The White Room

by Jazmin Scarberry Second Place Prose

Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure. Life does not care where people came from or who their parents were. It deals them a random hand of cards and that is what they get. Apparently, life had little sympathy for me and dealt me a shitty hand. I had a different sense about myself when I was younger, probably much more logical. No one thought that I would end up here, in a place like this, or maybe they did and failed to warn me. The room around me lacks color, almost justifying the empty feeling that hit me as soon as I stepped foot in there. I hear random screams throughout all hours of the day, all various tones coming from a voice to terrorize its company. I know women tend to be a bit on the crazy side, or at least the ones in my family are, but being here and seeing the insanity is something I never imagined.

I sit in a circle surrounded by people who are “just like me” according to my piece-of-shit husband. He never understood my mind or how it could become such a dark place in very little time. I hear my thoughts; they speak to me as clear as day. They never mutter or stutter. My thoughts tell me as it is and point me where to go. But this is not the case for most people, whose minds failed to reach their fullest potential. The minds of the people around me are various sorts of strange, much less advanced than my own. The woman directly to my right cut her hair down to one of the choppiest hairdos I have ever seen. I know that she cut her own hair because she was one of the first people I encountered here. While the nurses were checking me in and telling me no one was coming after me, she had somehow gotten a hold of scissors, chopped up her hair, and was running down the hall in my general direction. I did not even need the voices in my head to know what to do at that moment; I reared back my arm, punched a nurse in the nose with my fist, and took off running in the opposite direction.

The nurses were bewildered, standing there as though frozen in time. I used their fright as my attempt to get out of this hell hole; however, I failed miserably by turning the next corner in the long bright hall and smacking into a guard who was at least two times the size of my own body. The guard grabbed me by the back of my newly assigned residential robes and guided me to what I came to know as solitary. I sat in that freezing cold white room for the next 18 hours.

When my time in the white room was up, a nurse came to me with a cup of pills and clean clothes and then asked me questions about my childhood. This was by far one of the fishiest nurses at this place. She must be in on something much bigger than her coworkers. Every day she brings me pills and asks me about my day or who I would like to hurt. Many people here, nurses and residents, claim the small colorful pills are beneficial. They say the medicines are intended to calm my mind and ease the neverending stream of thoughts running through my head. But I know they are wrong about the purpose of these tiny beans; instead, their intentions are foul. The ones feeding them to me are searching for what makes my brain so different, so much better. The voices in my head keep me on my toes, making sure I do not share too much.

In the circle of familiar strangers, a nurse guides the conversation toward regrets. Regret is an emotion I do not empathize with. I do what my thoughts tell me; the voices in my head fill my desires, drowning any whispers of regret that try to slip through the gaps between the voices. Learning to disregard the cares of others has gotten me this far in life, so why should I worry now? I never share my deepest, darkest desires, unless told to act on them. I hear the room go quiet. Everyone is looking at me with questioning eyes. Do something, the voices tell me.