The next morning Dr. Filburn came ridiculously early.

Me: Sorry, but I don’t display symptoms before breakfast.

I said that even though I could hear Hobbes taking a cat bath.

Doctor: Good to see you, Calvin. How was your night?

Me: Great. When can I get out of here?

Doctor: What’s your rush? Aren’t we treating you well?

Me: Can’t you just, you know, open up my skull and adjust the dials a bit?

Doctor (smiles):

I decided to try reasoning with him.

Me: Grammar did it to me. Grammar and two big semester projects. I’m pretty sure if I could just eliminate grammar and homework from my life, I could just go home and be normal again.

Hobbes: Were you ever normal?

Me: This is all your fault, you flea-bitten, mangy furball—

Dr. Filburn studied me like I was a smear on a microscope slide.

Doctor: We’re going to run some tests on Monday to see what’s going on in that brain of yours.

Me: A tiger. A tiger is what’s going on.

Doctor: I don’t want you to worry. I’m sure we can help.

Me: Don’t worry? I’m not worried. Why should I be worried? Just give me a choice between this and being boiled in oil and I’ll go from there.

Doctor: Having a mental illness isn’t a kind of death, Calvin. Not these days.

Me: Yes, it is. It’s the death of normal. Maybe you haven’t heard, but normal is what teenagers aspire to be above all else.

Doctor: Okay. So what’s normal?

Me: Do you have a mental illness?

Doctor: No—

Me: That’s normal. Normal is not sick. Normal is when you get to decide what’s wrong with the other guy. Normal is blending in, like not having a psychotic episode in the middle of school, which makes you stand out.

Doctor: Calvin, do you know how many people in North America suffer from schizophrenia? I’ll tell you. Over two million. You’re not alone.

Me: Wow. If we were mutant zombie killers we could have taken over the world long ago.

Doctor: Many people with schizophrenia are very highly educated and make significant contributions to society. You want to go to college? Get a good job?

I didn’t say it, but suddenly I wanted it way more than I’d ever wanted anything before. I just wanted to be normal, ordinary, boring, and have a normal, ordinary, boring life.

Doctor: You can do pretty much what you want. Most people improve greatly on medications and lead productive lives. Nobody dies of schizophrenia.

Me: Unless they kill themselves.

Doctor (nodding): The risk of suicide is much higher. You’re not planning to hurt yourself, are you?

I thought about my plan, but I was sane enough to know better than to tell him about it.

Me: No, but I do have a man-eating tiger here who is just waiting for me to weaken up. Which gives this whole thing a certain time sensitivity.

Hobbes growled and the doctor cleared his throat.

Doctor: Calvin, you are a very creative young man, which actually fits with some theories about people who experience hallucinations. Artistic people and highly creative people have a lower than expected density of dopamine receptors in the thalamus, as do people with schizophrenia. What that means is, your filter doesn’t work as well as so-called normal people’s. You’ve got this high flow of uncensored information coming in. In some people, that barrage of information makes them a genius in their field. We just have to get those negative effects under control, and then you can go have a great life—be the next John Nash or Salvador Dalí. We understand nowadays that it’s not like you’re either psychotic or not. Everyone is on a continuum.

Me: As in the space-time continuum?

Doctor: People can’t be divided into happy people and depressed people. There are gradients. Some people only have the rare sad day, and some experience crippling depression. Most are a mix of both. Same with psychosis. I get a song stuck in my head, and you have a tiger stuck in your head. We’re not fundamentally different. You stay with us here a few days, and we’ll get you on a treatment plan that will alleviate your symptoms. Okay?

Me: I read antipsychotic drugs have side effects, like they shrink your brain.

Doctor: Every drug has potential side effects, Calvin. Patients may experience constipation, bed-wetting, drooling … decreased libido. But this is extremely rare.

Me: That’s extremely not comforting.

Hobbes was laughing.

Doctor: These medications are a great advancement in the treatment of certain psychoses.

Me: No meds. Hobbes isn’t that bad.

Hobbes: Not bad? I’m brilliant!

Me (to Hobbes): They want to medicate me.

Hobbes: That’s because they think I’m an auditory hallucination.

Me: You are.

Hobbes: I am not.

Me: Are so.

Hobbes: Am not.

Me: Are so are so are so …

I realized the doctor was leaving the room, and I was talking out loud to nobody.

And that’s why they want to put people on medication.

*   *   *

After I had breakfast I walked around the floor, which Dr. Filburn said I was allowed to do as long as I behaved myself. The people I saw didn’t seem sick, or at least any sicker than what I saw in high school every day. The nurses looked a bit suspicious, like undercover spies or something. They pretended not to look at me when I checked out the doors, but I knew they were keeping their eyes on me. All the doors had coded access keypads, and a notice to visitors said the code was changed every few days and to check with the nursing staff.

In the common area I saw a woman who lifted her mug slowly to her mouth, her hand shaking, pinkie finger extended, bringing it almost to her lips, then slowly, carefully, as if she were placing the last card on a house of cards, set it back down on the table. She looked sad, as if she couldn’t understand why she couldn’t drink her tea. Then she did it again. The fifth time, I walked away.

A guy about my age saw me and saluted.

Soldier guy: Sir!

His hand was stiff in a salute over his right eye.

Me: At ease, soldier.

His hand dropped to his side.

Soldier guy: Got ourselves captured, sir.

Me: We sure did.

Soldier guy: I don’t know how we can get away from them.

I was standing there looking at him, judging him, thinking this was my new peer group, when Hobbes spoke up.

Hobbes: You could slip out behind some visitors.

Me (to soldier guy): I don’t know how to get away either, corporal, but I’m working on it. I’ll let you know when I figure it out.

Soldier guy: Yes, sir. I’ll await your orders, sir.

Hobbes: Tell him to drop and give you twenty.

*   *   *

I found a computer in the public reading room. I went online and checked out a map and the weather forecast. I’d saved eight hundred dollars in my entire life, which would pay for about eight days of college. Instead I would do this really cool thing with it. Next I sent a letter to the editor of your local paper, Bill, The Plain Dealer in Cleveland, telling him about the amazing plan I’d come up with. As you may know, I also sent an e-mail to you in care of your publisher, Andrews McMeel Universal. I felt better once the plan was in motion.

Then the place got pretty busy with visitors, and Hobbes and I went back to my room.