Asylum
5 paged excerpt from novel about creative writing. I will be happy to learn whether you’d like to finish the story until the end. It is very likely that I will have at it and turn the story into a book right after I finish my trilogy.
Chapter 1
It’s the first time Anita hesitates whether it’s crazy to pretend to be an inmate in an asylum. She can’t help herself, she wants to cure senior consultant Šulc because nobody else has the guts to do it. Her hands are tight, her mouth covered, she’s waiting for them to force her swallow pills she does not need. She’s trying to calm herself down. It’s for a good cause. I’m educated, smart, I’ll just help him and everything will be alright.
“I still don’t understand how such a clever student ended up all the way on the bed of my office,” the senior consultant thinks out loud while helping Anita getting her rid of the gag in her mouth.
If you hired me, I wouldn’t have to put on this charade and the whole therapy would be much easier.
“I don’t have anything to live for. My life is hopeless. Nobody likes me. I just want to end the pain inside,” Anita’s lying convincingly.
“Miss Myopic, you always seemed so composed. I thought your medical experience was perfect. Where is this coming from?”
“From long time ago. I was keeping it inside. Now I just wanna die. Do you like corpses, doctor?” She’s trying to let one of his personalities out.
“I’ll increase your dosage. You will start attending our group sessions. And if you’re nice, we will not have to tie you up.
Anita had been drawing attention to herself, she had been disturbing other patience so that they would put her in the room with Frederika. It’s worked out.
“Why are you ignoring my question? Untie me. I know you want to see me dead.”
Dammit, it’s really not easy to force Alfonse out. I have to think deep. What always happened when I saw this personality. Patients were sleeping. Naked. Abused. They had no idea what was going on. He always washed his hands after coitus and whispered: “Alfons will take you to the morgue.” He brought the patient back to her room and it was over. Then he acted as usual. It’s not a deviation, it’s part of his character which he is not aware of. I know that. I would die for human psyche research.
“Doctor, let’s say I have a dysfunctional view of myself, other people, and the world as a whole. I believe you know what I mean.”
“Don’t talk to me as if you were a doctor!” Šulc reprimands her.
Very well. He got angry. Maybe I will manage to let soldier Mon Cherry out. His subconsciousness feels the vibrations. However, isn’t that risky now that I’m tied up? He is more dangerous than Alfons. Although, there’s nothing to wish for in both cases. I can’t afford to doubt myself. There’s no way back now. I can do this.
„Come on, doctor. Don’t act as if you were sick. You’re weak and you know that very well.You have an overview of the modifications of behavioral compensation patterns, you know that I am not the one with problems. It’s you.”
“You’re talking nonsense. Tell me, why have you tried to commit suicide,” senior consultant asks again.
“Psychological strain. You don’t know about that?”
“That’s not reason to take your own life.”
“Do you like corpses?” she asks indiscreetly again.
Šulc looks irritated. He’s scratching his hand and bites his own lips.
“I’m the one asking questions. Not you,” he raises his voice.
“Doctor, imagine an immobile body. Laying here. You want to control it. Your insticts are…”
“That’s enough. Did Helena tell you something?” He’s forehead wrinkles.
“Why Helena?” frowns Anita.
Anita has no idea what he did to Helena. She cought him as a necrophile four times during her practical training but never with Helena.
That’s weird. Was it a hint that he’s aware of his hidden personalities? That doesn’t seem right. It must be something else. What does it all have to do with Helena?
“Do you like her? Is she your weakness? Or does it not matter whose the corpse is?”
Šulc is standing still. She has already witnessed this lewd expression on his face. Oh, yes. She did it. She woke up Alfons. The room is locked. There are no windows and the camera’s red light is not on anymore, he turned it off. This will not be good.
“I will give you a dose to calm you down,” Alfons is filling up the syringe with sleep-inducing agent.
“I thought I wouldn’t get any drugs. I don’t want an injection!” Anita’s desperately defiant.
