Out of Their Minds

"Ummm, I threw my last bottle at the orderlies. Please don't be mad, mom..."

The orderlies had still stuck around, just in case of anything. One of them handed the bottle to Francine, which was still full. "He asked for two more bottles while he was here," he explained.

 

My eyes widened, and I shooed them away once more. Gosh, it seemed as though they thought Noah was a murderer.
"Three bottles?"
I gasped, calculating the pills he had taken in less than two days.
"Look, dear, you're not supposed to take more than two pills a day, okay? No matter how sad you are. Because these pills are toxic. You stop getting happy if you eat too many of them, okay? If you're very sad, don't eat these pills, but come to me okay?"
I kept the bottle with me, commenting:
"From now on, I'll keep the pills. You can ask for them once in the morning and once in the evening."
I was purposefully avoiding the mention of his mother. I wasn't sure what to do.

 

"Ok..."

Noah felt like a child. A child being punished by his mother for taking a cookie out of the jar before dinner.

"Mom...I...that person that came...can she...not come anymore? I don't like her."

It was like that person tapped into some closed door inside Noah's mind. The kind of door nobody wanted to open, like Mortimer's door. And it hurt, it hurt when she knocked on that door.

 

"Mom...I...that person that came...can she...not come anymore? I don't like her."
I sighed. How could I explain to him that she was the only way he could return to his real self? I questioned myself again and again - what would have I wanted to be done with me when Dan told me about Dad? What should have the doctors done?
"Noah," I spoke, my hands trembling, "you can't wish her away."
"Why?"
"Because...because I'm not your mom, Noah. She's your mom."
I felt myself fainting. What will Noah do now?

 

"Th-that's not true....That's not true is it? You're just ****ting me, right mom? Mom?"

Noah's pulse and breathing accelerated. He placed his hands on Francine's shoulders and shook her a little.

"I-it's a lie...a lie! She's not my mom! You're my mom! Mom!!" His hands gripped her shoulders painfully. It just couldn't be true. This was some sick joke being played on him, or maybe a dream. Yeah, a dream.

"Pinch me, mom. This isn't true...it's a dream, it's a lie. You're lying to me!!"

 

Lights, lights shining in his eyes. Mortimer parted them a little, finding it difficult to completely open them in the blinding light. He looked around drunkenly, trying to find his bearings. The last thing he could remember was sitting in his cell, and doing something... outside of it. The taste of blood lingered in his mouth, and he couldn't quite place why. His head itched, so he tried to move his arm up to scratch it, but found it didn't move. Looking down, he discovered it was bound by a leather strap to a chair. He shook it harshly, and found his legs and chest were also bound to the chair. Attached to his heads were nodes, the kind of things they put on bad patients for shock treatment. He started yelling.
"What the- where the f*** am I? Who the f*** did this! Goddammit!" He grit his teeth, biting his tongue and drawing blood, "Someone help me!"
He began sobbing like a baby uncontrollably. For the first time that he could remember, Mortimer felt lonely.

 

The orderlies and nurses moved to put him off. I finally lost my cool, and shouted to them:
"For the thousandth time, let us be!"
They backed away, and dispersed. I felt horrid pain in my shoulders, but I wanted to handle him alone. It was the best way. I caressed him hands, looking into his fragile eyes.
"I know how you feel, Noah. But I'm your best friend, and I cannot lie to you anymore. She's your mom, not me. Please, don't avoid this reality. You can take time to come terms with it, but you have to. Please."
His grip wasn't loosening. Some involuntary tears stumbled down my cheeks.

 

"But...but...no!! It's not true! It's not true!!"

Noah's face contorted as he began to laugh maniacally. "I-it's a dream. This whole sh*t is a dream! You're f*ck*ng dream to aren't you!"

Noah let go of Francine, closing his eyes shut and placing his hands over his ears. "itsadreamitsadreamitsadreamitsadream...." he began to chant quietly. Finally he cried out and began scratching himself, all over his face, arms and neck.

