My Own Prison
By: Michael Anderson
My name is simply, “Patient Number 00849 of Cellblock B”. Ridicule clouds this title deeply with a sense of false imprisonment. Because of my ugly impeding thoughts I am brutally forced into this prison by society’s enforcers. I’m held within the walls that holds the lost and very forgotten. Forgotten by society, misplaced by the loved ones they leave behind. The patients here spend countless hours kidnapped within the confines of their minds.
A horrific ammonia smell intensifies as I rest my heavy head on the cold pillow. The glow in my eyes light nothing but the interior of my white skull. They feel like lead filled cannon balls as my curdled mind sifts through my emptied thoughts. For hours I lie there and try to determine which thoughts are real and which ones I need to discard. The memory and shame of the accident still linger like a limp puppet on a loosened string. I, the puppet master, have gone M.I.A. Lost in the action, dead on arrival, I’m a lonely prisoner of a mindless war in my own false reality. I try but never can get away from the morbid feelings and shocking horrors of that night.
I remain motionless throughout the night, staring at an old picture of my wife and two young kids. They sit posing next to a large blackened boulder, a waterfall glistens behind them. I resent the feeling of sheer happiness they portray on their faces. I wish I can feel that. My children have names of which I have no recollection. Honestly, I don’t remember anything about them. All I know is I had two, a boy and a girl. In the importance of my situation, they matter not. I guess they never did. I have tried to my greatest ability to remember what my life was like before that night, but nothing comes to me. What I did for a living, my hobbies and my beliefs all seemed to be swallowed up into the black hole of my insanity. I’ve given up. I’ve decided, everything that is left inside my head is to be thrown away like a crumpled up piece of paper. A writer wrote my story and tossed it. Disgusted with the sour outcome.
I finally close my eyes, but it’s more than difficult. There is too much to distract my weary, tired self. My cell remains frigid and reeks of fresh released urine, although not mine. I, in fact, have manners. The old man who lives next to me, Charlie, screams every night religiously. He’s almost like an alarm clock, reminding his neighbors. "It's 3 A.M. Everyone rise and shine!" Charlie pounds his bruised fists repeatedly on the square window that sits in the metal door. He scares the heck outta me. Those spine-tingling screams remind me of death. Lucky for me Charlie only screams for three hours tonight. At least I will be granted five hours of sleep.
Sleep falls silently upon me like patterned snow as I forcefully ignore the agonic screams from next door. The same dreams come to me every single night without fail and her voice sticks with me throughout the length of the day. I dream of her. I dream of her mangled body crushed between the twisted dashboard and the bloodied leather seat. Her head limp, and white eyes stare at me. “Why did you have to drive!” she reminds me daily by screaming at me, blistering my ear drums. She sticks around as my presumed voice. The one that allegedly landed me in this horrible place.
Half cooked egg yolk ran to one side of my blue tray. I find that breakfast is my favorite time of the day, mostly because her voice is less frequent in the morning. I wish I could spend my whole day in the morning hours. Because when night draws near, I somehow feel her taunting me, waiting in my cell collapsed within the dead walls. I can only stare blankly at the yellow yolk. I can’t help it. It claims my mind and hypnotizes my tired eyes, I become lost in the fluidity of the syrup like substance. I am so lost I forget that the screaming psycho behind me doesn’t give me the chills. I’m actually starting to forget to notice a lot of things lately. The haunting vibe this place gives off used to bother me, but evidently no longer have the effects they used to.
As a result of my continuous good, non-violent behavior, I eat outside in the courtyard. I slowly saunter on the walkway leading towards a white rocking chair with rusted welds. Ellis, the woman who shot her husband in the face with a shotgun because she thought he was a communist invading her home, normally sits under the aspen tree near the sidewalk but this morning she is nonexistent. This is kind of odd to me. I quickly brush it off and keep walking where my white rocking chair suits me just fine. It sits in the center of a lawn of grass just waiting for me, calling my name. I look down the sidewalk a ways and Ellis sits rocking in my white chair. She doesn’t seem to be eating breakfast, she’s just dirtying my chair. I’m sickened.
