A Hospital for Souls

“…bring people together themselves…oh yeah brilliant,” Abigail sarcastically spat to herself as she closed her book and chucked it to the wall across from her, “Three days and I feel the same. Three days in the mental hospital and I feel worse.” She sat in the fetal position on her bed, and stared out the window. Two weeks from today, and I’m still doing the same thing; guess who’s a liar. All day, she stared out the small window and imagined ways to fit so she could jump. I’m too fat too even kill myself.
As time passed, the sun died out and moon arose, and she listened to the stillness of the hospital. Abigail arose from her bed and opened her door. She crept up the stairs and found a door that didn’t have a number. She opened the door and found more stairs, she became tired as she climbed them but she continued, finally, it’ll be all over. In the small attic that the stairs lead to, there stood a giant window. She walked slowly towards the brilliant silver moon, and opened the window; the chilly night air caressed her face as she counted the stars over her head. One more step…
“HEY—HEY WHAT ARE YOU DOING UP THERE!” yelled a masculine voice below, she felt her stomach drop to her feet and her mouth went dry. She ran downstairs and to her room. Her heartbeat exhausted her, as she lay there in the darkness of her room exhaustion got the best of her.

“Abigail,” Marisol called softly as she brought her breakfast, “Abigail…”
She made a tired grunting noise, “Yes…”
“Abigail, you were in the attic last night…someone told me you were trying to—”
“I wasn’t.”
“I was told that the window was up. Abigail, you know this is not why you were brought here. You were brought here to get better, not to leave,” Marisol sat the tray of oatmeal, two bagels and orange juice on the dresser, “At two in the afternoon, I coming back and you are attending an intervention. I apologize for leaving you alone, Abigail.”
Abigail looked up at her, “You aren’t sorry. You’re just saying that because that’s the nice thing to do.”
“Abigail, yes I am, and I’m coming back to take you to an intervention,” she closed the door and left her in bed. Abigail tired eyes turned to the clock; it was ten in the morning. She scratched her short hair and struggled getting out of bed to eat breakfast, since she was so tired. She felt like a dead-man-walking as she teetered toward the breakfast tray. In actuality, the food looked delicious, but in her eyes it was just more weight to gain. I can’t eat this…I can’t...but I can’t leave it here and let it spoil. She’s couldn’t think of a way to get rid of it…but then. The window.
She opened the window and checked if anyone was outside, then she scrapped the oatmeal out the bowl, hurled the bagels, and poured out the orange juice. She smiled at her cleverness, and sat the tray back on her dresser and poured herself back in bed.

“Abigail…Abigail,” Marisol nudged her to awake, “Abigail, it’s time for intervention.” Abigail parted her tired eyes, she just wanted to sleep.
“I just want to sleep,” she groaned.
“You have to go to intervention first,” Marisol shook her, “No wait…shower first.”
Abigail could smell herself and immediately felt both embarrassed and disgusted. She moved the covers off herself and saw that the empty tray had been restocked with more food. Abi looked at Marisol.
“Abigail, you are clever; but you forget, people do work downstairs and they have windows. Shower please.” Abigail was beginning to see this as some sort of game with Marisol, and she could not decide whether she enjoyed this or not.
After Abigail’s shower, she did feel a little better, seeing that she was no longer covered in invisible dirt. Marisol’s position on the bed was empty; instead she was replaced with a small note that read: Once you dress, eat, and then come to room 5 on Level One.
Abigail pulled out one of her old, ugly sweaters Aunt Alice had bought for her from the Goodwill, and some dark jeans she wore every day. She put on socks but felt no need for shoes. The food on the tray was breakfast; she suspected Marisol had something to do with the choice of food.
The bagels had raisins in them, and the one thing that Abigail did love to eat was raisins. She picked one up, and bit into it. Woah. Before she knew it, the tray was empty and her mood was lightened.
Once she made it to the intervention, she couldn’t help but notice a wild looking, gaunt faced, considerably thin man staring at her from across the way. There were at least fifteen to twenty people in the intervention, and they all sat in a circle. The man had long dark hair that looks like it had not been brush, or taken care of to say the least, in weeks. She wasn’t sure whether to be intimidated or fascinated; she had a weird feeling that she recognized him from somewhere but she couldn’t put her finger on where or when.
The host of this mediation was a middle aged, tired-looking man with greying unruly hair and thick rimmed glasses; he was fairly thin for a middle aged man. He stood in the middle of the circle in a polo shirt, khakis, and black Chuck Taylor’s.
“Hello everyone!” he said with a little too much enthusiasm, “I’m Professor Stevenson, but call me Carl.” He was quiet and then flailed his arms as if telling an audience to clap louder.
“Hello Carl,” everyone murmured.
“Okay, today we have a new member of the group,” Carl looked at Abigail, “Ms. Johansson, please stand.”
“Please,” Abi mumbled as she spoke her heartbeat rising, “Call me Abigail.”
“Okay, Abigail, please tell us why you are in intervention.”
“I tried to jump out the window yesterday,” she stated bluntly.
Carl paused for a moment, looking for helpful words to put together. Abi saw, out the corner of her eyes, the wild looking man still gawking her. She stared back, trying to remember where she recognized this man from, maybe then she can figure out why he was ogling her so intensely
“Tsk tsk tsk…Abigail, how long have you been here…the hospital I mean?” Carl questioned, tearing her away from her thoughts.
“Ummm…I don’t know like three or four days maybe,” she answered nonchalantly.
“Why were you trying to kill yourself?”
“Carl,” Abigail began, “I wasn’t trying to “kill myself”, I was trying to get better.”
“I’m…I’m not sure I understand, Abigail.” I figured you wouldn’t…
“Well,” she sat, “My therapist—well, my aunt’s therapist—sent me here so I can get “better”. Well, Carl, I have heard that SO many times in the past twelve years I’ve been depressed; let me tell you something, THAT is the biggest, dirtiest lie I have EVER believed…and I’m so sick of being dicked over.”
One girl sitting next to her asked, “Twelve years?”
“Yes,” she turned to her, “since I was nine.”
“Wow…” the girl mumbled.
“Yeah, you could say I’ve been sad and alone for entire life. Sadness is all I know.”
Carl interrupted, “Why are you so sad, Abigail?”
Abigail thought about talking about it, then shook her head, “It doesn’t matter.”

