we lost ourselves; python

[Tattletale]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=cellPadding,0,true][atrb=style, background-image:url('http://25.media.tumblr.com/1dcacf550f8b2c0a33074c377b0f31b2/tumblr_mksvseLwey1qan1eeo1_500.jpg'); border: 0; padding: 10 10 10 10 px; width: 500px;] _________________________________ ERIS W. _________________________________

[/font][/blockquote][/td][/tr][/table]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=cellPadding,0,true][atrb=style, background-color: ffffff; border-left: 50px solid e5e5e5; border-right: 50px solid e5e5e5; padding: 10 10 10 10 px; width: 400px;] "THERE'S A SPACE AT THE BOTTOM OF AN EXHALE, A LITTLE HITCH BETWEEN TAKING IN AND LETTING OUT THAT'S A PERFECT ZERO YOU CAN GO INTO. THERE'S A REST POINT BETWEEN THE HEART MUSCLE'S CLOSE AND OPEN - AN INSTANT OF KEENEST LIVING WHEN YOU'RE MOMENTARILY DEAD. YOU CAN REST THERE." — lit: a memoir, mary karr My name is Eris W., and I find myself looking back too many times that I’m not sure I’m even living. They look at me like that, those nurses with their pristine uniforms and caving gazes – I’ve lived here long enough to see that caring is no longer an option for them, and sometimes I find myself thinking whether we are humans at all. I’ve seen strangers trudge down the dirt path, their walking figures like clear silhouette cut-outs from my bedroom window, and I know there’s nothing much to salvage from distant observation but I just know – that they’re different. Different that they have a purpose, somewhere to walk to and some light burning inside their eyes and comparably alive to the walking ghosts trapped inside their own cells, their own four walls to rot in. We’ve got nowhere to go. We’re lost. Doctors remember our names not by heart but through time, seeing as this has become a makeshift home for the homeless, for the ones left behind. We haven’t got a new patient in possibly a year, and I’m fairly certain the residents living within the Home’s parameters have forgotten this was a hospital, with its walls showing cracks and a fair amount of roof shingles falling apart, hanging on the roof ledge and pipes by a single corner, or have given up and completely disintegrated back to the ground. I don’t know much about the rest, but doing the latter wouldn’t be as half-bad. I’d never tell the others that, and I look away fast enough to avoid looking into their eyes as I say yet again, “We’re going to be fine.” It’s becoming hard to know whether I was reassuring them, or myself. It was no secret, at least, not between the doctors and I. I was brought into the Home once she discovered I was hacking up blood, then she never came back. Suppose I had a feeling on what was coming; she was never fond of me, never liking anyone who wasn’t her family (techinically I was, but she prefers to ignore that) and they kept giving me more medicine in just one sitting. Common sense tugged at me relentless, troubled into asking whether I was supposed to swallow everything all at once in just one day. The nurse let out a little laugh, then said, “Oh no, honey. Gradually.” Wheezing turned into small little coughs that didn’t hurt so much, and eventually the splattered blood against the white of the sink didn’t look so startling, until it finally disappeared. Or at least we thought so. I don’t remember the exact day (there were no calendars in the Home, in my knowledge, and I think we prefer it that way. It’s a bit mocking, when we’ve got nothing to look forward to) when all days just seem to mash with each other, a gray incomprehensible blend that’s impossible to pick apart when there’s nothing significant – not much with hospital paper work and seeing so much IV needles that I try to remember the time I was actually afraid of them. There’s nothing, except for the bated breath yet offhandly calm tone of his voice when he said to me, “It’s back.” I didn’t need the name when I felt it in my chest and in the shrill hiss that starts in the back of my ears whenever I’d drew breath. It’s back. It’s not even the mirrored death we gave each other, the simple acceptance of walking away and back to my room, until midnight comes around. It’s the heavy rise and fall of my shoulders, the slow expand then deflate of my chest, then another heave as I wipe the blood, blood, red from my lip. (Tipped off, spiraled down; we only have fear when we’re facing it.) Perhaps this is a habit all of us do, to just sit on a chair and stare vacantly at the empty space in front of us, eyes seeing nothing of the same old nothingness of our own rooms and instead going back to the times where things didn’t seem so frozen. There is life, there is vitality, but perhaps I’ve thought too far away, unbounded hopes free to manipulate my memories into something pleasant, but I know I’m only thinking of the good days. When I hadn’t reached thirteen and everything was all sunshine and happiness, of having to carry no burden at all save for school work – by then (and until now) I don’t see those assignments and projects as heavy loads, I even enjoyed them. It’s formulaic and easy when you know what you’re doing, and I find myself clutching to every handle of security I could see. There’s nothing safer than the same routine, get up and go through schedules prepared for you. By the time my father started deteriorating, it had become an escape. Flashing images of my own history shatters as I hear a knock on my door, and only when the nurse lets herself in is when I turn to look at her. She brings out her clipboard and taps it. “You’ve got a test scheduled now.” I’ve been dressed for over an hour in the same all-white outfit they expect us to wear, and I follow her out. Despite the old paint peeling in certain areas, the hallways were pure white, and as you walk through it feels like you’ve gone on forever, lost in the blank sea that it’s almost haunting, almost terrifying. We stop at a door, and she goes in and tells me to wait. “We’ve to wait for another patient.” There’s a padded bench right across from it, against the wall, and I sit on it, not wanting to stand for who knows how long she’ll take inside. There isn’t much difference between the color of my skin and the floor below, but the blue veins trapped under the skin of my wrist is interesting enough that I focus on it. I don’t know of poetry and I have no freckles, but I imagine little dots from where needles have pierced me and make out a constellation from that.

