Day 8

My psychiatrist today asked me about my friends. I told her I didn't have any.
"None at all?" She asked.
"Not a single one."
"What about when you were little?"
"None of the other kids liked to play with me."
She wrote tons of notes down on her little sketch pad, or whatever it is they use to write notes on.
"Sometimes," I said, "when I was little, I used to draw friends in the dirt and talk to them. They were the only ones who would listen to me."
"Really? And what about your parents?"
I choked up a bit at that point. "They...they didn't get along very well. Mommy used to...well, Daddy didn't like it when Mommy went out. Said she was dressed like a slut. Mommy used to shout at Daddy. Before she left." I covered my face before continuing. "I never saw her again."
"Mmhmm." More furious notes.
I had lots of friends when I was a kid, of course. I still do--leastwise, as many as you would expect a "crazy" woman would. I am pretty, and popular. My parents both died in a car crash when I was sixteen. They were happily married.
It is so much fun to play with her mind.

Day 7

"I was once like you," he said. "An outcast, laughed at by everyone around me for my absurd ideas. I wasn't just like you, of course--no one locked me away or anything--but people did think I was a little strange. Strange because I believed something nobody else did, just like you."
"What's that?" I asked him.
"That you could see me."
"Why would they think I couldn't see you?" I didn't bother asking who they were--I assumed he meant the uniform "they" by which we all mean other people, people we don't like or don't know, people we can say mean things about without feeling the pangs of a guilty conscience.
"Well, because you shouldn't be able to. Because we don't exist--leastwise not in the sense that you us the word."
"And how do we use it?"
"You use it to mean things you can see."
"Wait...what?"
"Have you ever tried describing me to anyone?"
I opened my mouth and shut it, because I didn't really know what to say. Instead I just started pacing around the room, eyes locked on him. I could definitely see him. I closed my eyes and tried to imagine what he looked like, but I found I couldn't. I opened my eyes and looked at him again. There he was, plain as day, sitting in the middle of the floor. But for the life of me, even now, as I'm writing this, I can't recall what he looked like. I wonder if I could have even written down what I'd seen while I was looking at him.
"That's weird," I said.
"Indeed. That's also why so many of my brothers laughed when I told them you could see me. They said there was no way a human could see something that wasn't there."
"But you are here. I mean, you are here, right?" I sat down on the floor in front of him and reached out my hand to touch his...face? I don't know.
He stood up and walked away before I could touch him. "By here do you mean occupying this space? And by space do you mean a series of connected three dimensional points in height, width, and depth? If so, then no, I'm not here."
"What do you mean?" I asked, standing up and hugging my sides. It was starting to feel a bit colder in my room.
"My brothers have wondered for many years why it was your kind never interacted with us, why it was that you always passed through us as if we didn't exist. It wasn't until recently--well, a long time ago, I guess, by the way you count--that we discovered the reason you don't interact with us is that none of you can see us. And by see I mean see, taste, touch and smell and the like. Sense I suppose would be a better word, but I like see. Anyway, you only see in four dimensions--height, width, depth, as I mentioned before, and time. Of course you only see time as we do, as one single point. I don't know of anyone who can see time as more than such, or even see a different part of time than the one everyone sees. But if he did, then I suppose he would interact with that point in time, rather than the one we see, and by the time we saw it it would appear as if he saw the same point we see. So who's to say we don't all see different points?"
"What?"
"Sorry, I can see I'm beginning to ramble. My brothers have always called me a bit of a philosopher--though I think that's just something someone can call a thinker if they don't want to have to worry about what the thinker thinks. Anyway, my point was...what was my point? What were we talking about?"
"Humans seeing in only four dimensions."
"Ah, yes, that's right. Anyway, as I was saying it's been recently discovered that you humans only see in four dimensions--not eight like we do--and since my brothers and I only live in one of those dimensions, you can't see us."
"I'm assuming the one dimension you live in is time, right?"
"Of course. Everyone lives in that dimension. You humans and all of your 'universe,' the Sssyruuk and their pets, the Bhakti, the...well, you get the idea. The point is that you humans are incredibly special because as far as we know, you're the only creatures that live in all eight dimensions but can only see in four."
"So you live in other dimensions as well?" It was at this point that I walked over to my bedroom door and peered out the window they put on it so they can watch me like a lab rat. I stopped believing what he was telling me as soon as he started talking about dimensions.
"Just one other dimension," he said, looking out the window. I think. I mean, I didn't see his eyes, of course, but I think he was looking--sensing--out the window. "We share with you the dimension that you call 'spirit'."
I rolled my eyes. "Oh, and now I guess you're going to tell me that all the crazy people here can see into different dimensions, and that's why they're acting so weird."
He laughed. "Of course not. They're acting weird because they're crazy."
Well, at least we agreed on one thing.