For the remainder of the intervention, Abigail was silent; listening to the fourteen other people speaking of their problems. Broken families, abuse, bullying, and self-image: those were the components of the stories being told. They all consoled each other, and gave one another support, except Abigail whose mind was made up. She was determined to keep trying until she was gone.
“Joshua,” Carl blurted, “You haven’t gone yet.” He flailed his right arm for Joshua to stand up.
“You already know about me, everyone does,” there was a sense of sarcasm and laziness in his voice.
“Except Abigail,” Carl pointed out. So Joshua stood up and everyone else sat down, and once the room was completely silent, he spoke.
“Hi, I’m Joshua Oliver Parker, but would you please be so kind as to call me Oli,” he was looking directly at Abigail, “I’ve been diagnosed with Schizophrenia when I was twenty-one, but I’m pretty sure I had it when I was like eighteen. So I’ve been here for the past three years to, like Abigail mentioned, get better. And, in all honesty, I have gotten better.”
Abigail was taken aback, what?
Abigail’s heart rate sped up as she realized that her favorite author was in the same room with her.
“Hello Oli,” everyone else droned. No one else realized who he actually was.
“Abigail,” called Carl, “Abigail, are you okay?”
She opened her mouth but she couldn’t find her voice, she just vigorously shook her head. Everyone turned towards her asking each other “What’s wrong” “Oh my god” “Is she having a panic attack?”, and she shouted, “DON’T LOOK AT ME!”
Her breathes were short and uneven. Carl tried to calm her down, but the last thing she saw before she blacked out, was the horrified look on Oli’s face.

What was Abigail doing up roaming the halls at the crack of dawn? Well, for one thing, she could not sleep. She was not thinking about where she was going but she ended up at the same small door and climbed up the same tall stairs. The gigantic window before her painted a vivid picture of the six o’ clock horizon. She sat in front of it and stared at the endless pink and orange sky.
I hope Aunt Alice is okay…please please let her be okay.
She closed her eyes, “I know I haven’t shown much faith in You,” she prayed, “But if what I heard about You is true and You are there, then please let my aunt be okay.”
Once she opened her eyes, out the corner of her eye, there was the wild looking man she knew to be Oli.
“Oli—how the—why the—how’d you—what?” she stuttered.
“You care about your aunt a lot,” he casually pointed out.
“Umm…yeah…how’d you know I was here?” she asked.
“I didn’t—I come here every other day to watch the horizon. You kind of beat me here,” he chuckled.
“Yeah…I umm…I couldn’t sleep,” she said as if answering some unasked question.
“Worried about your aunt?”
“How’d you guess?” she asked sarcastically.
They both stared at the rising sun.
“Why are you so worried about your aunt?” he asked quietly.
“Don’t worry about it. It’s not your burden. Anyway,” she starts off, “I’m sorry that you had to witness my…episode yesterday.”
“What was that about? I mean, I don’t mean to sound insensitive but…”
“You’re the writer of Tiger’s Jaw aren’t you?” she asked.
“Yeah, sure am.”
“That’s like my favorite book. I hate to sound like such a fan, but I’ve read that book probably a thousand times,” she admitted, “I was just so…stoked to see you. Ya know there’s no picture on the book, I had no idea you were so…”
“Crazy looking?”
“Young,” her heart skipped a beat, “Nice looking.”

