe and sit up to face her.

          “Well excuse me if I thought my best friend would want to see me…” she says crossing her arms.

          “You should’ve just left me alone Iris!” I cry faintly. But then she gets this hurt expression on her face. “I didn’t mean that…”

          “Oh yes you did! Go ahead and push away the dead people too!” she says getting up. “You know, this is your own fault! You couldn’t just not talk to dead people in front of the public!”

          “You’ve got to be kidding me…You try having people pull on your clothes and follow you around school and wake you from your dreams,” I say menacingly. She stops looking all defensive and furrows her eyebrows.

          “Ja—”

          “No more. I think it’s time to move on Iris.”

          “I know.”

          “So then go.”

“Well you see…” she says looking around the room.

“Spit it out,” I say in a low voice.

“Jane, I need your help.”