Untitled
by Kellyann Ye
He was my first friend, and my only one, to this day.
I was raised in a madhouse, born of a madman and a madwoman. He was brought in when he was ten, for trying to kill his teacher. I was a nine-year-old girl then, wary but kind, the only child in the place aside from him, and fell into his shadow like I belonged.
He introduced himself as John, when he met me a week later (after I’d spilled orange juice over his white shirt), scanned his ID into the metal disk in my door that I had long wondered the use of, and showed me how it flashed on the screen on the other side:
FIRST NAME JOHN MIDDLE NAME UNKNOWN LAST NAME UNKNOWN AGE TEN YEARS: WINIFRED ADAMS AGE ELEVEN YEARS ADMIT YES NO
YES, I picked, and pressed the green button.
A few weeks later we were allowed to go outside into the courtyard, and he showed me the names of the plants we passed, “Queen Anne’s Lace, that’s that white one there. Looks like bunches of flowers on a stem, see?” I followed his descriptions with rapture, hanging on to his every word, storing the information away when he said his favorite plant was a fern.
He showed me one, when we sat down on the concrete next to the display of the fern, and I pressed my fingers to the glass and wondered how fuzzy its leaves were.
“I hate this place already,” he revealed then, pointing out where it stored its seeds. I could understand, having grown up in the madhouse with its whitewashed walls and slick white tiling and bland food and lack of entertainment, “But,” he continued, half-smiling, “it’s slightly better when you’re around. What’s your name?”
“Winifred,” I said, “Like I’ve said. But you can call me Winnie.”
“What are you in for?” he asked, because that was what you did, in a madhouse. You asked around and pretended you were sane by following the same social rules the normals used.
“Being born,” I said, and shrugged like he did, left-shoulder-right-shoulder-down. “You?”
He didn’t answer. I guessed he’d hurt somebody he cared a lot about right before he was brought in, other than his teacher, and didn’t ask again.
“It’s only here sometimes,” was all he said of his madness, once, safe in the blanket of darkness on the roof of the madhouse, looking out at the stars, “And I mostly don’t do anything terrible. I’m too young to do much damage. I can always be stopped.”
“That’s good,” I said, staring down at his wrist, where his ID chip was. First Name John Edward, I knew it read, Last Name Unknown. Age: 11 years. And it was good, to be stoppable. If you could be stopped, the doctors would try to stop it, and they didn’t take you away to die. And if the doctors stopped it, or you stopped it, you could leave after two years.
He’d done alright before, I supposed, because he only shrugged and said, “I blended in better than most,” when I asked. And indeed, when I looked at him, brushing the fine blond hair out of his eyes with a pale hand, he was normal. But a closer look showed the slight sheen to his blue eyes and the way his fingers clenched and unclenched, always in a pattern of three.
It was an oxymoron, his entire being, the way he blended in better than anybody else when he was sane, but when he was gone (I never, ever used the word insane), he was the worst of everybody.
Only once did he ever let himself lose control when I was there, once when I’d just come in from an afternoon quest to the public library, bounding into his room with my arms full of my tablet, now filled again with titles.
“Who are you?” he’d asked, hands balled into fists, settling low on his heels in a way that reminded me of a cat, the way they’d lean back on their haunches in the colored pictures in the tablets, right before they pounced. “What did you do to my friend?”
“I-” I stopped, heart hammering in surprise. “How do you mean?”
“Is she alright? What did you do to her?” He stepped forward, closer. I stepped back, breath catching in my lungs. “Tell me!”
Bleep, said his wristband, flashing yellow, and I knew I should get an orderly, a doctor, a security guard, somebody, but he’d been fine for so long, nearly all of the eight months he’d been here, and if he was reported, he wouldn’t be able to leave for another two years.
I didn’t want him to go, of course, but he was too good for a place like this, too brilliant to be chained by his mind.
I couldn’t say anything, just fluttering my fingers, trying to push away the blockage in my throat so I could ask him what was wrong, was this his madness, did this happen often, how could I help. But my fingers fluttered uselessly, and I gasped for air, choking on the words not coming out of my mouth.
“What did you do to her?” he shouted, “Where’re you hiding her? If you’ve hurt her I’ll kill you!”
