Dr. Littleboy For the month of July, the unit was decorated with red, white and blue paper stars, faded old and taped haphazardly to the gold walls. The U.S. presidents, each in a rectangle with their picture and name, in order of office, were hung among them.

Each day, Markus would displace the rectangle of George W. Bush. Sometimes Bush was up before Washington. Sometimes, somewhere in the center near Roosevelt. Other times, Bush was taped to the side of the television, or under a chair.

But this day, Bush was missing. Hela heard Jeffry yelling about how the toilet in the room he shared with Markus was clogged with paper.

Set next to the stars and the presidents was a tall ladder. A lone workman clung to the top. Shoulders tight, Hela could tell from where she stood at the nurse’s station counter, at the opposite end of the dayroom. She smirked to herself. The worker was probably nervous at being inside an actual loony bin. Expecting to see some Jack Nicholson in a straight jacket bearing his teeth.

Elena was tugging a plastic comb, one issued to all patients upon arrival, through her long hair with long swipes of her delicate wrist.

“Hey, Queenie.” Nurse Jean squawked to Elena. “Your highness, excuse me.” Elena looked to Jean. “Do that in your bathroom. We don’t wanna catch your fleas.”

Elena, not one to fight with staff, rose from the vinyl chair with a whip of her neck, of her black hair, as if to prove that her fleas were indeed, non-existent and sauntered off to her room.
Nurse Jean noticed Hela leaning on the counter. “Get’yer arms off.”
Hela thrust her elbows forward and sneered.

“So you’re ready for round 2, huh?” Nurse Jean said to Hela and would have put her hands on her hips for emphasis, if she had any hips and not simply a light bulb of fat for a torso.
“Just tell me one thing.” Hela removed her arms from the counter. “When can I use the phone?" Hela said out loud, but thought, “you god damn turtle, I’ll eat your eyes.”

Nurse Jean had particularly tasty looking eyes. Shadows below them and bulgy and green, much like Hela's own eyes. Her hair was shellacked extra-stiff to her scalp, her shell on full guard.
"You need to talk to your doctor about that."

"Who is my doctor."

"Him." Nurse Jean thrust one puffy thumb at the young man with the backpack behind her.

"Doctor Littleb-er-Jaros, I need to talk to you. Please." Hela said with a flash of her teeth, and a blush in her cheeks from her accidental slip of the nickname the patients had given him. She knew to suck up to the doctors. They write the discharge orders.

"Sure. What's your name?" the doctor smiled back and the white ice spark in his blue eyes made something inside of Hela's chest jump.

"I'm Hela."

"Hela, that's right. I've been meaning to speak with you. Up for a game of Scrabble?"


Dr. Littleboy was called so, not only for his age but the bulge of his cheeks and the fluff of blonde hair, infant-like sweeping in a soft forelock to frame his eyes.

"Marquis." he said and placed an S on a triple-score square.

"DeSade." Hela giggled.

"Would it be out of line for me to apologize for the pen incident?" Dr. Littleboy wrote 30 points on the napkin. Hela eyed his pen enviously.

"You tell me, Doc." Hela set down a U-A-C-K stemming from the Q in Marquis. Wrote 25 points on the napkin with her felt tip marker. "Would it be out of line for me to write on the walls with my shit if it happens again?"

Dr. Littleboy's bottom lip fell. The roofs of his eyes raised, the pupils engorging in black to conceal the blue. He bowed his head low over the Scrabble board. "If I could watch…"
  ¶ 8:54 PM