 

I thanked him in my heart for letting go of me, but at the same time saw him lose grip of reality. I signaled a nurse to bring the 9/11.
"This is not a dream, Noah. But what you want is a dream. You can't have everything you want. You have to fight for it."
I grabbed his hands authoritatively at which he growled and slapped me on my face, but I didn't mind. At least he wasn't hurting himself.
As though trained, orderlies ran from surrounding rooms and grabbed him so that the nurse could inject him. He couldn't struggle much, but he screamed loudly:
"You are lying! You are freaking lying!"
I sobbed, and then turned away. I really would've like a son like him, you know.

 

"You are lying! You're freaking lying! Aaaargh!! I'll f*ck*ng kill you!!" Noah screamed at Francine as he struggled again. Soon, the drug came into effect and Noah soon found himself having real dreams, and hopefully he would awake into a more connected reality.

 

I had had a rough way back home. After the chat with Noah, I was even more worried about him. I walked my way from the subway and then casually walked inside, dropping my files on the couch.

“Nine o’clock.”
I mused, looking at the clock. As I ventured deeper into the lounge, the answering machine screamed:
“You have one new message.”
I ran to it, wondering if Jerry was in trouble. Or maybe Mom had called, concerned about Sam. Or even worse – John. I pressed the play button and a message played, a message I definitely did not speculate.

Hello Dr. Francine,
This is Dr. Gregor Handel. Your collegues, Dr. Klesps and myself have been talking. I think you may have taken on a bit more than you can handle. A riot, improperly medicated patients, one patient shot by the military. You know who would love to hear about this? The newspapers and the ACLU. I think we need to talk. I’m sure that if the three of us put out heads together, we can find some solution. BTW, I know you are scared of the gentleman who shot me. Maybe Dr. Klesps and I can help. Klesps was very upset about how Skye and some of the others were treated. I hate putting you in this situation, but I guess you must decide who do you fear more, John or me. If anything should happen to me. If John should get out of control and kill me, the papers and the ACLU will receive the appropriate documentation. Now maybe they won’t believe me, but they will believe seven bullet holes and a shattered thigh bone. You really should be more careful with x-rays. I look forward to hearing from you tonight.

What? Oh OK, if you insist. Klesps wants you to know that this wasn’t his idea and he’s sorry to have bothered you at home. Really Klesps, would you go a bit lighter on the aftershave? Yea, I know you are a ladies man but please we are in a confined space and I have t- BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP

After listening to the message, I was thinking for four people; the doctor Francine, the human Francine, the friend Francine and the schizophrenic Francine. As a doctor, I needed to attend to Gregor with orderlies and nurses ASAP, as a human, I had to inform my boss John in case Gregor was not on our side, as a friend I had to comply with Gregor’s demands regardless of the consequences – and as a schizophrenic, I felt my medications were not working, because this was just too weird.

“Thinking about the message?”
I spun around, my heartbeat suddenly too fast to handle. John stood there, having heard the message. He quoted calmly:
“I hate putting you in this situation, but I guess you must decide who do you fear more, John or me.”
I gulped down, and studded against the table as he neared.
“Please don’t tell me you really believe him. Look, I only shot him because I wanted the madman to understand that this was not monkey business. I don’t mean to hurt people in reality, you know.”
I was still backing away, and this time I grabbed the wall instead.
“Come on, he will only hurt you. Don’t trust him Francine.”

I repeated Gregor’s words in my head. You must decide who do you fear more, John or me. I sighed, and then thought intensely. I was afraid of John, yes; but I was also afraid of Gregor. But who did I fear more? It was inevitably John, but still – I was not satisfied. I watched as John conveniently stood with his chest against my own.
“I care for you, Francine. Really.”
I was going to give in, at least I thought I was. Suddenly, I saw a ghastly vision trickle into my eyes. John tying me down, and molesting me. It was possible. And even if I was just being paranoid, I did not want to take chances. I pushed him away, and started to run out of my apartment.