“What are you doing in my chair?” I ask and wait for a response. She says nothing.
“ I said what are you…”
She whips her head around like a demon possessed devil child. She looks at me with her crazed eyes. Silently she stands up, keeping her eyes on me and walks towards the sidewalk. I presume to her spot under the tree to feed the ducks that don’t even exist.
I look out and the perfectly cut green grass and embedded flowers add a normality the staff here believes will make the patients feel more at home. However, it does entirely the opposite. It makes me feel like an institutionalized freak. I turn my chair so it faces the institution. The brown bricks, bars on the windows and large towers produces a more prison feeling. Society put us in here. It’s like hiding your embarrassing brother from your prom date. Many inmates, like me, enjoy the warm sunlight beating down on their runny eggs. Hopefully cooking their breakfast just a bit longer. I watch the other patients wander. I sit with no one. I watch the blue jays jaunting around and listen to my wife whispering softly in my ear.
“Listen to me Ron. You must tell somebody what you have done.” Her gentle whisper slowly became louder. “You killed them, Ronald Kilmer! You killed ME!” she yells viciously in my left ear. I wrap my hands around my head cupping my ears hoping to block out her lost voice. Hoping rarely ever works. Although physically non-existent, her wicked accusations remain vivid as ever.
“No, no, no. It wasn’t my fault!” I shake my head, losing self control
“But it was, you murderous lunatic!” She screams and it causes me to flinch. “It was indeed all your stupid fault. Why did you do it?!”
I decide not to answer but instead ignore her mad cry, this deems a mistakable action. As I tilt the tray and slurp the rest of the egg yolk into my mouth, the wind blows graciously and dries my tears.
“Go back inside and sulk in your room. You lonely sack of crap!” she sounds violent as ever.
I oblige silently. As I slowly find my way back to Block B, Charlie blocks the path into my hallway.
“Where ya goin‘?” he asks with a dumb look on his face.
“Charlie, not now. Get out of my way.” I try to step around him but he steps in sync with me. The window, framed in the wall beside us, lights up his jet black hair giving it a greasy shine.
“Up for a game of ping pong or maybe foosball? That‘s my favorite. Yeah foosball.”
“No, move. Now.” I hate those games.
“Just kill him, Ron. Just end his pitiful life. No one will even miss him. Doesn’t that sound familiar? It should, because it solves all problems, right?.”
I ignore my wife’s loony suggestion. Something must have triggered with Charlie because all of a sudden he looked at me like I just pulled a revolver on him. His eyes became large and he quickly jumped to the side of the hallway. Could he have possibly heard her? It doesn’t matter.
My cell remains as if I never left it. I stare at the mirror, my ugly face reflects back and it disturbs me. The monstrous hair on my head reflects a lion’s wild mane. Shame, the man under the hair has not the courageous heart of a lion but that of a cowardly pig.
I sit on my itchy cot waiting for the voice of my wife to come back and intrude into my brain. She doesn’t. I choose not to participate in the various activities the institution staff forces on us. So I voluntarily sit in my cell soaking up time. Suddenly, I hear the hinge on the door squeak and a young nurse walks in. Her blond hair bounces slightly as she steps over the threshold. She stops at the edge of my bed holding a clipboard and an orange transparent bottle of medicinal pills.
“Dr. Petersen will be in soon, Mr. Kilmer.” She closes the heavy door behind her. Her body sways majestically in the white outfit that matches perfectly with the sick walls that surround her. “Here, take your morning pills.” She places them on the night stand near my bed. “Was breakfast enjoyable for you?” Her voice sweet and reassuring.
“Yes ma’am.” I lie to her as I chase my pills with a cup of iced cold water.
“How was your morning?”
“Interesting. It was quite interesting.” She replies with a soft smile. As she makes her way back towards the exit she discovers something on the floor, almost under my bed. “Why was this on the floor, Ron?”
I glance at the picture she held, her red fingernails curled around the wood frame. I shrug my shoulders. She quickly realizes that she is doing more harm than good by asking. So she gently returns it to my nightstand and walks once more to the door.
