Carol arrived home and found her daughter Susan sitting in front of the computer. The girl's legs were on top of the monitor. On her lap, a huge bag of fries which she ate with her left hand while the right calmly played a game with the mouse.

She noticed her mother standing at her door. Without looking up from the computer, she said, "hi mom!" to which Carol replied, a tone of worry and slight anger in her voice: "Just what is this supposed to mean?"

At this, Susan looked up.

"What?"

"The way you're sitting."

"Since when is the way we sit supposed to mean anything?" She started regarding her mother's worry as a bad day at work, and resumed playing her computer game.

Throwing her bags on the floor about her, Carol said now, in a completely angry voice. "That does it, you're going back to the mental institution."

Susan smiled. She really had been feeling a little crazy the past few days, or all her life. "You can well send me to a mental institution, mom, but you can't say you're taking me back there, because I've never been to one."

Carol picked clothes for Susan to put on, as she continued eating the fries and staring at the screen.

*********************************************

Susan listened behind the doors. She was now dressed in hospital clothes. She thought she might enjoy it here. The other crazies she had met so far were pretty much like herself. They were not the kind to believe themselves to be monkeys and jump around naked.

They were the kind to show her around to where her mother would now be talking to the head doctor and where she could listen without anyone noticing.

"She has even forgotten about being here."

"That is very good. That is progress there."

The extreme calm and permanent smile of the woman made Carol somewhat uneasy.

"What? No, that cannot be. How... but... you make them forget?"

"No, Mrs. Green. We do not make them do anything. It is just part of the treatment. As they make progress, they gradually forget by themselves. It's part of the reason why the treatment can't be completed here, but has to keep its final stages at home, at a more natural atmosphere."

"But why? Why does the treatment do this, I don't understand, and, why didn't you tell me before?"

"Well we thought you, as most parents, would not be as interested in the details of how the treatment works as you would in what good it could do to your daughter. As to why this happens, it is a good way to tell when they're getting better, given that their illness is much more subtle than most mental illnesses. Also that our goal here is to give them back to you as people who can now lead fairly normal lives, not as former mental patients. It is better for their future that they just forget. Now, let's talk about what has been happening to her since she last left here. Has she been studying?"

"Why, yes she has." Carol spoke proudly now, the fear gone from her. "She finished high school, with a very good performance I should say, even for someone... normal" she hesitated saying that word in opposition to her daughter, but it was the truth after all "and she just started college two months ago, I think she's doing pretty well there too, she's made new friends and..."

As Carol spoke the constant smile on the woman's face faded, and though it made Carol feel more comfortable, she wondered why. She quickly explained.

"But they are not supposed to study."

"What? Oh, I'm sorry, it's just that, it's so hard to tell when they're completely cured, you know, and she seemed so well and she's so smart and concentrated, that I thought it was already time for that, and she has been doing pretty well, I tell you..."

"No, Mrs. Green, I don't think you understand. They're not supposed to go back to studying. Ever." Carol's face grew pale and the doctor continued to talk "It is a treatment for mental disease, and so it can't help but dealing with their minds. You understand that. Unfortunately as a side effect, it makes it so that they are unable to study "

"But she has been doing so well."

"I don't mean unable as in dumb, I mean that doing so might jeopardize everything we have already worked for. Surely you do not want to see her go back to the way she was before you found us."

"No... I don't..."

*********************************************

Listening behind the door, Susan didn't remember much of being here or this treatment. But she remembered some random scenes she always wondered what they meant, and she remembered something very specifically.

Her mother had not found this doctor. The doctor had found them.