Tuesday, November 02, 2004
Hela Gets Her Marker
7/30 (I think) Bedroom
I had to throw a tantrum to get the felt-tip marker to write these things down. I don't know if I can get them out before the shot kicks in and puts me to sleep. Pens aren't allowed here. I explained to them that I'm a writer and if I can't write, I become crazier so it's counter-therapeutic for me to be deprived of a pen.
When I swore to that fat, evil turtle of a nurse that I would scoop her eyes out and eat them, she got out the bag of restraints. I'm restrained quite frequently, on the outside. But by my master. Sexy and evil. It's all in fun. He's the only one I would ever let take my motion. I miss him. Didn't think I would so badly. Already. Every time I eat food or sleep. Or breathe. It is sharing the daily, life-sustaining activities with someone that binds me to them more so than the leather cuffs on my ankles and wrists. The harness, the ropes.
Each time I lie in my itchy, plastic-lined bed here, my skin buzzes with the reflection, the echo, the imprint of my master's moist and glowing flesh. His ocean-blue aura waving through each of my cells. The soft scratch of his orange moustache still uprooting membranes on both of my lips.
When I pass out, like I know I will soon, since my muscles are drooping like pudding, I want to wake up to the freckles on his shoulders. Nestle my temple into the warm ridge between his pectoral and collar bone. A perfect pillow cut out for my head exactly. His armful of fading tattoos will cradle my neck. How he chokes me…oh…
At 8am, his alarm clock will chitter with politics and blablabla NPR. And I'll wake up to it. He will stir and kiss my head and sleep again.
I will not wake up here. I will
Hela Gets her Marker
Hela sat cross-legged, slumped, elbows on her knees and chin on her palms on the scratchy white sheets of her bed. Bored. The sleeping old woman across from her snored and farted, a rising and dropping mountain of geezer flesh abandoned for the dream realm.
The state hospital bedrooms were dull and crowded. Three narrow beds arranged in a triangle shape, two with their headboards against the back wall. A window blocked by grinning, iron bars between them, the third bed crossing before both of them, perpendicular, closest to the door. The third bed was usually given to patients on frequent observation so they could be checked on throughout the night without the other two room mates being disturbed.
Hela was in the third bed. Sitting up because the most common psych ward past time, sleep, was not an option for her. Carol's buzzing throat and unceasing, methane onion farts made it toxic to breathe and much too loud to sleep in the bedroom that Hela and Carol and Nancy shared. Nancy, doped down heavily with antipsychotics, slept anyway. Hela watched Nancy through the cracked-open door of the bedroom, napping upright in a dayroom chair, head bowing to the open magazine on her lap.
This was Hela's first afternoon in the state hospital, but her 5th stay at a place like this. She was hyper. Her mood stabilizer medicine wouldn't kick in for a few days. And she hadn't met any allies amongst the other patients, yet. Wasn't quite in the mood for chatting, anyhow.
Awake and alone to amuse her manic self through the bare, long conscious hours of the institutional day, Hela rocked on her buns just to burn up the zaps of energy tickling the dendrites of her under-stimulated nerves. The mattress crinkled beneath her. It was covered in plastic. She wanted to ride her bike. She wanted to fuck. She wanted to yell. She wanted to do something.
On the bed next to Hela's, Carol's butt trumpeted once again and before the smell could scare all the oxygen from the bedroom, Hela got up, pulled on her socks and stepped directly outside the door to the nurse's counter.
"Can I have a pen?" she asked the nurse, a black man she hadn't seen before.
"Patients are not allowed to have pens." the nurse barked in a crusted, Jamaican accent. Hela had never heard a Jamaican accent carry such malevolence. Then again, she had only before heard them on travel commercials and Bob Marley songs.
"But I need to write. I'm a writer. That is what I do." Hela stood on her tiptoes to raise her eyes to the nurse's level. Defiantly. Challenging.
"Patients are not allowed to have pens. We've had incidents…"
"I'll sit right here." Hela waved her palm to a chair and table right next to the nurse's station, which was used for the blood pressure readings each morning. "You can watch me. I promise. I won't hurt myself with the pen. I just need to write."
"You can't have a pen. That's the rules." the nurse looked above Hela's head when he said this, as if he were bored with this argument already.
"I need a fucking pen! Give me a fucking pen!" Hela screamed, then. The dazed heads of all the patients, who were plopped like park pigeons on bolted down blue vinyl chairs in front of a fuzzing TV, twisted mechanically, slow like periscopes to watch the new girl take on Mean James, the day nurse.
"Jean?" James called. A sneering slug creature stomped out of the medicine room behind the counter.
Hela took a breath for composure. She knew better than to act up in the psych hospital. It would only prolong her stay. "I want a pen." she said to Jean.
