Down the Rabbit Hole

So I guess I'm always the last to hear, officially this time. Is someone stealing out of my inbox again? Anyways, without any further ado.

0643, 01/27/2009, Churchill Institution for the Mentally Different

Apparently the fact that I'm sick has been common knowledge for a few years now. So common they've actually had my committed during the breaks between my true lucid moments. I woke up in a hospital this morning, greeted by a shy-looking orderly and a constant iv drip of sedatives. Apparently this is reality now. Luckily, I'm one of blessed ones. I know reality is fluid, I know I'll be gone from this place- at least in my mind- in almost no time at all. None of this has to be real if I don't want it to be.

According to the orderly, I'd only managed two real sentences before; "Have you seen my book?" and "Above all, to thine own self be true." The staff whispered these words amongst themselves whenever my name came up in conversation. The rest of my noise had only been febrile murmurs and quiet raving. I was the most famous crazy person they had at the Churchill. Apparently only a few days of consciousness every few years was a record or something.

So when I propped myself up on one elbow and said quite clearly to him: "What day is it today?" it scared him more than a little. I was afraid he was going to have a heart attack. He leaned heavily against the dresser by the door. "Tuesday," he said. "January 27th."

I nodded, trying to remember the designations for the months and what it actually meant when he said it.

"Can I get you something?" he asked, flicking his hair out of his eyes in what looked like a nervous-habit sort of way.

"Water?" He nodded and slipped out of the room. I heard the door lock behind him. Oh how lovely.

The room was very clean. White walls, white tile floor, white bed linens. Besides the bed and the dresser there was a blue armchair by the window (which looked over a small, dreary courtyard) and a bookshelf behind that.

I slid out of bed, hold fast to the iv stand for support. I don't remember being out of this bed any time in the last few years and I was worried about falling. But my legs held and I made it over to the chair, dragging it half around to face the shelf. Stacks and stacks of coil notebooks and sketch pads, every one with my name in big block letters on the cover. And dates corresponding, I supposed, the dates I had started and ended with the particular book.

Well, it turns out I was a lot busier than I remember over the last few years. That was a thought that was a little more disconcerting than most others.

I picked up the first book my hand hit and flipped it open just as a key scratched in the lock and the man came back with my water...

Down the Rabbit Hole, Pt 2

0708, 01/27/2009, Churchill Institution for the Mentally Different

The first picture in the sketch book was of a young girl falling through the sky. The was a plane above her, with an open hatch. She had no parachute. She was just plummeting towards the water below. My stomach twisted. I have never been a fan of heights and the vivid picture actually made me sick to look at. But the girl in the pencil sketch had such a serene expression.

It was a lot creepier than it should have been.

The orderly crouched next to me as I stared at the picture. "Here," he said, pressing the paper cup of water into my hand. "You're quite the artist."

I shook my head. "Not really." It was true. I've never been capable of much more than a stick person. I looked at him, looking at me. He blushed.

"I have other rounds to make. I'm glad you're... up though. Let me know if you need anything else." He stood and went to leave. The name tag on his scrub shirt said 'Dave'.

Down the Rabbit Hole, Pt. 3

1258, 01/27/2009, Churchill Institution for the Mentally Different

I went to the dining room for lunch.

The other patients all stayed clear of me. I tried not think of why, and just got my food and sat well away from everyone else.

I don't feel crazy, I don't. I feel like a normal young woman. Everything seems fine to me, this world, the reality seems exactly as it should. No aliens spying into my brain from orbit, no government conspiracies that only I know about. No monsters chasing the edges of my vision or long and meaningful conversations with my own shoes.

Then why am I here? Is it really so bad on the days when I'm not myself that the other patients and even the nurses and orderlies look at me sitting here with my ham sandwich like I'm about to throw a chair through the window and try to eat my own leg?

Why am I crazier than anyone else out there?

Down the Rabbit Hole, Pt. 4

1511, 01/27/2009, Churchill Institution for the Mentally Different

I've been awake for a few hours. Awake physically and awake mentally.

