I sat down and lit a cigarette. The gray room around me had long since faded, but I could not leave it. They demanded that I admit that I was crazy. But I'm not crazy. They are crazy. Everyone in the world is crazy except me. They believe that they exist, but only I exist. I came up with the idea of them.
The dark room was warmed up only by the light of a lantern that hovered over the yard between the shaggy untidy trees. It was throwing a golden strip of light onto my bed so that the edge of that strip fell directly on my pillow. Of course, it was impossible to sleep, except facing the pillow, but then I did not have enough air. So I slept the other way around, putting my feet on the pillow.
Tomorrow morning the doctor will come again and will ask me the same questions again. I need to do something about it, they can't keep me here forever. Or they can. I just have to think and change the world in my mind, but I can't do it because of the damned pills. Those satanic pills, they make you dizzy and thirsty. And I can't influence the world through the mist they coat me in. The best I can do is call Ted. For some reason I still can manage to do it even despite the pills’ effects. By the way, if I can't sleep anymore, why not talk to him. I closed my eyes tightly and mumbled a familiar spell. Tu-tu-tu tu-tu-tu tu-tu-tu tu-tu tu.
I opened my eyes, this bloated old man with glasses was already sitting on the side of my bed. He was dressed in an orange American prison uniform and had an uneven and nasty black and grey scruff on his cheeks. I did not choose his appearance, I just somehow remembered a photo in the newspaper where there was an article about some psycho bombing unis and airports or something.
"Hello, Ted."
Ted didn't seem to notice me. He looked with a thousand foot stare before himself and was silent.
"They-ed."
Ted shook his head and looked at me as if seeing me for the first time.
- Oh, Author. How are you?
- Welp, nothing serious, those idiots locked me in a mental institution of sorts. They say I'm crazy and if I admit it, they will cure me.
- Hm. Industrial society does such a thing with its constituents once in the while. They also accused me of the most evil mental disposition and shoved me far away, even though the only thing I wanted to do is I try saving them. I’d advise them to read Foucault, he had pretty peculiar views of their craft and main subject, madness. Did you know that it is basically socially constructed and thus should be taken with a huge grain of salt? That should inform them on how foolish they are. Locking up people like you in the mental institution and people like me in jail, that what I can call madness. You can’t state that you are a democratic society and then punish abnormality with such fervour like you can’t, say, have your cake and eat it too.
- It seems to me that you used to send bombs to people by mail.
- Everyone has their own ways of fighting, man. Don't devalue me. Besides, these people were upholding industrial civilisation. Not the best people, even though it does not matter. I needed to speak to the world. They were the medium to project my message on the wall of TVs.
- With blood, I suppose. OK. Let it be. What do you think I should do?
- When I was in bad shape I wrote some essays. The latter ones were even published in the Washington Post. Try it. Take the power. Grab the narrative.
- Interesting.
Suddenly the first ray of sunlight slipped through the window. It laid down on Ted and he dissolved in the air, winking at me. I realized what I had to do. I have to steal a pencil from the doctor. Symbolism will free me from here. Maybe medicine can be overtaken by writing. It’s one hour before the morning rounds. I laid down on the bed and began to look out the window. Cars were going in different directions behind the bars. A grey Opel drove to the right, two men carried some glass across the street, I squinted and one slipped and dropped the glass on the ground. It cracked. Ridiculously.
I heard the squeak of a key in the lock and the knock on the door. "Here's Johnny-y-y." - I thought and giggled.
- Come in, it’s open.
The door opened and two huge male nurses and a gray-haired doctor with a pointy beard entered the room. He pushed the chair towards me, sat on it, pushed his glasses higher on his nose and smiled. He reminded me of a villain from the movie V for Vendetta. I bet, he is just as confident in his omniscience of what is better and what is not. Tyrant of his small country. The tyrant I came up with. A tyrant from whom I must steal a pencil at any cost.
- How do we feel?
- Fine. Well, if you don't take into account that you don't exist, doc.
- How can not exist? Here I am, in front of you.
- When you sleep, you see a lot of different things in front of you. Does not mean that they are bound to exist.
—Well, but I feel like I am. I can tell you about it. I can do things that you don't expect me to…
I noticed the tip of a small pencil in his chest pocket. I need to attack and grab it with my teeth. I will be tackled for sure, but I may be able to catch it. For some reason, the second film about Batman and the trick with a pencil came up in my mind. Pencil is here, whoosh, and the pencil disappears, ta-da. I was staring at a point on his right cheek. He continued:
- Well, how about you admit that you are ill? This way we will be able to sign the necessary papers and start treatment. The pills you are currently taking simply contain the disease. We need to act more seriously. Otherwise... Have you ever seen "Flying over a cuckoo's nest"?
—I started it once, but never finished. Nicholson was a cool guy in that film. It would be bad if something happened to him in the end. Did it, doc? I am glad I didn’t finish if it did. As for your question - no, I probably will decline your suggestion. There must be a chance to somehow prove to you that you do not exist.
- There is no such chance. But you can still try. We will be more intrusive later.
I realised that this is the moment and threw myself forward from the bed crashing into the doctor and knocking him off his feet. I started growling like a dog and poking my face into his chest quickly moving to his pocket. One bite and I was able to grab the short pencil then quickly sucked it into my mouth and put it between my cheek and jaw. At that moment, both nurses attacked me and broke down. They put me on the bed and tied me to it tightly. The doctor got up and brushed the dust from his garb on the floor.
“We'll talk again later. However, you will have less freedom of action from now on.”
They left keeping me untied. However, I got a wild hunch that if I rocked the bed well enough, I could free myself. About half an hour of rocking back and forth, and I was able to ease the ropes enough to get myself free.
Alright, now I needed to find the piece of paper or any other writing surface. The wallpaper was painted with flowers and curls, so it would be difficult for me to write over them. Maybe it is worth tearing down the wallpaper, on the other hand there should be a better surface. I managed to tear the wallpaper off the wall, hurting my nails so that they started to bleed. Now I just had to start writing and everything was bound to change. Change for the better.
I started slowly inscribing the words on a piece of wallpaper. "I sat down and lit a cigarette. The grey room around me had long since faded…" I looked out the window. Things disappeared and everything started moving. Ha.
Did you like the story? If yes, why not subscribe for more?
Or, if you really liked, you could tell the others(totally legit people you did not make up).