I was cracking into smaller pieces, each morsel stringing, viscously adhered to my foundation. It reminded me of when I was a child, playing on the merry-go-round at the park by our house. Annabelle and William sat beside me as I clung to the metal bars. Glancing at my knuckles, I noticed the yellow and red paint was chipped underneath, revealing black iron speckled with rust.
The park was quiet and empty. It had been raining all morning. The swing set and teeter-totters were vacant and dewy beneath clearing grey skies, and as the heavy clouds shifted, the sun revealed itself. The grass glistened with beads of moisture as my father hunched over, an old blue baseball cap fitted on his head, his feet firmly planted on the ground. His jeans were worn at the knees, and the neck of his burnt orange T-shirt stretched from my mother’s inability to properly do laundry. Each time we spun around, he grabbed the metal, pushing us with all the force he could muster, nearly falling over with each thrust. Annabelle’s long black hair flew backwards as she clutched the rail, her arms and legs wrapped around it. She was terrified. William let his head fall back, laughing and squealing, shouting, “Faster, faster, faster.” The sheer velocity at which we moved should have catapulted us from the merry-go-round, but physics kept us from falling.
I was spiralling out of control. Barely holding on as I swung in desperate circles. My wrists were breaking, my neck was snapping. It wasn’t a game anymore.
I called Dr. Brace and requested an emergency session. My head was filled with murky water. I couldn’t concentrate, focus my eyes, or sit still.
“I’m scared,” I whispered, circling the kitchen table over and over and over, the phone cradled in my neck.
“Come in right away,” he said calmly.
I didn’t feel safe to drive. I could barely see what was directly in front of me. Objects were indistinct and nebulous; everything seemed to lack definition. I called for a cab.
When it arrived, it smelled of stale tobacco and vomit. There were tiny black-rimmed cigarette burns in the leather seats. I ran my fingers over them.
“Where to?” the driver asked, peering at me through the rear-view mirror. He was middle-aged, with a shiny bald spot on the crown of his salt-and-peppered head.
“The Crisis Centre on Pleasant Ave.”
He nodded, and we rode in silence.
My movements seemed inconsequential and like they were happening in slow motion. My senses were heightened to the point of nausea. It seemed as though the world was made up of only lengthy shadows. For a moment, I couldn’t see any light. Unable to stomach looking out the window, I stared straight at the meter as the price went up by five cents every few seconds. I shut my eyes for a moment.
“Here we are.”
Startled, I opened my eyes as the driver turned to look at me. I forgot where I was. I forgot everything. His eyes were strikingly blue, clouded and crystallized with age. I tossed a couple bills over the seat and pushed open the door. “Keep the change.”
Standing outside the rusty-red and brown brick building, I let my head fall back, counting the windows. I kept losing track, forgetting what came next, and beginning again. The taxi driver honked his horn, jolting me back.
I headed for the main door and tugged the handle. It was locked. I pressed the buzzer three times, waited a few seconds, then buzzed again. A robotic voice came through the intercom: “Yes. Do you have an appointment?” This made me smile a demented, tight-lipped grin. How crazy do they think I am? They really need to protect themselves from me by a locked door and intercom?
“Yes,” I replied, giving the door a second and third yank before it clicked open.
I nodded at the intercom woman as I passed the front desk, barrelling down the hallway. I turned my head from left to right, counting and humming. One, two, three, four; closed door, closed door, closed door, closed door. I reached the familiar precipice of Dr. Brace’s office and entered without knocking.
He was sitting in his chair but, startled by my entrance, was quickly on his feet. “Grace, what’s going on?”
“I can’t sleep.” I paced back and forth in the narrow space. I couldn’t look at him. I imagined sinking my nails into my skin, smashing my head against the wall over and over until blood poured from my orifices and I lay motionless on the ground. My thoughts were moving so quickly I visualized them, like wires of unharvested electricity circuiting through.
“Would you like to sit?” He motioned to the chair.
“I can’t sit. I can’t stop. I need to keep moving, otherwise my thoughts might take me. They might take me away and I don’t know if I’ll come back this time. I don’t know if I can make it back down.”
He grabbed his notepad. “Can you explain what you mean a little more?”
I just screamed.
Dr. Brace picked up the phone, dialling quickly a number he had memorized. He spoke into the receiver as I disappeared. I wasn’t in the room anymore. I wasn’t anywhere.