The slug creature, no, more like a turtle creature, round and immense with a shell of short, sprayed down orange hair capping her hard head. A beaked nose and baggy eyes that looked as if they'd been punched and punched and punched…
"Patients can't have pens!" the Turtle croaked. "So Siddown!" She thrust her finger at an empty day room chair among the other patients, the higher functioning ones of which were giggling at the erupting confrontation.
"I need to write!" the electric zaps of fury stirred and grew sharp beneath Hela's skin, fried the sensible thoughts from her brain. There was no reminder of consequence, of punishment, of anything but this pen, this pen was the striving of all her existence.
"Give me a fucking pen!" Hela roared and reached for the chair at the blood pressure table, which was perhaps the only piece of furniture not affixed to the cold, tile floor of the dayroom.
"Siddown!" The Turtle glared, her green corneas bright and sharp like radioactive limes.
With a howl that rung and then hung from the yellowish walls, Hela heaved the chair in her arms and above her head, it dwarfing her body while also bestowing on her the illusion of strength. Hela is Atlas. This chair is her world.
She howled again and with a slingshot motion released her hand's grip, launching the chair to soar horizontally, skimming the curly, black head of Elena, who ducked and laughed and then crashing in front of the TV, causing the Cubs game reception to skip and Mona to yell, "I was watching that!"
The Turtle reached into the medication room and dragged out a mesh duffel bag stuffed with leather straps. Mean James picked up the office phone and chanted "Code Green, Code Green" on overhead loudspeakers.
Soon, five brown-suited security guards. Large, scowling. Waddled nonchalant in their largeness across the dayroom. From where? Were they kept in a closet with the spare gowns, or something? They clustered in circumference around Hela.
The Turtle held up the restraint bag. "Are you gonna siddown, or do I havta make ya?"
"I'll scoop your fucking eyeballs out and eat them!" Hela yelled. A guard grabbed her arm. A few patients laughed.
"What's going on?" a calm voice said behind the barricade of security guards. A young man with a wide and doughy child's face and seafoam eyes. He set down his backpack beside him.
"Dr. Littleboy!" Elena cheered.
"They won't give me a pen." Hela said to the doctor. Breathing heavy to steady her wavering words. "I'm a writer. I need to write."
"Then give her a felt-tip marker." Dr. Littleboy said to the Turtle and Mean James, with a spice of contempt in his tone and a sneer in his lip.
"And a shot." the doctor added. He smiled at Hela.
¶ 1:17 PM
I had to throw a tantrum to get the felt-tip marker to write these things down. I don't know if I can get them out before the shot kicks in and puts me to sleep. Pens aren't allowed here. I explained to them that I'm a writer and if I can't write, I become crazier so it's counter-therapeutic for me to be deprived of a pen.
When I swore to that fat, evil turtle of a nurse that I would scoop her eyes out and eat them, she got out the bag of restraints. I'm restrained quite frequently, on the outside. But by my master. Sexy and evil. It's all in fun. He's the only one I would ever let take my motion. I miss him. Didn't think I would so badly. Already. Every time I eat food or sleep. Or breathe. It is sharing the daily, life-sustaining activities with someone that binds me to them more so than the leather cuffs on my ankles and wrists. The harness, the ropes.
Each time I lie in my itchy, plastic-lined bed here, my skin buzzes with the reflection, the echo, the imprint of my master's moist and glowing flesh. His ocean-blue aura waving through each of my cells. The soft scratch of his orange moustache still uprooting membranes on both of my lips.
When I pass out, like I know I will soon, since my muscles are drooping like pudding, I want to wake up to the freckles on his shoulders. Nestle my temple into the warm ridge between his pectoral and collar bone. A perfect pillow cut out for my head exactly. His armful of fading tattoos will cradle my neck. How he chokes me…oh…
At 8am, his alarm clock will chitter with politics and blablabla NPR. And I'll wake up to it. He will stir and kiss my head and sleep again.
I will not wake up here. I will
Hela Gets her Marker
Hela sat cross-legged, slumped, elbows on her knees and chin on her palms on the scratchy white sheets of her bed. Bored. The sleeping old woman across from her snored and farted, a rising and dropping mountain of geezer flesh abandoned for the dream realm.
The state hospital bedrooms were dull and crowded. Three narrow beds arranged in a triangle shape, two with their headboards against the back wall. A window blocked by grinning, iron bars between them, the third bed crossing before both of them, perpendicular, closest to the door. The third bed was usually given to patients on frequent observation so they could be checked on throughout the night without the other two room mates being disturbed.
Hela was in the third bed. Sitting up because the most common psych ward past time, sleep, was not an option for her. Carol's buzzing throat and unceasing, methane onion farts made it toxic to breathe and much too loud to sleep in the bedroom that Hela and Carol and Nancy shared. Nancy, doped down heavily with antipsychotics, slept anyway. Hela watched Nancy through the cracked-open door of the bedroom, napping upright in a dayroom chair, head bowing to the open magazine on her lap.
