A Cry for Darkness

The clock is ticking on the wall and there's a little girl with black braids sitting across from me. She's chewing gum, and every now and again a big pink bubble comes out of her mouth. Her mother keeps telling her to stop or she'll get it in her braids. The little girl isn't listening, though. She's having too much fun staring at the wall and chewing on her gum.

I don't remember how I got here, or even where "here" is. I just remember getting up this morning, and then everything is a blank. I think I'm in the doctor's office. I'm not sure for what kind of doctor. There are outdated magazines sitting on a little coffee table, their once glossy colours now faded and dusty. There's a woman sitting at a desk and she's constantly talking on the phone. She must be the receptionist. Very stereotypical woman, if you ask me. She's got the long red nails and everything. And she just keeps talking. I wish she would shut up. I don't even think she's talking to anyone important. She's just yammering on and on. I want desperately to shut her up.

She's staring at me. She's hanging up the phone. Thank god, she's going to shut up now. She's still staring at me, but she calls a name that isn't mine and the little girl with the black braids stands and walks over to a door on the other side of the room. I hadn't notice that door before. It looks like a normal door, at first, but there's a sign on it that says "Dr. Julia Dawson, Ph.D.". I'm not entirely sure what "Ph.D." means, but I know that it has something to do with doctors. So that cannot be the way to get out of this place. There must be another door. I glance around me, and notice that the receptionist is still staring at me. I glower at her, but she is still staring. I stand, and she quickly goes back to whatever it is she does when she is not talking on the phone.

I don't recognize this place at all and I just want to get out of here. But I still can't find the door. There's only one that I can see, but that door leads to Dr. Julia Dawson, a doctor, and I don't see doctors anymore. I walk the perimeter of the room, running my hands along the wallpaper that has been yellowed with age. Surely a door must be behind here somewhere. I'm walking slowly, feeling every bump in the wall, praying I will find a door soon. I can feel the receptionist staring at me. I wish she wouldn't. It makes me nervous. But for now I ignore her, and continue searching for a door. My hands eventually come to a break, and I feel soft wood under my fingertips. My heart fills with joy and I look up, but I haven't found the way out. It is the same door that was here before. It is Dr. Julia Dawson's door. My head drops and I sigh.

"Excuse me, miss, are you alright?"

I jump and spin around. The receptionist is staring at me again. She's holding a compact in one hand, and her other hand is routinely smoothing out the bumps in her auburn hair. She looks expectant. She actually wants me to answer her. She thinks I'm crazy. I can see it in the way she is looking at me; half afraid I am going to kill someone and half filled with pity. I am not crazy. I will show her I am not crazy. I smile sweetly and nod, sitting down in a chair that was made to contort your back. The receptionist goes back to her compact, fixing her hair in places it doesn't need to be fixed.

I still have to get out of here. But looking for a door won't work, because then the receptionist will stare at me and think I am crazy. I am not crazy. I have to think. I have to clear my head. The room is too quiet. The clock on the wall keeps ticking, and the sound is burrowing its way into my mind. And now the receptionist is talking on the phone again, talking and talking but I can't make out her words. Is she speaking in another language? She wasn't before. Perhaps she is doing it to confuse me, to make me think that I am crazy when I know that I am not. So what if I can't remember how I got here? I am not crazy.

Dr. Julia Dawson's door opens, and the little girl with black braids runs out and into the arms of her mother. They are going to leave now, aren't they? Yes, they are going to leave. The mother picks up her bag, and she is standing. She is going to show me the way out. But now the little girl's mother has stopped and is kneeling by her daughter. There is gum in her daughter's hair. The woman is scolding and the child is crying because she lost her gum. Why won't they just leave? This isn't the place to deal with these sorts of things.

The clock is still ticking. Seconds, and then minutes, are falling away from me and I desperately want to retrieve them. I don't know how much time goes by. It feels like an eternity. But finally the woman stands and takes the child by the hand and they head towards me. Yes, they are going to show me how to get out of this place. Perhaps then I will remember what has happened. Perhaps then I will be able to get home.

I see where they are going, now. There is a door in a corner that I had missed. I stand and prepare to follow them, but a woman calls out my name. I turn slowly. I think it is the receptionist calling me back, but it isn't. Standing in Dr. Julia Dawson's doorway is a slim woman with her hair pulled back in a tight bun and she is motioning for me to come forward. I do not know her, and I don't understand how she knows my name.

"Ophelia, could you come here?" she asks politely, as though I have a choice in the matter. Perhaps I do have a choice. Perhaps she is telling me that I can leave if I want to. I once again face the door that leads to freedom and take two or three steps, when I feel a hand on my shoulder. "Ophelia." I turn, and this woman with the bun pulled too tightly is standing behind me. She wears no look on her face. Her skin is very pale. "Ophelia, I need you to come with me."