She did not expect it all to go so quickly. She wanted to lure his identity out so she could heal it, not to make her fall asleep so she couldn’t do anything. Then she’s also not as pretty as Helena and the other two corpses he abused. She didn’t think this would happen to her too. She’s still a virgin. She cannot do anything. Abashed, she falls into a deep sleep…
Anita wakes up in her bedroom. There’s no clock so she has no idea how long she could be sleeping. If only she had a window so she could guess what time of day it is. She realizes she has spots of blood on her underwear. She sits on her and breaks into tears. It wasn’t a dream. Alfons took her virginity. Her emotions are playing with her head. She’s sorry this happened, on the other hand, at least she doesn’t remember. She wishes she tried to let other doctor’s personality out. He would sure try to protect her. She has to come up with a better plan for when one of the doctor’s personalities come out. It was easy to lure necrophile Alfons out. Theoretically, if she wouldn’t have been sleeping, just pretending to sleep, she could, during Alfons’s deepest state of mind, try shock initiative. She does not consider it the best method but she’s beginning to get lost in her actions. She needs to get closer to Šulc. She has to spend more time with him. That’s the only way to help him.
Doctor Svobodová enters Anita’s room.
“Group therapy starts in 5 minutes. Come with me.”
She scowls at Anita. She’s sitting on her bed. Still crying. She wishes someone hugged her and told her a few words of comfort. However, doctor Alena is really unsympathetic. Maybe it was the work with crazies that made her like this. She cannot even recognize when’s the right time to use the good old human touch.
“Right now. We don’t have whole day,” she emphasizes.
“Alena, don’t talk to me like that,” she wipes her tears and gets up.
Alena raises her eyebrows in surprise: “Excuse me?”
“You heard me. It’s not so long ago that I was you colleague, so I object to your arrogant tone of voice.”
“Look, you little spoilt girl. The two of us were never colleagues. Your practice didn’t mean anything to us. It was only about complying with the limit set by the regulations. Nobody thinks you’re a doctor around here. You’re just a student who’s not right in the head and whom we have to help. So get up and let’s go.”
“As far as I know the doctor should speak differently with their patients.”
“You don’t think we will take you by the hand and wash away your tears, do you? Life’s hard so get over it. You’re all dummies,” Alena gets really angry.
“You should take vacation.”
She shouldn’t have said that. Alena’s really mad.
“I will show you, girl. Should I drag you to the therapy or will you move your ass?”
Anita’s hiding her anger from doctor Svobodová’s behavior, she’s trying to speak calmly: “I just need to change my underwear and I don’t want you to watch me do it.”
“I don’t care about your underwear,” she grips Anita’s arm and forces her out of the room.
“What’s going on?” senior consultant asks.
“I just wanted to change my underwear and doctor Svobodová does not let me to,” Anita explains.
“I was not asking you,” Šulc ignores her.
Anita’s words bear no significance. For doctors in here she’s just a piece of meat. They don’t care whether she says boo or moo. They will drag her for slaughter anyway.
“She needs some pills to calm her down. I found her in her room in a deep endogenous depression. I was unable to reach her and she refused to participate in a group therapy. Doctor, I suspect that the psychotic symptoms are intensifying. We should increase the dosage of sedatives.”
“That’s not true,” Anita objected, outraged.
“Calm down, Anita, everything will be alright. Will you attend the group therapy or not?”
“I will, I just wanted to change my underwear,” she repeats.
Anita observes senior consultant’s expression. She’s curious whether she sees any hints of worry from the doctor’s side. His face, however, remains deadpan and cold. He does not remember that he took Anita’s virginity just a few hours ago.
“You will change it after therapy, you’re already lade,” Šulc decides and turns to Alena. “I have a session with the patient tomorrow. I will look closely into her treatments and procedures. For now, increase her dosage of antidepressants.
Anita feels humiliated and incompetent. She found out during her internship that the patients here do not have it easy here, however, she was not aware of how much. She sits down on the last vacant chair, in between crazy Helena and psychosomatic Edie. The chair form a circle in order to create the feeling of openness in the group. It’s the first time she does not pay any attention to the stories or progress of the others. She’s drowning in thoughts of the senior consultant and his identities. She’s thinking about which method to use on the session they have tomorrow. For a moment she even considers herself being slightly crazy since the thought of helping his mental health brought her all the way here.
“Miss Myopic, are you with us?” doctor Svobodová, who’s in charge of the session, breaks Anita’s train of thoughts.
“Yes, I am,” says and adds a scornful face.
“What was Edi talking about?”
“I don’t know.”
“So you’re not with us. You should go to your room, I will ask doctor Šulc to have me take over your case. I know just the right sort of therapy for your.”
