The doctors come into my dorm room, at night. I wake up with stitching in various places; my tummy, my chest, sometimes even my head. They take samples for their experiments. I wake up a bit less whole than I was, before. It’s been happening since I got here in 1951. But no more. Tonight, I’m ready for them.
They use some of the asylum’s other patients as muscle. These patients are too far gone, zombified. The stitches in their skulls run deep and thick, like Frankenstein’s monster. Some of them are quite deformed. A few have one eye that is several inches lower than the other one. Others have massive swelling on their faces that never went down. Others have horridly cleft lips. Some have discolored eyes, unnatural shades of red or yellow or black. I know I’ll end up like them if I don’t do something.
I swiped a pair of gardening scissors from the toolshed, today. It was a big risk. If they caught me, I could have been lobotomized. It was a risk worth taking. I’ll end up lobotomized at some point, anyway. I have to get out of here.
***
I remember the night my mother came home from the hospital, after her operation. I was ten. The stitches ran across her forehead like a centipede. I remember how she looked with that dead-eyed stare, her mouth hanging open. Every few minutes, my father would pull out a handkerchief to wipe the drool from her bottom lip.
Before the operation, my mother enjoyed drawing with me. We would both draw the same thing and then compare. My favorite was to draw an elephant. She was always better at drawing those than I was. Now, when we sat down to draw, she could only manage a squiggly line.
“How does it look, Jasper?” she would ask, monotoned.
I would lie. “It looks great, mother.”
She was a paranoid schizophrenic. She passed it on to me, that I know. I began to hear the voices in my early 20’s. May have been 21, 22 perhaps. I recall carving a jack-o’-lantern one Halloween night, and it spoke to me. I was so sure that it spoke to me. It was upset that I’d carved into its hard shell and removed its innards and seeds. I apologized profusely to it. It didn’t take long for father to send me away to the asylum. He’s been alone, ever since, in that house. My mother does live there, but that doesn’t make him any less alone. She’s half a woman, now, if that.
Mother wasn’t always ill. When I was five, she took me to the theater to see that big gorilla picture, King Kong. I felt sorry for the gorilla. He was forever condemned to be alone, and if he tried to change his situation, he’d be met with violence. I loved that picture. I loved the dinosaurs and that beautiful, handmade jungle. It made me want to make movies. Those dreams are over, now.
My memories of mother after her operation, well, those weren’t quite so positive. Many nights, I’d lay awake and hear footsteps out in the hall. We lived in a large house where sound traveled. The footsteps would make small echos, no matter where in the house they came from. I’d wake many times, through the night, hearing those footsteps.
One night, it became too much. Those footfalls, I’d hear them in the foyer, which was just outside my room. From my bed, I could see the staircase, dark and shadowed. The stairs began to creak. It was a slow, yet steady, rhythm. A zombie-walk. First came the shadow, but it faded, vanishing into the gloom of the stairway’s second flight. Then, my mother’s silhouette. It climbed the steps. I lay there, in my bed, frozen, as mother arrived at the top of the steps and trudged into my room, her right leg lagging and dragging across the floor.
My mother’s silhouette paced the room. She went to the fireplace and grabbed the poker, poking at a fire that was not there.
“Fire’s not burning properly,” she mumbled.
“Mother?” I called.
“Can’t sleep, Jasper. Go back to bed. You have kindergarten, in the morning.”
I hadn’t had kindergarten in five years, though. Mother paced the room for an hour, and my eyelids were peeled the entire time, heavy as they were. When she left, it was still an hour before I could fall asleep.
I began to sleep with the door shut and locked. On the nights when the door was shut, I’d sometimes hear the footsteps right outside. They would knock against the floor, each one getting closer to my door. Then, they’d stop. There would be silence, for a moment. Sometimes, for up to ten minutes. And then, my doorknob would jiggle.
The jiggling of the knob would last several minutes. I’m not sure why she wanted to get in. I’m not sure why she paced the halls at night. What was she looking for? Was she looking for anything?
Perhaps she was searching for her memories. Or maybe her sanity. Or maybe, just maybe, she was searching for that missing piece of her brain.
***
My big wooden radio sits in the corner of my dorm room. The volume is turned up just enough for Judy Garland’s “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” to be background music. The window feels cold. There is condensation on it, and I can draw with my finger. I draw a pumpkin. I stare at it for a moment. The window fogs up, again, and the pumpkin is gone. I look past the condensation and give the window a wipe with my palm. I stare into the cold and pitch-black night, past the steel bars on the other side of the glass. I can see the countryside; the prairie, the rolling hills, the forest that lines the horizon, the plump harvest moon in the sky.
My other hand is beneath the sheets, clutching the scissors. My eyes are peeled and focused on the door. That must be where they come in from. The door is thick, heavy steel. I wonder how they open it without me hearing.
The doctors and the nurses, they tell me these are just delusions. But they forget, they’ve taught me to distinguish between what is real and what is fake. I know the delusions.
I did lots of thinking on this matter, and I’ve reached my conclusion: the doctors are coming into my room, they are dropping LSD into my ears, and they are removing pieces of me. Little pieces. Little bits. It is not a delusion. It occurs. Tonight, I’ll be waiting. Not a drop of LSD will hit these ears, and not a single scalpel will touch my flesh.
There’s a noise beneath the floor. It’s a scratch, scratch, scratch, like a fat rat scurrying across a metal grate. I lift the sheets off myself. It is cold. I grip the scissors tight and hold them out in front of me. I kneel down on the floor and lay flat on my stomach, like a dog. The floor feels like ice as I press my ear to it. The muffled sounds beneath the tile enter the funnel of my ear. I hear voices. One of the voices is intelligible, seems to bark orders. The other voices sound scattered and stupid. Those must be the patients, the zombified ones, taking orders from one of those mad doctors. Where are they?