Bleep, bleep, bleep, said his wristband, flashing orange now, and the door burst open, the tall doctor who took care of my mama and the bald security guard with the cutest little baby boy twins burst in the door, and grabbed John by his skinny arms, and dragged him out, kicking and screaming. “I won’t let you hurt Winnie,” I heard his shout just before they turned the corner; “I won’t let you!”
His madness, I understood then, was that he lost his perception of the people around him, and thought they were not themselves in his delirium.
Then came the midnight episodes, when I’d hear him across the curtain-divided room, crying out for his mother, his best friend Luke, and me, wanting to know what they had done with us, threatening, through his tears, to kill them if they’d hurt us. The dreams would always end come morning, and he’d be paler, but sane still.
And then there was the night when the crying didn’t end, and at last I crept out of bed, tiptoeing my way across the slick white-tile floor to his metal-framed bed to pat his shoulder.
“John,” I whispered, “John. Wake up. Come back.”
“Is she alright?” he asked, turning toward me but not seeing me, blinking rapidly to the pulse of his wristband, red-dark-red-dark-red.
“Yes,” I said, putting my face next to his ear so he could hear my voice over the urgent beep-beep-beep-beep-beep of the wristband, part of me hoping the doctors wouldn’t hear, so he could stay longer, part of me hoping they would, so they could help him.
“She’s okay,” I said, already hearing the rustle of the doctors’ coats behind me, knowing that once a patient had gone red, they’re dead, like my mama, and you won’t ever see them again. “She’s okay!” I repeated, as they picked him up, limp as a rag doll, “You saved her!”
I asked the doctors where he was the next morning, and they wouldn’t tell me. He couldn’t be dead, I told them, because he was John, not my mama, or my papa, who had been crazy for decades. He was young. Young people weren’t allowed to die so early.
They didn’t answer either, and a month after his death, when I’d calculated that he couldn’t be released, that there weren’t any madhouses close enough for him to be transported to, I stole a fern seed from the underside of the leaf, planted it, and kept it on the windowsill of what had been our room for nearly two years.
I think he would have liked that.
by Kellyann Ye
He was my first friend, and my only one, to this day.
I was raised in a madhouse, born of a madman and a madwoman. He was brought in when he was ten, for trying to kill his teacher. I was a nine-year-old girl then, wary but kind, the only child in the place aside from him, and fell into his shadow like I belonged.
He introduced himself as John, when he met me a week later (after I’d spilled orange juice over his white shirt), scanned his ID into the metal disk in my door that I had long wondered the use of, and showed me how it flashed on the screen on the other side:
FIRST NAME JOHN MIDDLE NAME UNKNOWN LAST NAME UNKNOWN AGE TEN YEARS: WINIFRED ADAMS AGE ELEVEN YEARS ADMIT YES NO
YES, I picked, and pressed the green button.
A few weeks later we were allowed to go outside into the courtyard, and he showed me the names of the plants we passed, “Queen Anne’s Lace, that’s that white one there. Looks like bunches of flowers on a stem, see?” I followed his descriptions with rapture, hanging on to his every word, storing the information away when he said his favorite plant was a fern.
He showed me one, when we sat down on the concrete next to the display of the fern, and I pressed my fingers to the glass and wondered how fuzzy its leaves were.
“I hate this place already,” he revealed then, pointing out where it stored its seeds. I could understand, having grown up in the madhouse with its whitewashed walls and slick white tiling and bland food and lack of entertainment, “But,” he continued, half-smiling, “it’s slightly better when you’re around. What’s your name?”
“Winifred,” I said, “Like I’ve said. But you can call me Winnie.”
“What are you in for?” he asked, because that was what you did, in a madhouse. You asked around and pretended you were sane by following the same social rules the normals used.
“Being born,” I said, and shrugged like he did, left-shoulder-right-shoulder-down. “You?”
He didn’t answer. I guessed he’d hurt somebody he cared a lot about right before he was brought in, other than his teacher, and didn’t ask again.
“It’s only here sometimes,” was all he said of his madness, once, safe in the blanket of darkness on the roof of the madhouse, looking out at the stars, “And I mostly don’t do anything terrible. I’m too young to do much damage. I can always be stopped.”
