Memos from the psych ward IV

Memos from the psych ward IV

The cold air slaps my face as I make my way through the back door of this huge hospital. Would you care to follow me? I can get lost in here. How many days have I worked here and yet I don’t know my way around it. To my surprise I am right on time. This rarely happens, unintentionally.

“Doctor, you are right on time.” The nurse at the front desk of the OPD greets me. I nod.

I head in to the psychiatric ward I am assigned to and pull out my earphones. I sit at the bench with the patients and observe. Come look from my point of view. Be my eyes for a day. Something in me whispers “fraud!” I am supposed to do rounds with the students here that eye me with eagerness to learn about the illnesses that lurks in these hollow rooms, Nonetheless I Ignore it and look around. Listen closely I need you to be my voice. This whole place feels like a box, As I sit on the bench contemplating why I feel as if I am one of them I see a young man sitting in front of me. His eye contact strong. He doesn’t look away while he talks on and on. He stares at me; He is talking with the language that is foreign to my ears but mother to his tongue. I don’t understand. “Do no harm. Fraud!” who said that? I look around.

A woman wonders the Hall ways singing and glancing at the corner of her eyes. She seems as if she is looking for something. Her shaved head covered with her hoodie, she scratches it every now and then. Her wrinkles are like lines on a piece of paper. They have years of stories of pain and illness written on them. Her better half lurks behind her with his cap on. She says it’s too cold. She emphasized on the gloominess of the grey clouds. They too might have tears that might burst at any moment now. The only thing keeping that from happening is the ferocious wind that blows my way. Can you see my struggle? “Fraud!” the whisper appears once again. I stand and walk to the first room on my left. The room is painted white, it smells of hot tea. One bed is empty; on the other lies a young boy in his early adolescence cursed to carry the weight of the voices. He laughs, I want to laugh with him. Not many people make me laugh I am often known as cheerful but my fake laughter is what I am known for. Was he like this too before he lost his mind I wonder? Are you following what I am saying? I really hope you are because I don’t even trust myself right now. He talks, I want to talk with him. I want to say out loud and respond to the voices and what they have to say. I am jealous of his freedom. I want to sit on his bed and listen as he talks with his voices and build up the courage to talk with mine. He reminds me of a man who always heard the voices converse with one another. He told me they tell him to get a rope. All they talk about was asphyxiation. The showed him the number of the beast and the only way he'd escape was if he suffocates all of them. Do you think he did as they demanded?

The singing lady from the hall way enters; She seems to be in the same room as him. She interferes in the middle of conversations now and again. She says she misses home and wants to go eat some boiled sweet potatoes then become a teacher for kindergartners. It’s sad. I don’t think I can ever get used to the after math of a person’s life once the mind is broken. There is no hope for us here, is there?

Then I hear a yell “call my father!” demands the man yelling louder and louder with each passing time. Curious, I go out to observe the commotion he screams at the nurse complaining of the injustice he has suffered. I should intervene but I am hesitant. They can handle it; They tell him lies trying sooth his anger and drive him in to a sweet melancholic slumber. This way he escapes the voices that tell him he is a nuisance, after all this is not news, he is not foreign to this place. He is just revisiting. Once the medication is in his veins and enters his blood stream he is sluggish. His dark face gets clouded by fogginess. He is no longer obnoxious. Right next to his bed is a man doing sit-ups if I am not mistaken with his brother looks my way for an instant. He is bound to convulse through out his mortal life, as if his own existence is a horrifying fact that his weak body fails to comprehend, His meat suit holds him back. He loses his balance and let’s go in to the embrace of gravity. He sits on the bed and above him on the wall there is a sticker of a word “በቃ” (ዘዳ 1÷6). The whisper in my head speaks up “fraud!” do they know? Can they tell? I look around to the others in the same room. This place is filled with noises. Noises not many can hear. But they get it, for they are imprisoned here to get rid of it. How can you ignore such a demand full voice that is out for vengeance? Who are we to tell them they are the crazy ones? Maybe they have a clear view of the world. They see it for what it is. There is only chaos in their perspective but we are convinced there’s order ergo we decided they need help and I am supposed to be the healer. Just as my God complex starts to kick in:

“FRAUD!!” it’s getting louder, can they hear it? CAN’T THEY REALLY HEAR IT? I must move so I get out and step slowly the next room. Well, hello there is goes aggression in it’s true form in front of me. A man unable to balance between his mania and his depression seasons. he speaks with the tongue of blasphemy masquerading his true face behind humility he wants to escape I can tell. I can see it in his eyes. To his right a teenager that looks younger for her age. There goes another young soul cursed to carry the weight of the voice she tore herself looking for a route to let her soul escape her flesh. On the far left corner of the room, a beautiful young woman with dimples on both her cheeks that sink as deep as my secrets and eyes so big and bright one might mistake them for being full of life sits quietly looking at the floor. She breaks eye contact not to let us see the demons that lurks behind. She smiles shyly and takes her time before responding. Surely decency is a principal for a lady of her kind. Where do I stand in all of this? Am I the voice for these lost souls? “FRAUD!!!” something yells from inside with all of it’s strength deafening me right where I stand. I belong among them. I am an imposter. I have lived my life mastering mediocrity and the art of making countless façades.

I should be helping them but all I want to do is get out. I make haste to the door but something stops me. I walk once again to the door yet I find myself standing in the last room I saw myself in. Third time is the charm, I walk towards the door on my left but the door shifts and once again I am faced with the wall. Panic starts to build inside my skull. I stand, steady intimidated by my own breathing.

Absolute silence falls in the room and they all turn and look at me. Where did they come from? They corner me, this is why I wanted you here HELP ME!! They gather and circle me slowly. “Welcome home.

This is a gentle place won’t you stay with us?” they say in harmony “here, take a pill for the pain.

Another to forget and one for the never ending pain.” How do I escape myself? How do I find balance?

The vein on my arm pulsates. It wants me to play the cords with a blade. Put an end to it's restlessness. Wait….

Something feels wet I put my hand out of the pocket of my white gown. My blood drips from my fingers to the floor. Shit! I broke the empty ampoule. I forgot I put them there. My mother was right I shouldn’t play with sharp objects. They don’t know. They can’t hear it. Something is different I can sense it. The sheer realization hits me and I laugh.

Forget what you know. There is no truth in what you just read but I swear there is truth in what I said. I look at my bruised wrist and my rusty chains around my ankle. I love the sound they make when I walk. This time the voice has won. So then I look out my window. I decide to ignore everything. Shift my focus on the grey cloud and the wind that whispers as if it’s flirting with it.

PERHAPS IT WILL CONTINUE,

PERHAPS I WILL CONFESS…….

(but I am praying for the end.)