The Last Three Letters

An obviously troubled man sat at a desk within his sterile white room, there were no windows and the only things in the room were a single cot, a wooden desk, a chair, and newspaper clippings that he was let have reluctantly. He sat hunched over the desk, crying to himself and smearing ink up his face as he wrote a damning letter that would never be read or received. He shook almost unnaturally, as if he were ready to burst.

Suddenly, he jumped up from his chair after sealing the letter and wiped everything clear from the desk in a rage. The dim lighting in the small room flickered and threatened to go out when he let out a piercing scream of insanity. “Make it stop! Make the pounding in my head stop!” he screamed loud enough to make your blood run cold.

Nurses flew down the hallway towards the commotion, knowing that they were going to have their hands full again today. He’d been asking about the woman he was expecting all day and had become increasingly impatient as the hours creeped by. He’d taken to rocking back and forth, talking to himself, writing letters. He did this often, but something about tonight was different. “I can’t breathe! Let the air reach my lungs! Give me one more day to please her, please! I have to get her back! I didn’t mean any of the things I said in my last letter! I love you!” he screamed, holding onto his head and ripping out handfulls of ratty, matted black hair.

As nurses fled in, grabbing his hands and trying to pin him down to the almost unsanitary cot. “I can’t feel my legs, I can’t feel my legs!” he screamed to the top of his lungs, gnashing his teeth and thrashing about. He tried yanking away from the nurses, but it was fruitless. He was far too weak by this point.

“Calm down, William, everything’s going to be okay, you’re just having another one of your fits, you’ll be okay,” one of the nurses said soothingly, trying to calm him down. It was useless, he was lost in his own mind and this time it seemed like there was no coming back.

His long, unkempt nails dug into one of the nurse's arms, scratching and leaving a harsh, angry red path in its wake. “She understands, right? Does she understand? I’m not coming back, I’m not coming back! Make sure she understands that I’m not coming back, please! I don’t know what happened, who would have thought that things would end like this? I’m not coming back!” he yelled, tears streaming down his face as he still struggled against the nurses.

Finally, he got one hand free from the woman who had been scratched, and he ripped one of the newspaper clippings down from the wall. It was a photograph of a young woman, beautiful and full of youth. Her blonde hair curled down around her face and down past her shoulders, laying perfectly. Her eyes were bright and full of purity, the intensity obvious even in the black and white photograph. She flashed a large smile, one that he knew was just for him, that showed all of her perfectly aligned teeth. Her entire being and heart was in that smile, it made her whole entire face light up and absolutely glow. She was an angel sent to earth.

As he looked at the picture, her features seemed to morph. Her eyes seemed to dim and tears spilled from them, her face losing the glow it once held. She looked heartbroken and miserable. Her smile had turned upside down into a deep frown of dismay and misery. He could hear her talking to him. “Why would you do this to me!” she seemed to say to him, her voice cracked from her tears and heartache.

“I didn’t mean to hurt her! Not like this, not like this! I can’t feel my legs, oh my god, I can’t feel my legs! Make it stop, make the pounding in my head stop!” he shrieked, throwing the picture to the ground as he finally gave into the fight of the nurses and a doctor rapidly approached.

They’d never had to sedate him like this, he’d never had a fit this extreme. He was drowning in his own mind. Drowning in a love that didn’t exist. She was an actress and had never been his, he’d stalked her before he had been placed in the asylum almost two years ago. He’d still collected every article and picture the newspaper had to offer of her.

Every letter he’d written to her they’d take up and promise they’d mail to her right away, but instead, they were kept bound together in a box with his name on it. They looked at them and read them for observation, and within these last three letters, they knew. He was so absorbed in a love that didn’t exist that it would lead to his demise.