He smiled at her while she was staring at the sun rise.
“Abigail, would you like to have breakfast with me? I mean like not as a date but like we could talk about the book over breakfast…breakfast…” he hurried.
She scoffed and looked at him, “You don’t wanna have breakfast with me, man.”
“Umm…I just asked you to breakfast. I want to get to know you, you seem nice and real.”
“No, man, I’m pessimistic.”
“I can live with that. Just have breakfast with me,” he pushed.
“I mean, I guess it won’t kill me.”
“YES, let’s go!” he hopped up, dragged Abi down two flights of stairs, and to the cafeteria. Every table was empty, even the kitchen staff was just beginning to arrive.
“Oli, we’re the only people here,” she pointed out.
“Quite the observer,” he condescended. They sat at a smaller table near a window. Once they sat, Abigail began.
“Alright, so,” she began, “How did you even find an idea for a story like that?”
“Well…a lot of it is kind of based of off my life…oh God that sounds so conceited,” he slammed his head down.
“Can you elaborate on that?”
He sighed, “I umm…I wrote the book when I was twenty-one; that was the year I was diagnosed with Schizophrenia.”
“Wow, a Schizophrenic book from a Schizophrenic writer,” she mumbled.
“Yeah…”
“How…did you get Schizophrenia? I mean…you don’t have to answer that,” she stuttered.
“No, no, it’s cool, I actually want to tell this to someone,” he smiled and inhaled, “I can’t really explain it…two personalities; it probably resulted from my older brother, Christopher. Chris was…moderately a good guy. Athletic, good grades, he’d have a new girl every week, a good Christian boy… and everyone knew me as Chris’s emo kid-brother; a Satan spawn or some crap. No one knew about his temper…well except me of course. He’d just get so angry; it was ridiculous. Like, he’d go from this jolly cuddly teddy bear to a horrifically furious tiger in point five seconds. Whenever he had a bad day, he’d find some way to blame me for it, and a good punch in the ribs would be good for him.
“Note: he was an athlete and older, so he was taller and stronger; if I ran, he’d catch me faster than a crack-addict would hesitate to take drugs. He’d get even worse if I say anything that doesn’t stroke his ego; I wasn’t even his brother anymore, he’d beat me like I was some guy on the street that just slept with his girlfriend…which I never did.”
“Your parents, what’d your parents—they didn’t do anything,” she frowned as more people began to fill the cafeteria.
“Oh, I forgot to mention, I was adopted so there was a whole Harry Potter vs. the Dursleys thing going on. Yep…anyway, one day, I think it was a Thursday; we were walking home from school. We crossed the street, well I did, and he stopped to tie his shoe,” Oli shook his head, “Bad idea. I told him, “Chris why would you do that. Get out the street” the last words he said to me was “What do you know, you stupid crap bag.””
“Crap bag?” she chuckled.
“Yeah, he was never good with insults. He never had to be. Well, there was a bus coming, and I knew that if yelled out “THERE’S A BUS COMING” he would’ve been smart enough to move…but I didn’t. And now, he’s physically gone, but his spirit still resides in me; now he makes me abuse myself. But I deal with it, because I actually deserve it.”
Abigail calmly shook her head, “No you don’t, Oli.”
“Abi, I watched my brother die, and I was happy. I was relieved. I didn’t go to his funeral because hearing people glorify him…just the thought makes me sick. But he was my family, I should’ve done something.”
“No, he deserved it, because from what I just got out of what you just told me, Chris was the spawn of Satan. You saw him as a brother, he saw you as a therapeutic punching bag. He deserved it.”
“You believe he deserved to die is that right?”
Abi nodded, “Apparently you do too. Why else would you let the bus hit him?”
Oli took in what Abigail pointed out and came to two conclusions: a) She was right that it was scary; b) He loved talking to her. After a moment, they were silent; Abigail sat watching some people come and leave with their breakfast in hand, and some people staying; Oli was ogling her. Every part of her was beautiful to him, and all he wanted to do was make her smile.
“What food makes you happy?” he interrogated.
“Raisins.”
“Raisins? Alright,” he uttered as he stood up and headed to the kitchen.
“Where are you going?” she questioned.
“To get a bowl of raisins.”