“This way, handsome.” A feminine voice rings in his ear.
Why does she sound so far away?
He stumbles and two sets of hands rush to keep him upright.
“I can’t hold them both,” came a high-pitched, whiny voice.
“Just put the watch in his pocket and we will take it out when we get him settled,” an older, more feminine voice says.
They walk, and walk…
He wasn’t sure when they started.
His head was too heavy to hold and his legs turned gelatinous. He couldn’t even muster a cry before his knees buckled and his eyes shut.
When he opened them, he was no longer standing. A ceiling with brown stains filled his vision as rough hands moved his body about.
“There we go,” came the lower female voice. “You’re all settled in, Brooks. Sweet nightmares, darling.”
A brush of air tickled his ear as the high-pitched voice rang, “We’re going to be best friends, you and I. We’re going to play for eternity.” She giggled maniacally and his skin prickled.
A man with no name slips into his dreams, and in his dreams forever he will be.
Brooksstaredattheancient drop ceiling centered above his metal framed bed. The tiles were plagued with brown spots that ranged in color from sand to wet coffee grounds. If he stared hard enough, sometimes the stains molded themselves into identifiable shapes. Other days, they were just as abstract as his life.
Every morning as he laid underneath those shit-stained tiles, he cataloged the atmosphere of his prison. Once-white walls had yellowed and peeled over the years, and a single barred window in the center of the back wall was his only source of light. He braced his ears against the ever present buzz that filtered through the walls and the smell of mold.
His bed, under the window, held a sagging mattress, fitted sheet, one hospital blanket and a pillow that the Void himself had slept on.
He was one of the lucky ones, he supposed. Most of the patients in St. Dymphna’s Hospital for the Mentally Disturbed were only allowed a cot on the floor because of the risk metal objects imposed–whether to themselves or others depended on the day. It was the same reason the limp mattresses didn’t have metal springs.
The worn cotton of the hospital-issued scrubs irritated his skin, the sensation like centipedes crawling across his sensitive flesh. Brooks focused on his breathing, tapping the fingers of his right hand against his thumb.
One, two, three, four.
One, two, three, four.
One, two, three, four…
He muttered a prayer to the goddess of peace and relaxation, Pasithe, knowing godsdamned well it would do nothing but try his patience. The gods had never answered him. Once, he’d prayed to any deity who would listen— the Christian God, Allah, Shiva, The Dagda, Odin, and Zeus himself. Their only answer had been a vast eternity of silence.
“Fuck them.” He gritted his teeth and sprang from the bed.
“They’ve never done us any good anyway,“ a feminine voice brushed his mind.
Brooks paced the small space, his fingers working at his side searching for an outlet. He’d never been one to punch things, but the wall to his left was asking for it.
Rather than earn himself a trip to the infirmary, he knelt by the bed and lifted the flaccid mattress from the frame. In one swift motion, he swiped a worn leather wristwatch from a tear in the mattress. It sat heavily in his palm. The clear face was scratched and whatever color had painted the edges was long gone. Both analog arms sat frozen at twelve along with the slim arm that ticked away seconds.
“That old thing again?“ she sighed.
“How did you know?” he said aloud.
“You think out loud when you’re stressed. You practically screamed it at me.”
Brooks had found the watch in his scrub pocket the night he woke in this frozen hell hole. It quickly became clear that his possession of the watch was a misstep on someone’s part, so he kept it hidden. His one act of defiance.
“How was your night? Did you sleep well?”
