Prison of the Mind, Body, and Soul

Zoe Hellman 25'

It’s difficult for me to believe I've been labeled as a madman. The ones who lock me in here like cattle, feigning pity and sorrow look more disturbed than I. 

As a professor of philosophy, I’ve seen people from restless to reserved to remarkable. I’d have loved to keep teaching but my problems with a mood disorder recently led me to indulge in an..

..unfortunately significant (and dangerous) outburst, to then I was remanded to seek psychiatric help/assistance in a facility such as this, ‘house of the insane.’

Sitting below the window on my first day here I sigh and accidentally drop a coin I found in my pocket on the floor. As I go to grab it though, I hear a man grumble to himself close by.

“Hello?” I whispered, adjusting the glasses on my face, hoping no unexpected company intrudes.

“It is a privilege…love what death cannot touch.” I bend slightly forward, bringing my knees to the ground and press my ear up against the stone wall of the cell, hoping to discern something coherent the man said. 

It hardly helped. “To pursue pure beauty is to fall into a trap, beauty must be wedded to something much more significant to have any meaning.” I began to wonder about the reason why this man was thrown into an asylum.

“I don’t believe this,” I say, moving my head side to side behind the bars in front of me to see if there is anyone coming down the hall. 

“Believe it? Believe there lies no truth beyond illusion.” This, a very silly madman at best.

“There actually is truth beyond illusion. The true nature of everything is never completely hidden,” I mumble back in response. 

“How are you so sure? Between reality and where the mind strikes reality, a middle zone certainly exists where our perception contorts everything we see in the physical realm. Where two surfaces mix and blur to provide something real life can not.”

“What’s your name?”

“Thomas.”

“Do people ever come to visit you here, Thomas?” I already felt weary from the bit of cold blowing in through the window and the cracks in the walls. 

“Not anymore,” Quite a vague answer to a question like that.

“Been here for a while then?” I ask. 

“‘Could say that.” 

“Sir, I beg a thousand pardons,” This man intrigued me. “But I'm having some trouble adjusting to this new…lifestyle. How do you cope with-”

“Cope with what?” He interrupted me, clearly a bit upset with something I'd said. “The incurable malady we’ve been dealt? Looking at it and saying “why me”? It’s just staring back at you, through you, 

perpetually weaving its rotten web and destroying anything that’s not already suffocated by it.”

I stutter in response, taken a bit aback. How is one supposed to respond to a statement like that? Especially after just meeting a gentleman. “Er, no. I was just wondering, how is it, you know, to have lived in a cage like this for so long?”

“The people who lock us up step on our heads like cobblestones, but it’s the loneliness that makes life in here most unbearable.”

I hear a sliding door open at the end of the hall. 

“Here’s your lunch for today, Mr. Hopkins. I'll be back to fetch you for some free time in the garden later.”

“Thank you,” I said back to him, quietly. But as he began to walk back down the hallway, I realized something. 

“Excuse me, sir?” I raised my voice a bit so the man could hopefully hear me from afar. “How come my friend, in this cell next to me,”

I point through the thick wall of stone separating me from the other man, “Why doesn’t he get any food as well? It’s certainly the lunch hour.”

“That man?” The guard lets out a soft chuckle. “He’ll get his portion later. Doesn’t tend to eat much.”

The man continues walking down the hallway, his buckled shoes going click clack click clack, all the freedom in the world.

“Hey sir, I have another question if you desire to hear it,” I asked worriedly, fearful I was going to upset this gentleman again.

“Go on, Mr. Hopkins.”

“How do you, or rather how have you passed so much time in here?”

“I learned to open my senses to the strangeness of the place pressing in all around me.” He responded automatically, almost like he was programmed to say so. 

“I lean all of myself against these walls while my fingers lengthen and grow across the stones like ivy. In the tar pit that makes up this establishment’s soul, I linger forever.”

As disturbed as this poor man is, he reminds me of myself, which is actually quite comforting. How unfortunate that our first encounter had to take place in an insane asylum. 

“And you said your name was?” I ask in response.

“Thomas.”

“Thank you, Thomas. I’m sure we’ll get to know more about each other in the coming months, eh?” A cheerful tone surprisingly shines through my voice. 

Just then, a familiar click clack click clack of buckled shoes coming down the hallway brings the same man who gave me a bit of food earlier. 

He walks in the direction of my cell again, saying,

“Ready for your time in the garden today, Mr. Hopkins?”

“Sure.” Again, that cheerful tone shining through my voice. 

I guess I was feeling more decent now that I wasn’t completely isolated here on my own. Yet, as I stepped out of my cell, I’d seen none other than the man I thought could ameliorate my time here was, in fact, not here at all. 

The man with the buckled shoes is starting to get angry with me since I've only taken about 3 steps out of my cell. 

“Wait sir, please, where did you take Thomas?” My voice cracked unexpectedly, no more cheerfulness in my tone. 

The man with the buckled shoes looked me in the eyes, still angry and confused for a moment. But he quickly snapped back into a normal state, let out another soft chuckle in my direction, and continued beckoning me to follow him out to the garden.