Anita gets flushed. If doctor Svobodová takes over her case, that would be the end of her ambition to help Mr. Šulc. She would have no chance to secretly treat him and prove his illness.
“I don’t want that! I have not interest in your theories of treatments. The senior consultant is the best doctor for me. We are making progress. It will be hard for you to question his methods,” she defends herself desperately.
“Don’t scream at me. I will take over, that’s it. That’s not a negotiation.”
Anita knows she has no choice. She has to do something to prove that she cannot cooperate with Doctor Alena. Negotiation is not gonna help here. She know the way people from her field think and what works on them. She gathers her inner courage, gets up from her chair, throws herself at doctor Svobodová and bites her in her hand.
“I don’t want you. I don’t want you!” she screams, trying to act out her insanity genuinely.
Two security men apprehend her in a moment. They hold her tightly in their arms and take her to her room. She does not regret her behavior, she knows it was necessary. They would not allow a doctor to work with a patient they have a conflict with, especially not if there’s a therapy with another doctor available. Nurse enters the room and gives Anita double dosage of antidepressants and she acts out their intake. Luckily, it’s really easy for her. Since the beginning, she gave everyone the impression she wants them so they do not check if she’s actually really taking them. She hides them behind her upper lip and spits them out as soon as possible. The camera in her room has a view of her back so it’s not possible to say if she’s washing her face or sending her pills down the drain. Unfortunately, it’s not that easy with syringes.She tries to avoid them but if there’s no choice, there’s a secret hideout under the zipper inside the bed mattress. That’s where she hides multiple sorts of medicine that cancel out the effects of drugs in syringes. Anita needs to be very careful and inconspicuous when taking them out of the mattress. When she needs to take them, she pretends she’s resting or sleeping and opens the zipper under her blanket. Then she takes the medicine out and puts them into her mouth covered by the blanket. Anita has an ideal roommate. Frederika is an old woman with an extensive sclerosis and dementia. Even if she caught her, she would forget about it very soon.
Anita’s in senior consultant’s office again. This time, she’s not tied up. She needs to use her time wisely.
“Doctor, I’m sorry about yesterday. I was only angry because I was dirty.”
“What do you mean ‘dirty’?” Šulc is not even looking at his patient, he’s only writing things down and browsing through her file.
“My underwear, it was covered in blood,” says inspecting his facial expression.
He does not look interested, just keeps on writing: “Are you on your period.”
“No, I just think my hymen got ruptured.” Well now he has to put on some expression.
Doctor raises his eyebrows and puts on a smile: “And how would that happen?”
“You don’t know anything?”
“I only know that your condition is getting worse.”
“And what about your condition, doctor?” Anita gets out of her chair with determination. She finally has his attention, throws his things away from his desk.
“It’s messy in here, you should clean up after yourself. Do you see the smears on the window? And the dust all around. Even I make this place dirty by simply being in here. I could pee in here. Who’s gonna clean that up?” Anita’s desperately trying to lure one of his personalities that hates mess out.
Something’s wrong. When his identity’s out, he should be cleaning things up and be mad about the mess. Did she get it wrong and his hidden personality does not exist. They both look at a shelf where different syringes are.
“I don’t know what you’re trying to prove here, but you’re surely reminding me why I like dead girls. They do not make any mess.”
It makes sense now. His necrophiliac personality is connected to the cleanliness. Why didn’t she figure it out sooner? He will now surely inject her with sleeping dosage, just like yesterday. Then he’ll abuse her and forget about it. Is this how he does it? Alfons turns off the camera and turns the office into a prison, which will turn into Anita’s morgue. She, however, has a better plan.
“I love hurting myself. May I inject myself?”
“No way,” he’s getting closer now.
Anita puts her elbow in between his legs and in his weak moment takes the syringe from his hands. She turns her back on him and pushes the syringe to empty its content into her armpit. Then she presses the empty syringe against the puncture from yesterday. She turns so the doctor can see it. She did it. He believes she injected herself. Anita’s internally happy, she takes it as a good performance. She gently and sluggishly fall onto the lounger and pretends to fall asleep. Suddenly, it’s as if she realizes what she’s gonna go through. She realizes the gravity of the situation that she’s in only because of her own decisions. Now, however, there’s no way back. She has already sacrificed a lot.
“You stupid fool,” Alfons curses silently.
He adjusts her body into an even position, undresses her. Anita’s trying to look believably.