Day 6

Have you ever gotten so lonely that you start imagining that you're talking to someone else inside your head? You go through an entire conversation, imagine what you'd say to this person or that person, imagine their responses, defend what you say vehemently, or consider their points and change your mind. I do that so much I'm beginning to wonder if I know how to simply think to myself. All of my thoughts are directed toward someone else. But who? Well, you, obviously. You, the person I'm talking to right now. In my head. So...me? Hell, I don't know what I'm thinking anymore! These people lock me up and tell me I'm crazy so often I'm beginning to believe them. No, not really. I just think that...everyone else is? No, not really, but that they're just a little...off. Or I'm just a little off. Or special. Maybe I simply see things others can't. But if I'm the only one who sees them, how do I know they're really there? What's the difference between that and crazy?
I wish people would talk to me. Well, no, not just talk. There's plenty here who want to talk--tell me that I'm crazy, or worse, tell me their crazy stories. I think that's what's really bothering me. Everyone here that's not crazy is convinced I am. I'm stuck, branded into this this ragtag group of sorry mindless apes. How can anyone stay sane when the only sane people around are convinced that you're crazy?
Of course...he...talks to me. He has since that day in the bathroom. Talks to me all the time. Whenever I'm alone in the room. Tells me all sorts of stories about his people, the ones forced to walk in the shadows. Tells me how every second of their lives is filled with pain like we humans can never know. Says it's like the last minutes of someone dying of cancer, only all the time. That's how they live.
I asked him how he knew that's what it was like at all, seeing as he has never been a human dying of cancer. He just laughed at me and said, "Katie, maybe when you've experienced true suffering, you'll understand."
I told him my name was Sandra. He laughed and said he was going to call me Katie, anyway, because it fit my looks better. He said with a name like Sandra I should've been a little thicker and a redhead, or at least strawberry blonde. I told him I'm only thin because the hospital food is terrible, and I only eat to keep from being hungry.
"See," he said. "Now you're talking more like a Susan. Which is how I know you're lying. Cause you're a Katie."
He was right, of course. I've always been careful about my weight, always watching how many calories I take in a day, making sure to exercise at least three times a week. But how would he know? Unless he's been following me since...
No, he hasn't. He's just good at reading people. Especially ones he watches all day long.
And he likes messing with my head. Which makes him the same as the doctors, as far as I'm concerned.

Day 5

Today we had broccoli onion casserole for dinner. It was terrible.

Day 4

I finally started talking to the other "patients" today. At lunch, a stocky, cross-eyed man--Damion, I found out later--asked me what I was in for. What I was in for, like, it was a prison or something that we're in. I guess it might as well be.
I told Damion about what I saw. What I see. How I won't pretend like everyone else that I don't see them. That I don't have this fear ripping up my insides every time I'm alone.
"Oh, I see them too," Damion said. "Little short munchkin-looking things, right?" He took a satisfied bite out of his fry and I smiled, pretending I knew exactly what he was talking about.
"You know I met their leader once?" He smiled and sipped his water. "It's Michael. You know, Michael Jackson. The black one, too. Not this pasty pretender that took over once old Mike decided to sacrifice his music career for the greater good of all mankind."
I just smiled and nodded. Damion is crazy.

Day 3
I saw him again.
I had hoped, had really hoped, that the psychiatrist was right, that it was all an illusion.
But once the rain disappeared, once my security was shattered, I knew, beyond a doubt, that I wasn't crazy.
He came in the morning. It was so bright and cheery in my room. The sun was shining through my window, and the last few drops of water that had clung onto the glass refracted the light into brilliant displays of red and blue and gold on my walls. The light even reached into into the far end of my room, past the doorway leading to my bathroom, and bounced off the normally dull tiles in such a way that it filled the room in a way I had never seen it. I was so happy I could feel my toes curling up in satisfied bliss. And then I saw him. Out of the corner of my eye. Peering at me from behind the shower curtain.
I tried to pretend I was seeing things. Yes, I confess, for a minute I was just like them. Seeing but pretending not to see. I almost convinced myself that it was just a shadow. I wanted so bad to not be crazy, to be just like everyone else, that I rationalized it as simply a trick of the light. water floating inside my eyeball that made me see something that wasn't there.
And then he laughed. The bastard laughed at me.
"Do you sell your soul for such a price?" he said. He spoke. God, I didn't know they could talk. "Come here, I'll give you so much more if that's what you wish to do."
So I screamed. What else could I do? An orderly sauntered into the room and told me to calm down, that I was having a hallucination. She patted me on the hand and told me everything was going to be okay, that she was going to take me to see the doctor, and she would make me all better.
Of course he laughed when he heard that. But at least he disappeared when the orderly turned around to see what had made that strange noise. She mumbled something under her breath--I can only assume it was about what she thought was my crazy neighbor--and then took me to see my "doctor".
It was a scheduled appointment. They don't take us specially whenever we "freak out". Otherwise they'd need at least a dozen psychiatrists.

Day 2

It rained today. I like the rain. The rain is the only thing that keeps them away. I sat at my window for hours today, just watching those little drops of water pitter-patter onto the ground. I smiled and pressed my hand against the window, pretending I was out there, that the rain drops were falling on my skin instead of the pavement of the basketball court my window overlooks.
My psychiatrist thinks that I have some sort of chemical disorder with my brain. She told me it was sort of like a car trying to run with water in the oil pan. Everything in the engine gets ground to bits. I don't think that's happening to me. I don't ever get headaches...
Why is it that people never believe you when you tell them something strange is going on? Are people incapable of seeing truth? Or is it that they just don't want to? Not when it means they have to do something, I guess.
Maybe she was right, though. Maybe this is all an illusion. Could it be that the rain doesn't really drive them away, it just gives me the peace I need to fight off my hallucinations? Why would I be the only one able to see them, anyway?
I guess doubt will always gnaw at my heart on these rainy days, when I don't see them. Good. At least I'll have a few opportunities to pretend I'm somewhat normal.

Day 1

They call me crazy. Insane. If by insane they mean that I see things that aren’t there, or even things they don’t see, then they’re wrong. The only difference between me and them is I don’t ignore what I see.
That shadow that moved when it shouldn’t have? I saw that.
That car moving along in the dark that looked like something else, if only for a brief second? I saw that, too.
I’m locked away simply because I won’t ignore what I see, I won’t pretend it didn’t happen, pretend I was imagining things.
I’m locked away because when I see those things, I don’t look away.
And that’s how I know.
They are coming.