I counted with speed and ease, muttering in a hushed tone, as if everything in the room were numbered. The chair was made of one hundred and ninety-three beige polka dots. The desk had nine drawers, eighteen knobs. My eyes traced the moulding on the ceiling over and over until I became dizzy and had to sit down.
I closed my eyes for a moment, and when I opened them, a police officer and social worker were standing before me. I examined the two men, deciding they were a strange combination. The officer was abnormally tall and had a baby-smooth face. He must have shaved that morning. The social worker was shorter, leaner, and had a head of thick, jet-black hair. His lips were the colour of Red Delicious apples, full and juicy. I wanted to bite them. I wanted to sink my teeth into the soft, red flesh and suck the nectar from them. I wanted him to push me to the ground and yell at me: “You’re acting crazy, snap out of it.”
Dr. Brace was peering down at me. “Grace, you’re going to go with these gentlemen to get the help you need, okay?”
I stood and held out my hands. “Okay.”
“Oh, we won’t be cuffing you. You’re not under arrest.” The officer rubbed his baby-smooth chin. “You just come with us, Grace.”
We exited the building and I climbed into the back seat of the police cruiser. The flashing lights, red and blue, were carnivalesque. They danced on the constable’s face playfully. There were no sirens, only lights. I don’t remember anything they said, but the indentations on the social worker’s face were deep with concern.
They escorted me to the entrance of the Psychiatric Assessment Unit and rang the buzzer.
A lanky security guard dressed in a blue uniform with a gold name tag arrived to retrieve me. The fluorescent lights reflected off his tag, obstructing the engraved name beneath. He held the door open for me. I was his responsibility now.
I suddenly had the urge to hug the police officer, so I turned and wrapped my arms around him. “Thank you, Father,” I whispered. He remained stiff as I squeezed him, one hand on his holster.
I let go, leaving the other two men behind, and followed the guard through a series of locked entrances, his electronic pass opening each door with a loud beep.
The walls were lined with Tyvek, the raw beams exposed.
“They doing renovations?”
“Yes,” the guard replied. “It’s been going on for a while.”
I dragged my hands along the Tyvek, which made a faint crinkle, as I headed toward the buzzing light in the distance.
The guard was used to dealing with crazies. You could always tell. He didn’t recoil when I spoke to him. He wasn’t afraid of me.
He led me to the front desk. Dr. Brace had clearly called ahead and warned them of my arrival.
“Grace?” The receptionist spoke through the rectangular slit of a plastic partition.
In the light of the waiting room, I was now able to see the guard’s tag. Burned in a bold, black font, it read, JACK.
I squinted at it, drawing my eyebrows close together. I began to shake. “Jack?”
“Yes?” He looked from his tag to me, and back again.
“Jack. It’s me, Grace,” I screamed, jabbing myself in the chest with my pointer finger. “Grace. Remember? Grace.” I kept screaming as the guard retreated through a door and disappeared down the corridor.
The receptionist hurried around her desk and restrained me as another woman appeared, injecting me in the arm with a syringe.
When I came to, I was lying in a little white room. I felt as though I was in a crib, confined by the narrow walls. Crammed next to me was the woman who had injected me, sitting in a scratched-up vinyl chair. Her hair was grey and feathery, cut in a short, boyish way. She wore blue scrubs and white, lace-less sneakers. Directly above me was a window with iron bars. It was dark outside. There were no curtains and no bedsheets. No way of escaping.
“Hello, Grace.” The woman’s tone was familiar, as if she knew me. Maybe she did. I had dealt with so many health-care professionals over the years it was hard to remember. “How are you feeling?”
“A bit better.” My voice came out weakly, strained from all the screaming.
“Can I get you anything?” She uncrossed her arms, glancing at the clipboard in her lap. “Some water, maybe?”
“I’m fine.”
Pursing her lips, the lines around her mouth deepened. She looked like a marionette. “Grace, I’m going to ask you some questions and I need you to answer as honestly as possible. Okay?”
“Sure.” I pressed my cheek into the striped pillow with no cover.
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-three.”
She jotted my responses onto the page in red ink. “Are you currently taking any medication?”
“No.” I shook my head and tugged at the skin on my neck.
“Do you have any history of self-harm?”
I paused. I was wearing a hospital gown. What have I gotten myself into? Did this woman undress me? She must have already seen the marks. “Mhm.”
Through the thin walls, I heard the scuttle of a woman entering the room adjacent to mine. She was crying hysterically. “I wrapped all my pill bottles in Bubble Wrap,” the woman explained through dramatic sobs. “I don’t want to kill myself.”
“What an idiot,” I muttered.