I hear another sound. This one is close, present. It comes from my room. I look up and I see four floor tiles lift up from the ground. It’s a trapdoor. That’s how they get in. I had no clue it was there, it blended so well. And now, a stocky patient emerges from the trapdoor, a hatchet in his hand.
The stocky patient’s right eye bulges from his face, and his left eye is much lower, sitting right next to his left nostril. He’s missing some teeth, a lot of ‘em. The hair on his head is almost gone, only thin strands left, dangling like spiderwebs. He lets out a zombified groan when he sees me.
“Still… awake,” he shouts to those below him.
“Grab him!” says the doctor from beneath the floor.
The big patient lumbers toward me. He holds the hatchet in a threatening manner. I don’t think he sees the scissors in my hand.
“Stay still,” says the big patient. “Doctor wants you a –
I drive the scissors into the big patient’s foot. He howls and drops the hatchet, which lands next to me. I grab it. I stand up and plunge the axe into the big patient’s skull. His skull cracks and sprays hot blood and brain matter. His misshapen eyes still move, unsure of what exactly is going on. He falls to his knees.
Now, I must remove the axe from his head. I place a foot on his meaty shoulder and pull on the axe handle. His head makes a squelch as the sharp metal rummages around in his brain. He grunts and groans, still alive. I remember that he’s been made this way, and doesn’t do this by choice.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
I yank the hatchet out. Blood gushes. I must put him out of his misery. I swing the hatchet at his face. The blade knocks his face clean off, as though he were wearing a mask before, revealing the cracked skull beneath.
Another patient emerges from the trapdoor. This one is scrawny, rail thin, and he snarls and growls like a possessed man. He has a cleft lip, rotting teeth showing through. He holds a baton in his hand. My hatchet is better.
I charge him as he climbs out of the floor. I swing the hatchet. He ducks, and strikes my ribs with the baton. I let out a grunt as air leaves my lungs and does not return. I step back and regroup. He and I square off.
The patient raises the baton. Big mistake. Now, I know what’s coming. He swings down, going for my head. I sidestep and swing the hatchet into his torso. He screams. Blood spurts from his mouth. I drag the hatchet across his stomach and remove it. There’s a huge slit in his belly, now, and gore gushes out. Innards follow. The stomach falls out and plops to the floor. I think I nicked it with the axe, because it is opened and has a putrid stench. His intestines follow, splashing to the floor like a hunk of spaghetti.
I walk to the trapdoor and look down. It is a pitch back void. I have no idea where I’m going, but there is nowhere else to go. I sit at the edge and feel a ladder, propped against the wall. I descend, climbing about 20 feet down.
I stand in a small passageway. I have to duck so my head doesn’t hit the ceiling, but only slightly. There are tiny lanterns every few feet that light the way. About 15 feet ahead is a doctor, wearing a white lab coat. I recognize him. It’s Dr. Limbo, assistant to the warden. He’s in his mid-50’s, bespectacled, balding. Right now, he looks afraid, as he stares at me, this patient with a bloodstained face and an axe in his hand. He runs. I am quicker.
I catch up to him and swing the hatchet right at his ass. The blade sinks into his soft glutes. He screams and falls to his knees. I pull the blade out and press the cold metal to his throat, using my other hand to grip his chin.
“Let’s see how you like being cut open, Doctor Limbo,” I say.
“No, no,” he begs. “Jasper, please. Don’t. You’re suffering delusions. None of this is real. Don’t do something you’ll regret.”
“Doctor, you’ve taught me how to differentiate. I know this is real.”
“No it isn’t, Jasper. You aren’t fully cured, not yet. Please, let me live, and I’ll keep helping you. We’ll get you there. You’ll be all better. You’ll see –
I’m tired of listening. His words turn into a loud yack! as I drag the blade across his throat. Blood gushes out. I hold his head in place and pull up, opening the wound further. His carcass slumps to the ground.
I traverse the tunnels, which seem to run throughout the asylum, beneath all of the rooms. I wonder just how long they’ve been doing this to their patients. I wonder where I’ll go, once I escape.
I look down at my bloodied hands and the… gardening scissors that I’m holding. I thought I used an axe. I swear to Christ, I used an axe. Those gardening scissors should still be sticking out of big boy’s foot. What the hell is happening? Why am I holding the gardening scissors?
***
The brain floated in the glass jar of water. Hundreds of tiny wires protruded from the wrinkled matter, buzzing and whirring as they fired electric impulses into it.
The doctors stood around the brain and watched the computer it was hooked up to. The computer monitor displayed rows upon rows of code.
“Well,” said Dr. Limbo, “guess there’s a glitch.”
“What glitch?” asked Dr. Maul.
“Apparently, ‘hatchet’ has become ‘gardening scissors’.”
“So, we going for another full reset?” asked Dr. Barrett.
“Guess so,” Dr. Limbo replied. He leaned over the computer and typed away at the keyboard. “Hard to tell if it’s a computer problem, or…”
“Or what?”
“Or a brain problem. After all, we did remove his brain back in ‘53. That’s… how many years ago? Thirty-two?”
“Yup. Thirty-two.”
“Man,” said Dr. Limbo, “time really flies. I remember it like it was yesterday. I was an orderly, back then. He was sleeping when we pulled the sheets off of him. And when we did, we saw those gardening scissors in his hand. He could’ve done some real damage, if he’d stayed awake.”
“Yeah, no kidding,” said Dr. Maul.
Dr. Limbo hit one last key on the keyboard. “All right, we’ll do a reset. Let’s run the mother simulation, again. The one where his mother paces around his room, at night. Sound good?”
“Sounds good, to me,” said Dr. Barrett. “That one always proves interesting.”
“Sure does, doc. Sure does.”