[/center]

[Python]

Her name was Cora S., and she was a victim.

There was never moment when her bedroom wasn’t littered with fragments of a broken mirror (the doorway to Hell that was never meant to be seen by the human eye, yet she was special somehow and it was human instinct to peek at the forbidden). She didn’t understand why the nurses continued to bring her new ones - they knew about her condition, about her visions, about the violent outbursts that frequented her quarters. Was it an experiment? Were they toying with the fragile seams of her sanity by replacing her shattered mirrors? They knew well enough what the mirrors showed her. They were windows into nightmares conjured by not even the most twisted of minds. They were torture devices crafted by man to deceive and to manipulate with the image of tainted beauty. There was always just one reflection, always Cora - except her body was mangled and mutilated beyond recognition, her beauty

(they always called me beautiful, but how can I believe them when all I see is a monster?) spoiled by the mirror’s touch. No matter what shape or size the mirror was, every picture was the same.

The newest addition to her room was the size of her window. It was mounted on the wall across from her bed - a poor choice on their part, unless they mean to provoke my fear. and framed with wood and gold paint chipped with age. She recalled waking and rising to the image of empty eye sockets with blood pouring over the edges, spilling over her cheeks like crimson tears of the damned as a forked tongue slid between her chapped lips. The sight had frightened her so terribly she had rolled out of bed and met the cold floor with a painful thud, blankets tangled and wrapped around her body like a disfigured cocoon. After recapturing her stolen breaths she had kicked at the sheets until she was lying with her spine against the floor, eyes trained on the white ceiling and hands outstretched to grip the nearest surface. It always took minutes of controlled breathing and daydreaming (of a happier life, one that obviously won’t exist anytime soon) to calm herself down. It wasn’t until she found her composure and her bravery that she managed to climb to her feet and turn away from the evil device.

After minutes of debate, she decided it was time to rid herself of the burden. Again. It was always the same process; return to her bedroom to find a new mirror, evade temptation until the magnetic pull drained her of resistance, look at the atrocious monster of a reflection then destroy the mirror in a fit of hysteria. They arrived in all shapes in sizes, from rectangles taller than her body to handhelds that matched the outline of her face. The smaller ones appeared harmless, but lack of self-control always proved her wrong in the end. The smallest of them all - a square the size of her palm - had also refused to reveal her so-called beauty and instead convinced her that there were worms crawling out of her pores and cockroaches squirming through pupiless eyes. She had destroyed that mirror in a matter of seconds with a frustrated slam and a stomp of her foot. She had kicked the shards beneath her bed, where she hoped to never see them again. For every mirror she demolished, it was a good riddance. But they would always return, no matter how often she pleaded to the nurses to stop replacing them (they insisted that they didn’t know what she was talking about, but she wasn’t stupid. Crazy, maybe, but not stupid).

She approached the mirror from the side, careful not to peer at its terrible secrets as she removed it and dropped it face-down onto the floor. The brief echo of cracking glass reached her ears, but she wasn’t quite sure if fracturing the face would kill the monster completely. In order to escape the burden she would have to smash it to bits. The nurses hated the racket it always created. She timidly nibbled at her nails (already bitten to unhealthy nubs) until her train of thought was interrupted by a knock at her door. Speak of the devil.

”Cora? You have an appointment in a few minutes.”

Appointment? She didn’t recall scheduling any appointments or marking her calendar. Not that she could control it, since the nurses and doctors were the supreme centers of power in this facility. She didn’t mind too much, though. She could bear an appointment, as long as she didn’t find a new mirror waiting when she returned. ”What is it about?" she inquired, moving hastily to change out of her sleeping gown and into the white garments they forced all residents to wear. The outfits were almost blinding, especially when they matched the eerie walls of the decaying hospital, but it was another aspect of this lifestyle she could not control. It was either this or the streets, and she would always choose the former.

”Just a test,” the nurse responded with a sigh accompanied by a yawn after she opened the door. She was bored, Cora could read it on her dull expression. She tried not to waste any time slipping into her garments, and went loyally to the nurse’s side when she was finished. Fortunately, the broken mirror ruining her bedroom floor did not become a topic of conversation. In fact, the nurse hadn’t seemed to notice it, and if she had she was evidently too exhausted to care. I can’t expect all of the nurses to care about me anyway. That would just be selfish and silly. Some nurses were compassionate, but most were robotic. They would speak in monotones, perform the same tasks with the same stoic expression and follow a fixed routine until there were bags etched beneath their half-lidded eyes. Cora almost pitied them and their jobs. Taking care of sick children and mental cases? That would never be easy, not in any dimension. Not even in her dreams, which seemed to be her only creative escape. She would just have to accept the reality that nurses were only nurses, not the family she wished she could have.

When the nurse led her to their destination, Cora discovered a second body prepared for testing. It was Eris, the girl with the coughing problem. As the nurse vanished behind the mystery door, Cora took a seat next to her and folded her hands in her lap. They looked like lost, white clones waiting to be probed and prodded by metal tools, as if they were aliens from outer space. The nurse hadn’t even bothered to mention what the test even was. Hopefully something with the psychiatrist - she didn’t want to endure needles or medication. Not now.

Without looking up, she spoke up to disturb the unsettling silence. ”Do you know what the test is?”[/justify][/blockquote]