“Asylum – IV: Words in Air” / A Memorable Fancy #336

[Continuing the journal of Diane McMurphy, a patient in Bad Shepherd mental hospital, “The Asylum”]

     Once in an unpredictable while Doctor Wolfe makes his rounds, hmmm-ing and clucking, thumbing charts at the keepers’ station. There are two ways we act when Doctor visits Ward H. The first tactic is to be normal, calm, responsible, friendly, collegial. Doctor watches for these signs, writes in his notebook when he sees them. Our other tactic is to act crazy. There are conflicting rumors as to which method is more effective in getting us out of here, as acting crazy mirrors what we do when we’re not acting. But Doctor writes in his notebook when we act that way, too.

     He fixes his calm gaze on each of us, one by one. We note his looks, his occasional words, the circles the top of his pencil makes when he scribes, the careful fall of his sparkling-white garment, his every blink and twitch. We have our notebooks too, mostly in our heads, where we track his steps, his absence. (What does he do when he is not here to blink and twitch, hmmm and cluck?) We make circles in our notebooks and try to decipher the motions the tops of our pencils make, to read the fatal words in air.

[to be continued …]

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