“Come back you stupid woman! You’re going to get yourself killed!”
He screamed, but he didn’t follow me. I was too frightened and too crushed to bother. The thought of John made me shudder. I was more afraid of John, but I trusted Gregor more. And that was the reason I ran back to the subway, even in the toxic rain dripping down on my doctor’s coat. My eyes were cloudy and my feet hurt, but I didn’t stop until I got inside the train. My heartbeat kept galloping like a horse too – at least until I stepped inside the hospital premises.

“I’m still not safe.”
I found my subconscious screaming out the fears locked up inside of me. I then ran, as though I was the patient rather than the doctor. I tried to slow down, but my heartbeat didn’t let me. I only stopped when Gregor’s room’s label oscillated in front of me. I fell to my knees, and crawled inside. There was no one there yet, but I felt myself swooning. I closed my eyes and immediately fell into oblivion.

 

Brenda walked in and out of her office, her eyes fixed on the floor. She was thinking hard about something, but no one knew what. Exasperating, a nurse came running towards her with a file and some spicy news.
"Spill it."
"Dr. Francine is going to have a meeting with Mortimer tomorrow. She just talked to Noah and told him the fact that Mrs. Haze is his mother, not she. Also, here is her file."
Brenda turned to the nurse and took the file. She quickly opened the file, seeing the urine samples which had been gathered, and those which hadn't been along with the reasons.

Olena Airye - Was in Coma (stage one)
Adrian Gutierrez - Still at home, will be back (???)
Larnor Brooks - Exhibits violence, will be dealt with later
Lomac, Deric A. - Still under electric administration, urine cannot be obtained
Nicholas Arcane - Severe fever
Rory Olson - Under ADH medications, urine sample will be inaccurate
Michael Bowers - Exhibits violence, will be dealt with later

"Hmm."
Brenda nodded and handed the file back to the nurse, along with a stack of money.
"Go. Remember, no one is supposed to know."
The nurse nodded, fear illuminated on her face. Brenda smiled slyly as the nurse left. She walked back into her office, and pulled out a file from her drawer.

Minnesota Plains Hospital
13th May, 1993

Patient Name: Miss. Francine Keller
Diagnosis: Mild case of schizophrenia. She cited visions of a young girl Martha, who is an atheist and their discussions started with arguments on religion and soon evolved into strong friendship. Her other vision includes Dan who claimed to be her step-brother who was a result of an illegitimate relation between her father and his mother. She is currently under Dr. Stephanie Bryan's treatment.

Brenda sighed and put the file back inside the drawer, smiling.
"Your days are numbered."

With that, Brenda walked out of her room and walked to the playroom. It was late, but she had forgotten to have a session with Glenny. He was in there, like the other nurse had told her. She grinned and called to him:
"Glenny! Counseling time."

 

Glenny looked away from the table startled, and panicked that it was his nurse calling him again. When he realized who was caling him, he ran up to them, restraining himself from chanting or clicking his heels.

Ramses nagged at him to hold him back, but Glenny struggled with him reluctantly. He hadn't had coucling for a very long time, though, he was made to believe Ramses had passed him off to be 'sane'.

Smiling, he followed her out of the room.

 

Brenda smiled in an uncomfortable manner as Glenny approached her. She thought of Francine, and some amount of envy pricked her. Francine was everyone's favorite doctor, even though Brenda was much more beautiful. She was the head of department, when she though had more experience in this field was just a plain, old doc.

"Come."

She spoke, and they walked out of the playroom straight towards the counseling room. Once inside, they sat face to face, and Brenda pulled out a notebook.

"Alright, how are you feeling as of late, Glenny?"

 

Glenny grinned, and laughed at the question for no reason. He looked down and started to play with his hands, and his smiled erased. There was a tap on his shoulder, and he shook the feeling away, fidgeting in his chair. He looked up, and smiled again.

"Well," he said, peering to the corner of his eye.

He leaned in, and said in and spoke in a low tone.

"Confidentially, me and Ramses have agreed on something. Wouldn't you say there's been a lot of.. weirdness, lately?"

