Although it’s not yet time for lunch, Josh and Andrea, along with a smattering of the others who blew off Activities or walked out in the middle of Group Therapy, are in the dining room. They, the others, are focused on Bunny, searching for signs of well-being, for signs of life as they once knew it. Despite prior evidence to the contrary, these people cling to the hope of immediate and dramatic results, like those promised in the before and after photos for a miracle diet. Irrational expectations are not limited to mental patients.
Bunny looks like crap.
At the same moment that she takes a seat at the table, Josh, like a partner on a seesaw, stands up.
From the kitchen cabinet he retrieves the two single-serving containers of orange juice that he’d secreted away after breakfast and stashed behind the jar of Coffee-Mate. He knew that Bunny would be thirsty.
Josh apologizes because the juice isn’t cold.
The glop of the electrode paste, like drying paint, is tacky to the touch and it clumps and dulls Bunny’s hair. Her eyes are wept-puffy and pink, and there’s a rank smell about her. Bunny doesn’t care if the orange juice is cold or not. In two long gulps, she drinks all of it, which really isn’t much. Those individual-size servings are individual-size for children. Rather than quench thirst, they tease it.
Josh asks if she wants a glass of water, and when he goes off to get it for her, Andrea says, “You know, you’ve got more than a half hour before lunch. Maybe you want to take a shower. Wash your hair.” She does not add, “It’ll make you feel better,” because they both know it won’t make her feel better. Bunny downs the glass of water that Josh has brought back for her. Then, she goes to her room.
In the bathroom, she grips the sink with both hands to hold herself steady, and she catches sight of her reflection in the aluminum rectangle fixed to the wall. The reflection that aluminum casts is hazy and inarticulate. “Inarticulate,” Bunny says. Out loud, as if speaking to the image in the aluminum mirror, she says, “I am inarticulate.”
To be inarticulate is to be incapable of giving effective expression to thoughts and feelings. To be inarticulate is to be incapable of pointing to where it hurts.
Bunny turns away and peels the slipper-socks from her feet. Her paper pajamas are dank from sweat and fear. She takes them off and drops them in the trash can. Then, she steps into the shower. The water is cool, but tolerable. Bunny arches her neck and lets the spray wash over her face the same as if she were looking into the rain, and again she reminds herself, This is not a true story.
This is fiction.