Everything is more bright now. Like colours and shapes. Crisper, clearer. Like looking at the world through high def eyes. Noise is louder, voices are sharper. The air coming through the window smells more like rain and cold than I can ever remember. Everything is just... more.

Dave came back this afternoon.

"Felling alright?" he asked.

I told him about everything being more real to me this afternoon. It was something I needed to share. I also told him about my feelings in the lunchroom.

"Am I really crazy?"

Dave shrugged and sat on the edge of the bed next to me. "Maybe. Can I tell you a secret?"

As he started his secret story, I studied him out the corner of my eye. I didn't want him to know I was sizing him up. Tall, lanky, shaggy hair that kept falling in his eyes. Conventionally good looking, which was not a bad thing. He wore a silver chain around his neck, under his scrubs. That was probably against policy, I thought. Someone could strangle him. But on the chain I saw a woman's engagement ring. Probably why he risked getting written up for wearing it. Interesting.

"I got a job here at to help fund my way through medical school and get experience in my chosen field at the same time. I thought it was an excellent idea. Ever since grade school I wanted to be a child psychologist, helping kids with mental illness and whatnot.

I loved my job when I started. But then in my fifth month, they transferred me from the first floor and working with the kids to here, the fourth floor, working with the people that had been deemed lost causes."

It did not cheer me to hear him call me a lost cause, but I didn't interrupt. He must have realized the way that last sentence had sounded, because he had the decency to blush.

"But that's just the point. You're not a lost cause. Hell, I don't think you're crazy at all. You do see things differently. You probably have DID, I'll give them that. But I've spent at least three hours a day with you for the last three years and nothing about you seems really... I think sometimes-"

He leaned in here, dropping his voice.

"I think maybe everyone else is crazy. I think there's nothing wrong with you, just the drugs and the fact that you talk a little strangely sometimes. Well, write strangely."

He sat up again and looked straight at me.

"I have an idea."

Down the Rabbit Hole, Pt. 5

2021, 01/27/2009, Churchill Institution for the Mentally Different

The idea was, forgive my use of the word lightly, crazy. Actually insane.

Dave held up the photo in the book, smile lit up with an inner glow like he had just found Jesus.

But even I had to admit, it looked amazing. "Chile, really?" I had always loved the mountains. South America could be nice.

"We could do it." Dave nodded to reinforce the point. "We could."

Fresh air, no more medication (less than twenty four without it and I was feeling great), no one else around to bother me or try to medicate me. Just me alone with my thoughts. It could be everything I'd always needed.

"What do we need?" I asked.

**

It started with a plastic iv needle taped to my arm but not actually inserted into anything.

"The nurse is going to hook up your meds right before lights out and we want her to think it's all connected, so don't move too much and don't draw any attention to the needle." Dave was putting the final touches on the tape. "It looks good. Real convincing."

"I'll be back about three hours after lights out. Right after the first set of rounds. I'll have clothes and supplies. I'll sneak you out through the window. You can climb down an ivy trellis, right?"

I nodded. I had no idea, but damned if I wasn't going to try.

"We'll have everything we need in the Jeep; fake passports, cash, road trip music," he grinned sheepishly. "Ready to leave this life behind?"

I nodded again. I still had no idea, but damned if I wasn't going to try.

Down the Rabbit Hole, Pt. 6

2356, 01/27/2009, Churchill Institution for the Mentally Different

The nurse didn't check my iv very closely and the flood of chemicals didn't hit my bloodstream. The world stayed bright for me, and for the first time in as long as I can remember, I felt real inside my own body.

I heard the click of the stone against the window glass. Time to go.

The window lock was hard to open, but I managed it. The climb down the trellis was not so difficult and running across the huge lush lawn, wet with rain and melted snow, hand in hand with Dave, an almost complete stranger was even easier. I felt lighter with every step. As the Jeep came into view, I was practically flying.

We drove off together, Dave and I, all through the night and into the next day.

As the sun was coming up, we were a long, long way off from the mountains of Chile, but we had our sights set.

This was the beginning of a beautiful, crazy adventure.