spareparts
New Member
In here, every day is the same. In the early mornings, Oskar wakes before the creaks and whirrs of equipment shuffling down the white scagliola hallways and into every room. He’s already read under the hum of the bathroom’s night lights, used the backdrop of the pale blue desert as a vessel for his circadian daydreams–jotting down his own assumptions for what the crow might bring next to the yard. After vitals are commenced and medicine is administered, a light physical evaluation follows suit to which Oskar answers every question as blankly as possible.
Occasionally did he muse his nurse with compliments or questions about her life outside of this room. Down that fluorescent light and through the locked double doors–far, far passed the sand starched roads. He liked to picture peoples’ words as best as he could, with heed, piecing together a mundane paradise as if it was directly a transferred memory, only it was just his own.
Today ran it’s course like every other day. Oskar did wake up before his vitals and so he did attempt another go at his book for the week–The Alchemist. Although his routine read was interrupted by a momentary fixation with repairing the ceiling light in the bathroom which had started to dim and flicker without pattern. Reading under a flickering light was too much the eyesore for him to ignore–for one thing, it disrupted his ritual.
And so, he spent his time fixing it in the moonlit dark. Afterwards he got his chance to stand by the security glass and peer into the desert, but by then the sky was ripe with pale yellows, fuschias and baby blues. From his view, he saw the wasteland of sand and the whorled branching of scattered shrubs, tumbleweeds riding the wind.
On his bedside calendar, he crossed off his sixth week. Six weeks of methadone. Six weeks without heroin. Six weeks away from home. Six weeks of Inner Peace. He might have had a shot at getting a definitive date of discharge last week–if he hadn’t freaked out and strong armed another patient. He started to crack his knuckles, ill at the thought.
…
An ex-patient, Mary-Ann, small in stature–screaming with her eyes for help, was cornered by another ex-patient, Joe,–almost thrice her age. Oskar had been aware of the potential threat he posed being that all Joe talked about was his time in prison, and often–Afganistan, with some unnerving glee. However, it did no favors to worry about safety in this place. Oskar already had his own troubles with his paranoia, but Joe seemed uninterested in speaking to him–blatantly calling him out as a loner and a creep. Oskar decided to avoid crossing paths as much as he could.
The night after Mary-Ann had been admitted, Oskar heard whispers in the hallway that jolted him from his sleep paralysis. These noises weren’t inconsistent with what he had already been hearing since he had still been withdrawing copiously from opiates at this point in time. He rolled out of bed and approached the door, unable to keep his curiosity at bay. Oskar had to be mindful about whether he was confusing these whispers as absolute nothings his crazy head conjured up or potential hallucinations stemming from withdrawal. Since he’d been admitted, he’d held his clozopine underneath his tongue–careful not to swallow it. Oskar wasn’t dull.
He knew how his mind often wandered if he didn’t derail the mirage. Yet, his instincts proved too strong for him to stay away. Carefully, he crept up to the door.
As his eyes focused in, he witnessed Joe in front of Women’s #13–his arm casted well into the door way, jutting into the side of the wall as if he was counteracting whatever was behind it. In general, the other side of the hallway was reserved for women. No men were allowed entry apart from nurses or staff members. Curious, Oskar leaned his cheek against the thick glass to get a better look. The door opened wider for a split second and in view was Mary-Ann–her thick rimmed glasses and pink-tinted bangs identifying her before the scene was omitted from sight completely–door shutting fast behind them.
To Oskar’s knowledge, the doors of this facility were controlled by a mechanism of switches in the control room. Somehow they were left unlocked for the night and somehow no one was around to see what he had just seen. Was what he saw–true reality? Oskar turned away from the door, taking a single step towards his bed–careful to not wake Andy or Woody. He scratched at the back of his neck, his eyes meeting the door handle. It felt too real to ignore and there was no way he’d be able to sleep after it anyhow. If the door handle works then… …Click.
Oskar opened it slowly, then all the way at once. He stepped out and made his way four doors down. At this point, his heart was racing–beating loudly in his eardrums–as did his thoughts. After he’d opened Women’s #13, his memory faded in and out. Flashes of grabbing Joe by the back of the neck and slamming his skull against the wall. The shrieks of Mary-Ann and her two roommates were secluded only as audial recollections, like the score of a movie scene. Banging on the wall adjacent to them added to the score–patients all around them, disturbed. At one point Oskar held a shiv–disarmed from Joe–and hurled it underneath one of the beds amongst the scramble.
Joe and Oskar were both tranquilized–Mary-Ann too, Oskar later heard. The next day, He spent time in solitary confinement. Without methadone. Double the dose of xanax.
When he’d returned midday, Mary-Ann was sitting in the courtyard. Oskar sat on the turf with his head down. He thought about getting some sort of word in, but he figured the last person she’d want to talk to was a person who quite possibly traumatized her on only her second day. Well, second to last person.
Joe had been transferred to the nearest hospital to treat his injuries. He was content with the fact he wouldn’t have to face him, at least for the time being.
In the middle of that night, he was woken up again–this time by nothing, but his withdrawal-induced sleep paralysis. He struggled to go back to bed, his dreams irritating him more than usual.
When he finally woke up for vitals the next morning, he knew something had happened. His nurse was crying, and so was Darcy through the office glass right before composing herself to give morning announcements. Mary-Ann had committed suicide. An open wound at her throat. No one knew how the sharpened toothbrush had gotten in the room or how she’d even known how to make something like that so fast, but Oskar did. Regrettably, Oscar new exactly what happened.
…
He winced, squinting his eyes and pressed his lower palms against his eyelids–relieving notional pressure. New day.
Slowly he wedged the thin, cheaply-made velcro strap through the metal grommets in his army surplus boots and waited for the doors to allow the three men in Room 9 access to the hallway. He nodded at Andy who remained faithfully behind Woody’s wheelchair–the same harelip grin plastered on his freckled face.
“Do you have a riddle today Ozka?” The 6’7’’ giant of a boy twinkled, trying to contain his excitement for the coming day. Oskar had to think for a moment. Andy was not easily tricked.
“Okay. The man who makes it doesn’t need it. The man who needs it, doesn’t use it. The man who uses it, doesn’t know it. What is it?”
Andy sauntered Woody down the long stretch of white and into the metal door to park him at his table with the other old men–their game of poker left where it was the day before. Woody’s subsequent slumber disintegrated at the side of chips and cards.
“I know. A Coffin–It–It’s a coffin.” Andy remarked anxiously awaiting Oskar’s stamp of approval.
Oskar paused for dramatic effect, purely to entertain his friend. “Pretty good Andy. You’re really sweating me lately.” Oskar barely smiled, but in truth it helped his worst days to start Andy’s on a good note. He always reminded himself how fortunate he was to have his easy-going roommates.
After all the men had shuffled their way into their respective seats, the women’s section was soon to follow. One by one they made their way into their seats as well. Mary-Ann’s roommates looked a lot more troubled since the affair, haunted even—and rightfully so. To keep two young women in a room where another had just committed suicide in–the bed sitting empty right in the middle of them–was a real life horror story.
Oskar cracked his knuckles once more, his head wilted to the side–eyes fixated on the tile. The world around him continued. Darcy, the head nurse, started off by reminding them of their field trip that would be commenced tomorrow morning. The twins passed out the daily questionnaire with the same emoji graphics and 1-10’s on them. Oskar felt himself start to dissociate, nausea from the methadone barely noticeable. Again, the sinking feeling of being confined–helpless at his irritability–consumed him for a moment longer. “Create your own paradise and inner peace will follow.”--as Darcy always recited.
...........................
OSKAR
♡coded by uxie♡
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