“Oh, I see him now. He’s coming down the hall.” The nurse props open the door allowing the doctor to pass into my room. “Okay Ron, I will check on you later.” She leaves and I smile. It surprises me. My wife had no input on the nurse and the smile I made. I stay silent waiting for her to say something. Nothing.
“Good morning, Mr. Kilmer. How have you been since we last met on Tuesday?”
“Same as always, nothing here ever changes.” Sarcasm keeps my humor flowing straight. “All I ever do ever is eat, sleep and urinate on the walls.”
“Okay, I guess I deserve that.” Dr. Petersen grabs the chair from my desk and pulls it up to my cot. “Shall we get started then?” He scratches his whitened beard and I could hear his fingers scrape against his wrinkled face. “ I think the best way to go about this is I‘m going to ask you a few questions about yourself. Then we will go from there. It’ll be similar to an interview.”
I nod. “And so far we have gotten nowhere.” I reply and notice his blue eyes glance at me behind those thick bifocals.
“I promise we will get somewhere today.” He focuses his attention back to his notes. “Explain to me, Ron, why do you believe you are here?”
“Not sure.”
“You’re not?” he glances up at me as if making sure I really had said that.
“No, not really.” As I say this he begins to write a few notes down on the paper clipped to his clipboard.
“What does that mean?” I ask.
He simply ignores me by asking another pointless question. “ Moving on, what did you say your wife’s name was?”
“Why do you keep writing things down like that?” I attempt my question once more. Although curious in his response, something retracts my interest in the answer. I suddenly feel something crawl on my neck, like jagged fingers walking on my skin.
She came back. Her slithering voice chills my stiff spine. “Answer him, Ronnie. What‘s my name?”
“No.” I say aloud.
“No? You did say you had a wife, right?” Dr. Petersen returns his eyes to his notes and crosses his legs. “I can’t help you if you refuse to talk about it.”
“Yeah hubby, let’s talk about some things. Bring some stuff to the table!”
I was surprised the doctor could not hear her deafening voice piercing through the still air.
“Ron.” he says almost sympathetically. “What exactly happened that night? What is a guy like you doing in here?”
I sit there on my cot with my back against the wall, staring at the square tiles that litter the floor. My eyes remain motionless.
“At least look at the man, Ronnie. Come on, tell him why such a good man is in such a wacked out place. There are no secrets here.” I suddenly feel her change to my other ear. She whispers softly. “Well, there is one.”
“I hear her. Every single day. She‘s like a stray dog that I fed one time, she just keeps coming back for more.” I finally get it out. “She feeds on my thoughts!”
“Who exactly talks to you?”
“My dead wife!” I scream so loud a nurse walking pass by my cell, opens the door and peeks her head in. The doctor lifts his hand up as if to say, it’s ok I will just place him in a straight jacket and send him on his merry way.
“Okay, Ronald I see this a lot. This is my profession, I can help you.”
“I don’t think you really understand.”
“What does she say to you?”
“I say stay out of this old geezer.”
“Whatever she wants.” I respond, trying not to interrupt my wife.
“Specifically what does she say? What conversations have you had with her?”
This is pure agitation. “Conversations? You think I talk back with the crazed woman? You have no idea, Doctor.” I looked at him straight into his uneasy eyes.
He looked at me with a cock-eyed sort of face and once more he jot down some notes. “ Okay, okay we will come back to that. Let’s move on. Moving on.”
“Finally.”
“Tell me what you remember of that night. Any feelings or emotions that spring into mind?”
“Guilt, shame, remorse, any of these will do. Just choose one.” She slithered around my neck. “Well then again choose them all!”
“I can’t.” I wasn’t sure whether I was directing my answer to the doctor or my invisible wife.
“Okay, we’ll get there. Patience is important.”
“Just say it, Ron! Just tell him how you did it. Tell him how you killed your precious family. Let the world in on your dirty little secret.”
I struggle, I can’t tell anybody about what happened because I certainly don’t remember.
“If you confess, they’ll let you out. Just tell him it was an accident.”
She is right, I have to tell the doctor. Maybe he will let me return to society because after all it was just an accident. “I did it! I killed them okay! But it was an accident.”