This was Hela's first afternoon in the state hospital, but her 5th stay at a place like this. She was hyper. Her mood stabilizer medicine wouldn't kick in for a few days. And she hadn't met any allies amongst the other patients, yet. Wasn't quite in the mood for chatting, anyhow.
Awake and alone to amuse her manic self through the bare, long conscious hours of the institutional day, Hela rocked on her buns just to burn up the zaps of energy tickling the dendrites of her under-stimulated nerves. The mattress crinkled beneath her. It was covered in plastic. She wanted to ride her bike. She wanted to fuck. She wanted to yell. She wanted to do something.
On the bed next to Hela's, Carol's butt trumpeted once again and before the smell could scare all the oxygen from the bedroom, Hela got up, pulled on her socks and stepped directly outside the door to the nurse's counter.
"Can I have a pen?" she asked the nurse, a black man she hadn't seen before.
"Patients are not allowed to have pens." the nurse barked in a crusted, Jamaican accent. Hela had never heard a Jamaican accent carry such malevolence. Then again, she had only before heard them on travel commercials and Bob Marley songs.
"But I need to write. I'm a writer. That is what I do." Hela stood on her tiptoes to raise her eyes to the nurse's level. Defiantly. Challenging.
"Patients are not allowed to have pens. We've had incidents…"
"I'll sit right here." Hela waved her palm to a chair and table right next to the nurse's station, which was used for the blood pressure readings each morning. "You can watch me. I promise. I won't hurt myself with the pen. I just need to write."
"You can't have a pen. That's the rules." the nurse looked above Hela's head when he said this, as if he were bored with this argument already.
"I need a fucking pen! Give me a fucking pen!" Hela screamed, then. The dazed heads of all the patients, who were plopped like park pigeons on bolted down blue vinyl chairs in front of a fuzzing TV, twisted mechanically, slow like periscopes to watch the new girl take on Mean James, the day nurse.
"Jean?" James called. A sneering slug creature stomped out of the medicine room behind the counter.
Hela took a breath for composure. She knew better than to act up in the psych hospital. It would only prolong her stay. "I want a pen." she said to Jean.
The slug creature, no, more like a turtle creature, round and immense with a shell of short, sprayed down orange hair capping her hard head. A beaked nose and baggy eyes that looked as if they'd been punched and punched and punched…
"Patients can't have pens!" the Turtle croaked. "So Siddown!" She thrust her finger at an empty day room chair among the other patients, the higher functioning ones of which were giggling at the erupting confrontation.
"I need to write!" the electric zaps of fury stirred and grew sharp beneath Hela's skin, fried the sensible thoughts from her brain. There was no reminder of consequence, of punishment, of anything but this pen, this pen was the striving of all her existence.
"Give me a fucking pen!" Hela roared and reached for the chair at the blood pressure table, which was perhaps the only piece of furniture not affixed to the cold, tile floor of the dayroom.
"Siddown!" The Turtle glared, her green corneas bright and sharp like radioactive limes.
With a howl that rung and then hung from the yellowish walls, Hela heaved the chair in her arms and above her head, it dwarfing her body while also bestowing on her the illusion of strength. Hela is Atlas. This chair is her world.
She howled again and with a slingshot motion released her hand's grip, launching the chair to soar horizontally, skimming the curly, black head of Elena, who ducked and laughed and then crashing in front of the TV, causing the Cubs game reception to skip and Mona to yell, "I was watching that!"
The Turtle reached into the medication room and dragged out a mesh duffel bag stuffed with leather straps. Mean James picked up the office phone and chanted "Code Green, Code Green" on overhead loudspeakers.
Soon, five brown-suited security guards. Large, scowling. Waddled nonchalant in their largeness across the dayroom. From where? Were they kept in a closet with the spare gowns, or something? They clustered in circumference around Hela.
The Turtle held up the restraint bag. "Are you gonna siddown, or do I havta make ya?"
"I'll scoop your fucking eyeballs out and eat them!" Hela yelled. A guard grabbed her arm. A few patients laughed.
"What's going on?" a calm voice said behind the barricade of security guards. A young man with a wide and doughy child's face and seafoam eyes. He set down his backpack beside him.
"Dr. Littleboy!" Elena cheered.
"They won't give me a pen." Hela said to the doctor. Breathing heavy to steady her wavering words. "I'm a writer. I need to write."
"Then give her a felt-tip marker." Dr. Littleboy said to the Turtle and Mean James, with a spice of contempt in his tone and a sneer in his lip.
"And a shot." the doctor added. He smiled at Hela.
¶ 1:17 PM
