SOMEWHERE IN THIS MAD WORLD
I open my eyes to an endless darkness. A blinding kind of darkness I haven't experienced before. Many times have I slept in pitch black in my cell in the asylum. This present darkness is different. It seems as if it has a soul, a substance. It feels too close and invasive to my privacy. It's as if I am wrapped between its octopus arms. A claustrophobic kind of darkness.
No explanation comes to my semi-numb mind right now.
Where am I?
My body is numb enough to chain me in temporary paralysis. Each of my limbs is heavy enough that I don't bother lifting any.
Somehow, I am sure this will subside.
A slow train of memories arrives. It's slow but noisy and heavy, like a locomotive breath.
The Pillar sedated me, and all the kicks and screams in the world are of no use—for now. I will have to face wherever I am.
Shouldn't I wake up in the morgue and inspect the heads of the deceased kids?
As the heaviness in my body subsides, I reach for anything I can get hold of in the dark. The tips of my fingers collide with some kind of plastic. It's wavy. I can't see it. My mind finally registers a fact: I am stretched on my back.
A surge of panic alerts my weakened body. It's so threatening that my numbness subsides. I start to kick my hands and feet in the dark as unreasonable claustrophobia overrules me. The plastic darkness opposes me in every direction as if I am imprisoned in an elastic balloon.
I keep kicking and scraping against the surface of this darkness. I need to get out of it before I choke or die from the lack of breathing, but I can't cut through without a sharp tool.
Panic captures me. Until my fingers come across a metallic thing attached to the plastic.
A zipper.
The thought that hits my brain almost puts me back in paralysis. I think I know where I am.
Thin rays of yellow light seep through the plastic bag I am trapped in as I pull the zipper down. I reach out with my hands like the dead out of their graves. Finally, I wriggle myself out of the black plastic bag. I feel like a dying cocoon evolving into a butterfly—it reminds momentarily of the deceptive Pillar.
I straighten up on the table I am on—it feels like a table more than a bed—and I realize for certain where I am.
I'm actually in the morgue. I was tucked in one of those plastic bags the deceased end up in. A body bag. This is what the Pillar meant by a maximum-security morgue that's hard to sneak into. The madman tucked me in a death bag and slipped me in among the dead.
Paralyzed on the table, I can't even comprehend my surroundings yet. I do notice the chilling temperature of the room, though.
"Breathe, Alice. Breathe," I whisper as I hug myself since I am all I have on this side of life. And I thought my cell was the worst place in the world.
The cold creeps up my spine, fluttering like a winter breeze through my blue shirt and jeans. The cold almost bites at the back of my neck. Goosebumps prickle like devil's grass on my skin.
When I am about to move my legs to get off the roller bed I am on, my bare feet give in to numbness. I have no idea where my shoes are. I fight the stiffness in my back and bend over to rub my feet. As I do, I glimpse a rectangular piece of cardboard attached to a string wrapped around my right toe. I think it's called a toe tag. It's how a coroner or mortician identifies a dead person in the morgue. My heart almost stops. Why am I wearing this? I reach out to flip the toe tag, so I can read it:
Name: Alice Pleasant Wonder.
Numbness invades my very soul.
Case: 141898
Then it mentions my hair, skin, and eye color. And finally it says:
Condition: Deceased in a bus accident.
The world around me freezes. It's like someone has a remote control for my beating heart and just clicked the off button. My mouth is dry, my skin is cold and numb, and I can't breathe. Why not? I am dead, after all.
And I thought I was mad.
I snatch the toe tag from its string and pull it close to my moist eyes. My mind advises me to blink and read it all over again. Nothing changes. I am still in the mortuary, reading my own obituary.
How can I be dead? The Pillar wouldn't go so far to scare me. Why would he do that, unless I was imagining all of this? How did I die?
The answer hits me like a freight train when I flip the card. Someone has written something on the back:
P.S. She was driving the bus.
My hands cup my mouth, suppressing a painful scream. It's only for a few seconds before I realize how much I need to free the scream inside me. When I finally do, in my loudest screeching voice, no sound comes out. I think I have lost my ability to speak. Why not? I am dead anyways.