“That’s good,” I said, staring down at his wrist, where his ID chip was. First Name John Edward, I knew it read, Last Name Unknown. Age: 11 years. And it was good, to be stoppable. If you could be stopped, the doctors would try to stop it, and they didn’t take you away to die. And if the doctors stopped it, or you stopped it, you could leave after two years.
He’d done alright before, I supposed, because he only shrugged and said, “I blended in better than most,” when I asked. And indeed, when I looked at him, brushing the fine blond hair out of his eyes with a pale hand, he was normal. But a closer look showed the slight sheen to his blue eyes and the way his fingers clenched and unclenched, always in a pattern of three.
It was an oxymoron, his entire being, the way he blended in better than anybody else when he was sane, but when he was gone (I never, ever used the word insane), he was the worst of everybody.
Only once did he ever let himself lose control when I was there, once when I’d just come in from an afternoon quest to the public library, bounding into his room with my arms full of my tablet, now filled again with titles.
“Who are you?” he’d asked, hands balled into fists, settling low on his heels in a way that reminded me of a cat, the way they’d lean back on their haunches in the colored pictures in the tablets, right before they pounced. “What did you do to my friend?”
“I-” I stopped, heart hammering in surprise. “How do you mean?”
“Is she alright? What did you do to her?” He stepped forward, closer. I stepped back, breath catching in my lungs. “Tell me!”
Bleep, said his wristband, flashing yellow, and I knew I should get an orderly, a doctor, a security guard, somebody, but he’d been fine for so long, nearly all of the eight months he’d been here, and if he was reported, he wouldn’t be able to leave for another two years.
I didn’t want him to go, of course, but he was too good for a place like this, too brilliant to be chained by his mind.
I couldn’t say anything, just fluttering my fingers, trying to push away the blockage in my throat so I could ask him what was wrong, was this his madness, did this happen often, how could I help. But my fingers fluttered uselessly, and I gasped for air, choking on the words not coming out of my mouth.
“What did you do to her?” he shouted, “Where’re you hiding her? If you’ve hurt her I’ll kill you!”
Bleep, bleep, bleep, said his wristband, flashing orange now, and the door burst open, the tall doctor who took care of my mama and the bald security guard with the cutest little baby boy twins burst in the door, and grabbed John by his skinny arms, and dragged him out, kicking and screaming. “I won’t let you hurt Winnie,” I heard his shout just before they turned the corner; “I won’t let you!”
His madness, I understood then, was that he lost his perception of the people around him, and thought they were not themselves in his delirium.
Then came the midnight episodes, when I’d hear him across the curtain-divided room, crying out for his mother, his best friend Luke, and me, wanting to know what they had done with us, threatening, through his tears, to kill them if they’d hurt us. The dreams would always end come morning, and he’d be paler, but sane still.
And then there was the night when the crying didn’t end, and at last I crept out of bed, tiptoeing my way across the slick white-tile floor to his metal-framed bed to pat his shoulder.
“John,” I whispered, “John. Wake up. Come back.”
“Is she alright?” he asked, turning toward me but not seeing me, blinking rapidly to the pulse of his wristband, red-dark-red-dark-red.
“Yes,” I said, putting my face next to his ear so he could hear my voice over the urgent beep-beep-beep-beep-beep of the wristband, part of me hoping the doctors wouldn’t hear, so he could stay longer, part of me hoping they would, so they could help him.
“She’s okay,” I said, already hearing the rustle of the doctors’ coats behind me, knowing that once a patient had gone red, they’re dead, like my mama, and you won’t ever see them again. “She’s okay!” I repeated, as they picked him up, limp as a rag doll, “You saved her!”
I asked the doctors where he was the next morning, and they wouldn’t tell me. He couldn’t be dead, I told them, because he was John, not my mama, or my papa, who had been crazy for decades. He was young. Young people weren’t allowed to die so early.
They didn’t answer either, and a month after his death, when I’d calculated that he couldn’t be released, that there weren’t any madhouses close enough for him to be transported to, I stole a fern seed from the underside of the leaf, planted it, and kept it on the windowsill of what had been our room for nearly two years.
I think he would have liked that.