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.