“Thank you for being honest. What was your life like before you killed…your family died?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Okay, let’s go back to that night. Can you tell me the events?”
“Yes.”
“What is the first thing you remember?”
“Driving down a dark winding hill. Trees covered both sides of the highway. I looked over at my wife. I remember her laughing. Then I guess I blacked out.”
“If I only knew. Those laughs would have been screams.”
“Do you remember anything after the crash?”
“I looked at her mangled body. That’s all.”
“Tell him more, Ron. Tell him everything.”
“I have nothing else to say.” I whispered under my breath, hoping he did not hear me.
“That is perfectly acceptable.” He replied. “Do you remember your children?”
“No. I don‘t.”
Dr. Petersen takes a deep breath. “I have been working with you for a long time now, Ron. I have noticed changes in you and you are at a point, I believe, that you are ready.”
“ Ready for what? What is it exactly?” I shift uncomfortably in my bed.
“That you are just a murderous loser! You’re scared of yourself Ron, you are going to be exposed.”
“I’m going to tell you what really happened on that night. I am going to warn you though it is not what you think happened.” He cleared his throat as if readying himself for a huge speech. “You did not kill your family that night.”
“Yes I did!”
“No, you did not murder them.”
“What?” I ask.
The door to my cell shoots open as the nurse from before yells at Dr. Petersen. “It’s Charlie! He’s trying to stab his nurse! He won’t let her go unless you personally give him his meds!” Her voice is frantic and she can hardly keep a breath in her chest.
“Ron, we will continue this in a moment when I come back.” He stands up and calmly walks out the door, following the panicked nurse.
I wave my hand, not giving the respect of looking at the doctor. The door slowly shuts behind him. There I was, alone in my cell once more. Alone with her.
“That’s an interesting folder over there.” her voice sounds more subtle than before. I watch it as if making sure it won’t move. The open window in my cell allows a small breeze to blow in. The breeze lifts the folder’s cover and keeps it open. My mind stays focused on the folder, debating the attempt to look inside and reveal it’s mysterious content.
Finally, as if watching it for hours, I stand up from my bed and approach the yellow folder of secrets. I walk pass the haunting mirror and like a ghost my reflection shimmers by. There my fingers lifted the cover.
“Be ready, Ronnie boy. The Book of Secrets awaits you.”
“Quiet.” I tell her.
My eyes shake and the heart inside my chest pounds. I refuse to believe what was written.
“Ronald J. Kilmer : Admitted in November of 1980 at the age fifteen. Patient has a long history of auditory hallucinations, with this he claims to hear the voice of his non-existent wife. Patient has no family. Patient continues to believe the picture in his room is of his own family. Patient falsely believes he had killed his imaginary family in a car accident. ”
I skip down a bit further. “ Patient has severe long term memory loss. Does not remember previous therapy sessions. Paranoia seems to be setting in quicker than I thought.”
I close the folder and pick up his blue pen. I can feel the veins in my neck enlarge as my rage elevates. I return to my bed keeping the pen hidden by my side. Placing my hands behind my head I lay down quietly, waiting for the doctor to return. She whispers ever so gently in my ear.
“Kill him. You have nothing to live for, he has been the one keeping this secret from you.” I stand up slowly and approach the door. I’m not sure what I am about to do but I do know it’s gonna be bad. My mind is numb and weak. My hand shakes as I reach for the door knob.
“No, you‘re wrong.” I say. “They all have lied to me.” I grip the door knob enraged. I begin to twist the knob and suddenly in an instant I drop the pen. She wins, I think to myself. This is exactly what she wants. I hear the commotion outside in the hallway and I return back to my cot to lay down. Enraged she yells at me to go out there and take my much needed revenge. I remain frigid and still, leaving my hands positioned under my head.
It’s been an month since the meeting with the doctor. I’ve decided to try and be more actively charged with the people around me, as my new therapist puts it. I now eat with other patients, play bingo and watch re-runs of MASH. My history stays back where it belongs and doesn’t impede much in my life any more. However, when the sun sets behind the distant mountains, occasionally the wind will pick up a faint whispering voice saying “You killed me, Ronald.”