Category Archives: BOOKS

Everyone is gone. 

The thought was instinctual. It hung there without support, no other knowledge accompanying it. Nothing to explain why Brigita’s face hugged the floor tiles or why a nurse’s shoe with a sock still engaged lay tipped over in her view. 

She supposed a chunk of time had passed since she last opened her eyes. This was metaphorically speaking, as her consciousness often slumbered while her eyes remained open. But how much time had she lost this go-round? A few days? Weeks? There were even episodes that had lasted more than a month; a sign her illness was progressively getting worse.  

She stayed on the floor, body curled in a ball as she swept together her thoughts. 

Am I awake? 

She searched for the sounds that were missing; the unsolicited grunts and shrieks from patients, staff responding in placating tones, the steady, distant brrring of the telephone, unoiled wheelchairs squeaking as they rolled on by. Familiarity was absent. The only distinguishable sound was the continual whoosh of the ceiling fans. 

This is different. Something’s off.

Commanding strength into wilted limbs, she pulled herself up into a seated position. The side of her face that had connected with the floor felt tender. A knuckle to each eye forced her vision to adjust to the dim lighting—but instead of clarity, the surroundings brought more confusion. More questions. Such as who flipped over the tables and chairs, or scattered board game and puzzle pieces everywhere like on a child’s playroom floor? Who shot the bullet that punched a hole through the wall-mounted television, leaving the screen a glass spiderweb? There was nobody to ask—the building lacking any sign of warm bodies or the usual auditory buzz of human activity. All the staff and patients… gone.

But where? What did I miss?

Brigita tried to recall her last memory. A search for clues led to the discovery of her wheelchair, the one she required only during her catatonic episodes when her body would betray her by turning rigid and doll-like as her mind slipped away to places unknown. Brigita knew the chair was hers, recognizable by the pink ribbon fastened around the right handle. It stood vigil at the bay window overlooking the flower-lined courtyard of McMillan Psychiatric Hospital, most likely where she had perched before collapsing to the floor. Early morning rays failed to penetrate the glazed window, providing a muted account of the brightness, colours, and edges of the objects beyond. It had been years since she had been outside, alone. Escorted by an orderly or her sister, Brigita would walk the Lockstone paths, still a prisoner despite the walls no longer surrounding her. 

Wheels ground into motion within her drowsy mind. A plan rapidly forged based on opportunity. If nobody was there, then nobody could stop her. She had waited for a moment such as this ever since her family forced her into the hospital, kicking and screaming against her will. And here it was—an unexpected gift plopped into her lap. 

A chance to escape. 

Or was this some sort of trickery? The second Brigita attempted to leave, would the staff capture her mid-flight? Would they blame her for the room’s vandalized state? She was the only patient present to take the fall, and perhaps they planned it that way all along. Pinning her as the guilty one. It would give them an excuse to punish her, which seemed to give them such pleasure. They’d start with electroconvulsive therapy, as usual, each jolt sending her deeper into an abyss that held unspeakable terrors. Followed by the benzodiazepines, which rendered her mind dull, making it penetrable to the evil forces constantly trying to wriggle past her defenses. 

Come on, Brigita! You can do this. Try at least, her inner cheerleader encouraged. There’s nothing left to lose at this point.

Try. Such a tiny word that required tremendous effort.

As she stood, her legs felt insubstantial, soft, and jittery from disuse. With no need for the wheelchair during awakened states, she left it behind. Managing a few steps forward, she clung onto chairbacks—the few that remained upright—for support as her muscles struggled to regain strength. Then shimmying along the wall with her hands splayed open, her fingertips skimmed along the cracked white paint, dipping at one point to avoid an amoeba-shaped splotch of blood. 

Around the corner and into the hall, she continued to search for signs of life. A cart piled high with folded white towels, tissue boxes, toilet paper, and other sanitary items leaned precariously against a door frame. A roll of toilet paper had tumbled off, unspooling halfway down the hall. But no domestic staff accompanied the cart or attempted to clean the mess. No patients occupied the rooms Brigita peered into as she passed by. Just more disarray.

Locating the nursing station, she slipped behind the L-shaped desk and snatched the cherry-red handle of the rotary phone, pressing it to her ear. No dial tone. Not that she remembered any numbers to dial—locked in here far too long to have need of such things.

The desk drawers produced a ring of keys and, with shaking fingers, Brigita inserted them—first one, then two—into the filing cabinet behind the nursing station. On the fourth attempt, she heard a click, and the first drawer trundled open. She skipped to the middle section, searching the N’s (N for Nowak) until she found her chart and yanked it from the drawer. Cracking the file open, she sifted through the paperwork.

It’s got to be in here somewhere… A-ha! She grasped the emergency contact page with her sister Milena’s name and address on display. Committing the information to memory, Brigita replaced the file back in the cabinet and slipped the key ring back into the drawer where she had found it. Nobody had witnessed her snooping, and she intended to keep it that way. The goal was to make a clean break. No trail left behind. To disappear like the other patients. Although their whereabouts remained unknown, she now knew exactly where she was heading.

The front lobby looked like a tsunami had struck. Capsized wheelchairs lay like sunken ships, paper peppered with red droplets (more blood) strewn in waves across the floor. A curtain panel desperately clung to the few hooks still moored above the window, the remaining fabric pooled on the floor in a puddle of baby blue. Blue for soothing the psyche; although it did nothing of the sort. A slab of artificial lighting dangled from the ceiling, flashing and pinging simultaneously. Brigita took in the scene with cool indifference, realizing distantly she should be more alarmed. Oddly, she felt calm. 

The doors beckoned. A few more steps to sweet freedom. 

Brigita cast one furtive glance backward, but nobody rushed her from behind like she half expected. Everyone was still missing, and she breathed a sigh of relief. They didn’t give a shit about her here. She accepted that a long time ago. Yet, she could almost hear what the orderlies would have said had they caught her fleeing the premises. She heard it enough times. “Where do you think you’re going? Here, let me escort you back to your room, where you’ll be safe.” Their false promises of safety fell on deaf ears. She never felt safe here. No haven from her fears, her visions, only forced to be locked in with the evil that haunted her mind, real and dark and foreboding. And exceedingly powerful.