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BUT INSIDE I'M SCREAMING |
| Excerpt |
The next morning it is impossible
for Isabel to pull herself out of bed. She lies on top of the covers
and stares at the acoustic tiled ceiling, focusing on the mess of
holes punched in each square.
Someone has the mind-numbing job of running
a machine that pokes the holes into each of those perfectly measured
squares. How can they live with themselves?
A knock on the door breaks the embryonic
whoosh of her sound machine. "Yes?"
"Isabel, you've got to take your meds,"
the nameless nurse pokes her head in the door.
"Okay, okay," she sighs, not
moving from her bed, "I'll be there in a minute."
Here we are, scurrying around like ants: 'you
have to take your meds, Isabel,' 'line up, kids,' 'it's time to
file your income tax returns,' 'would you like this for here or
to go?' Each person has their little job and they do it, then they
go home, then they eat, then they sleep and then they get up and
do it all over again the next day. What's the point. We're all just
filling up space. Why do people want to reproduce? So they can bring
more children into this already overpopulated world so they can
fill up space with some meaningless job and then go home and do
it all over again the next day? Like those ceiling tiles.
The knock comes again. "Isabel?"
it's the nurse again and this time she looks annoyed when she sees
that Isabel hasn't moved. "You have to come get your meds,
Isabel. After that you can get back in bed for a little while if
you want but you have to come take your medicine," she says
emphatically.
I wonder what she thinks of her job. What does
she do when she leaves here? Does she talk about all of us to her
husband?
Isabel hauls herself out of bed and puts
shorts on over her boxers.
"Okay, okay," she says to no
one in particular as she heads down the hall to the medicine distribution
window. After swallowing the controlled substances that will beat
back nature until the next dispensation (all have foreboding names
packed with too many late alphabet consonants -- Serzone, Zyprexa,
Trazedone) she shuffles back to her room and crawls back into bed,
this time assuming the fetal position.
Doesn't anybody else see how meaningless this
is? How we are all consumed with our chores, which are ultimately
useless because with the swipe of a broom we can all be swept away
into the abyss. Here I am in a mental institution, trying to get
better so that I can go back into the world and rush from job to
job, killing time until I die of something other than suicide. I
take medicine to help me deal with the nothingness of my life. Millions
of us have to take pills to distract us from the sheer boredom of
it all. We hurry from thing to thing like ants when we're all going
to end up suffocating anyway.
"Isabel," the voice on the other
side of the door sounds like Kristen's. "We're getting ready
for the morning meeting. You coming?"
Isabel looks at her watch. An hour has
passed.
"I'll be right there."
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