He shuddered, and told her that he was feeling incresingly unnerved over recent events.

 

Gregor hobbled into his room using the new cane one of the orderlies had given him. He looked it over. Aluminum, hollow, weak, it wouldn't be of much use as a tool. "I know Klesps, I know. There was no where else for her to go, no where safe. Yes, I'm sure she still likes you. What? No I am not trying to get a sympathy date. You've seen my leg. Klesps seriously, they removed SEVEN bullets from me. Have you been drinking that mouthwash? I'm not implying anything, but really I wonder about you sometimes." Gregor opened his door and sat at the foot of the bed. His leg ached horribly but he had been saving up his pain meds. He needed a clear head for what was coming. Pain brought focus. Besides, he thought, Klesps was far too busy trying to be the Don Juan of the psychatric set to be of any real help. "Dr. Francine," Gregor said, "wake up. The three of us must talk. Now tell me, why is the military here?"

 

The moon light lit up Ambriel's room with a soft yellow glow. It had been a long day...and she was drained.

Looking up at the cieling, she wondered for a moment about Niel's warning concerning Gregor. She knew Chaos didn't trust him...but Niel made no complaints about the warning either.
It was true....Ambriel had not been to hurried to get involved with Gregor...but after her ordeal and the truth behind why she was in this dreadful place, Ambriel wondered if Gregor was the Doctor that he said he was.
Dr. Handel...Dr. Klesps...two doctors...one man...it was all such a mystey...there was only one way to know for sure.

She hoped Francine would be taking a day off soon...somethings couldn't be researched with an audience. Her heart had to be protected...this was the only way. She needed to protect Skye too, if he was dangerous then she knew it would be hard to convince Skye, who absolutly adored him.
"Oh, God Gregor...please be the man I saw last night." In spite of her feelings, the truth was Gregor had killed...several times. She could only hope he would never desire to harm her...or Skye.

 

"Confidentially, me and Ramses have agreed on something. Wouldn't you say there's been a lot of.. weirdness, lately?"

Brenda chuckled. The idea was interesting, but to be unbiased - she didn't find it weird.
"True. But hey, you don't have to worry. Francine's dealing with everything."

Just as much she found it difficult saying that, she knew she had to.

"I'm more worried about you and Ramses, though. I thought we agreed that Ramses is invisible to everyone, right?"

 

I was being shaken by something or someone. A hot spank fell on my face, which was actually heat of being alive. I fluttered my eyes open, and gasped as I saw Gregor's face over me.

"...The three of us must talk. Now tell me, why is the military here?"

I straightened, and cleared my throat.
"Why do you want to know, Gregor?"

I knew it wasn't enough, therefore I spoke again:
"The military isn't going to hurt us anymore, okay?"

 

"I'm more worried about you and Ramses, though. I thought we agreed that Ramses is invisible to everyone, right?"

Ramses gave a Glenny a blow to the head, and Glenny rubbed it where he had been hit, looking down with wide, frightened eyes, trying not to let Ramses onto anything.

"Oh, okay Glen. You're just gonna let her say that about me?!"

Ramses hit him again.

"Hey Glen!"

Glenny glared at Ramses. He was smacked again.

"Hey man that hurts!"

He held his head and looked desperately into Brenda's eyes,

"Confidentially, I've been pretty scared lately." he said.

"Could you please tell him to stop!"

 

Gregor cracked his knuckles. "Have you every wondered, Doctor, why you still have no clue who I am. Fingerprinting, DNA, and any number of other assorted tests and you still have no clue as to my identity. At my trial they kapt calling me John Doe until I had my name legally changed to Gregor Handel. All that technology and you still can't figure out the identity of a middle aged man. You know what? If you ran those same tests, you wouldn't find anything on John either. We have .... a shared history. Now why are they here? Oh .... an doctor - the blood has only just begun. You don't know John, like I do. SO I ask you once more, why is the military here?"

 

Niel laid there on his bed looking at the ceiling. He retreats into his mind. While inside the room with no walls or cieling, he looks over at Chaos and says "We aren't going to be able to keep a low profile, are we?" "No." says Chaos. "What should we do now." says Niel. "Well first off we need to take a look at the other people we have to deal with. Ambriel, Glenn and Skye appear to be pretty harmless. I doudt we have much to worry about when it comes to Noah, I think he is more harmful to himself than anyone else. Mortimer could be very dangerous, but he is usually locked in his room. The two people we need to be worried about the most are Gregor and that detective. We need more information on those two." says Chaos. Niel asks "How can we get true info on those two. I doudt we can trust what the other patients have to say about them." "We should ask Dr. Francine about them." says Chaos.

Niel snaps back to reality. "I'm tired of looking at the ceiling." he says to himself as he gets up and leaves the room. He walks into the play room and sits down in the corner. "Dr. Francine. I wonder if she will actually tell us anything useful." thinks Niel.

 

Skye remained in the playroom, not having said much to any of them the entire time. She wasn’t in a sociable mood. She never was when she didn’t take her medications, but if she did take them she felt different. She didn’t like different. She sat in the middle of the floor, placing blocks in their places, and taking them back off. They had to sit perfectly.

Her hands shook in frustration. She hated blocks. Yet, she couldn’t stop playing. She knew she had to accomplish her perfect castle. She wanted to see it beyond in her head. Something she had never been too good at. She closed her eyes hard, realizing she had forgotten the sequence of the colors.

“Red is to….” She frowned. She was forgetting again. She furrowed her brown and stared at all four colors.

“Red is to…”

Her eye gave a violent twitch, sending her arm forward.

“Oral Enthusiast!” her voice bellowed.

“Red on blue!” she said excitedly as her mind slowly cleared. She quickly took the blocks apart, setting them in their color and size assorted towers.

“Green on yellow.” She said to herself. She quickly put the two colors together, in pairs of two.

“Yellow touches to red. Blue touches to green.” She began to maneuver the pieces, but quickly became frustrated as colors that weren’t suppose to touch, touched. She lashed out on the blocks, sending them flying down. She quickly closed her eyes, and piled the blocks into the pile, slamming the lid back on it’s box. She grabbed it by the handle, and headed out of the playroom. She counted her steps, making sure not to let her feet touch any of the lines on the floor. Her eye gave a violent twitch.

“I’ll f**king kill you!” she screamed.

She stopped at her room, and looked into the darkness. She shivered. Darkness wasn’t safe. Darkness had hands that would harm her. She looked over in shock as her eyes caught a quick glimpse of his hands. He was hiding in her room, waiting for her. She quickly ran off in the direction of Ambriel's room, counting her steps. 35. 36. 37.

 

Ambriel sat up as soon as she heard the light knock on her door...getting up she went to see who was there.

Skye stood there...looking like a lost child of darkness. "Would you like to come in my room Skye?"

The little girl simply nodded and grabbed her around the waist. "It's okay, you sit on my bed...would you like to talk about anything?"

She could see Skye had something on her mind...she wondered if it had anything to do with the revelation which was still hard to conceive.

Ambriel would wait for Skye to tell her what was troubling her little mind...she knew she would.

 

Skye sat down on her bed with a clouded mind. Why had she come? She knew she couldn’t socialize, but she knew she couldn’t go to her own room. She didn’t want to face him. She had enough of him in her dreams. He seemed to torment her everywhere. She was entrapped and Ambriel made her feel safest.

She looked up at Ambriel with tearful eyes, crawling over to her. She rolled into a ball on her lap.

“I don’t think anyone is crazy.” She finally said, “I think… we’re all beyond what the doctors consider normal.” Not that she believed anyone was normal. Everyone was different, and the people in there were even more different. So different, that they were cast aside and given medications in attempt to make them… normal.

“Maybe Mortimer is the Messiah, maybe there are two people in Niel. Maybe there are people in the darkness.” She looked over at the dark portion of the room, where the light didn’t hit.

“Miss Ambriel.” She said, “Are you ever afraid?”