"Ophie," I tell her, "My name is Ophie." I still don't know who she is, but I am following her through the door that says "Dr. Julia Dawson, Ph.D." I don't want to go behind this door. I don't know what is there, but I know that it is not freedom. I stop before I reach the threshold, and this woman is turning around, taking my hand and leading me through. I close my eyes as I walk through. I can't see the room. It isn't freedom, so it can't be good. But here is this woman again, coaxing me to open my eyes. She is asking me what I am doing. She must think I am crazy, too. I can't let her think that I am crazy; I open my eyes.

The room is very plain. The carpet that is lying over the hardwood floor is red with no particular pattern, unless you count the random stains. There is a large desk in the middle of the room, brown like most wood desks are, and on it sits a computer, a telephone, a few books and one framed picture. There are no shelves lining the walls, nor are there any paintings. It is possibly the most confining and morbid room in which I have ever been and I close my eyes again to block out the uniformity. But the woman is touching my shoulder again, and I don't want her to think I am crazy, so I open my eyes.

"Why don't you sit down, Ophie?" She points to a chair behind me, and I sit quietly, hooking my legs around the front legs of the chair. She sits at the desk, taking out a pen and a piece of paper. She shuffles papers and organizes the desk for a few moments, but I know that she is just pretending to be busy. Finally she stares at me. There is no ticking clock to annoy me, but now there is only silence, and I long for the interruption of the constant tick-tick-tick. "Do you know where you are?" she asks.

"Of course I do." I say. I won't let her think that I am crazy. Crazy people never know where they are, so I will say that I do, even though I don't.

She nods slowly, as though she isn't sure whether or not to believe me. "Do you know why you're here?"

"Yes."

"So can you tell me what happened?"

She is staring at me so intently and I don't know what to say. Does she think I'm crazy? She can't think I'm crazy. I've done nothing yet that bears the markings of crazy. But she has asked me what happened and I don't know what to say. Should I just make something up? But then she will know I am lying. I am out of options. But I cannot let her think that I am crazy. Perhaps she will listen if I tell her I am not. Perhaps she will believe me.

"I am not crazy," I say.

She nods again. I wish she wouldn't nod. People always nod when you tell them something that they don't believe. "I never said you were," she says. But I know that she is thinking it. "Let's try this again. Do you know where you are?"

I have to think quickly. She is already beginning to think I am crazy and I don't know if I can take it. "I am in a doctor's office," I tell her, which is the truth, so she cannot tell me I am lying and therefore must be crazy.

"Yes, you are. Do you know which doctor?"

I know the answer to this one, too. She cannot fool me with her questions. "Dr. Julia Dawson, Ph.D."

She nods. "Do you know who Dr. Julia Dawson is?"

And here she has me. I cannot answer this question. If I say the wrong thing, she will think that I am crazy. But I cannot say nothing, because she will still think that I am crazy. I must think of something. Frantically, I look all around me, but the only things I see are the boring walls and the door. Perhaps I can run, and she will not notice. I try to stand, but she is still staring at me, and her gaze is holding me down. "It's okay if you don't know the answer," she says. I shake my head and at this she smiles. "Really. It's okay if you don't know the answer."

"But you think I'm crazy."

"No, I don't. I think you're lost."

Now I am starting to think that she is the one who is crazy, but I don't say this. Instead I give her a puzzled look, because this is what sane people do when they are confused, and I am sane.

"Would you like to try again?" She is treating this as though it is a game. Perhaps it is a game. Perhaps I will play until I get the right answers and then she will let me into the place where freedom is. But if this is a game, it isn't a very fun one.

I nod anyway.

"I am Dr. Julia Dawson," she says. She is still smiling. Her teeth are too perfect, and her skin is so pale. She looks like a china doll, except that her hair is too dull and she is far too slim. "And you, Ophie, have been sent to me by your parents."

Parents? I am thinking. But I don't know what she is talking about, so instead I say, "Like it says on your door."

"Yes, like it says on my door. Do you know what kind of doctor I am?"

I got an answer correct, and I can't help but think that this game won't be so hard after all. "A psychiatrist." I say, because those are the only doctors I have ever seen.

"Good," she says. I think I am winning. But then she asks about the morning again, and I do not know what to tell her. "Do you remember at all, Ophie?" she is saying. "Anything from this morning? Where you went, who you saw?"

I don't like her words at all, or the way that she is speaking them. She is patronizing me, and she thinks that I don't know this, and that I will let her. But I am not a little girl anymore, and she has no right to treat me this way. I don't care if it means losing this game, I will not let her patronize me this way.

"Of course I remember!" I tell her, and my voice is loud because I want her to know precisely who she is dealing with. I am not a child.

"Okay," she says, and her smile is slowly fading. "Then tell me about it. What happened?"

But I don't know what happened, so I can't tell her. And I can't tell her I don't know, because then she will think I am crazy and she will treat me like a child again. So instead I pretend that I am somewhere else, anywhere but this room and with this woman.

And suddenly I am not there. Suddenly I am floating in a gentle breeze. All around me there are leaves, spiraling down to the ground only to be caught in an updraft and sent towards the heavens again. They make a pretty picture in the sky; all golden and green, shapes shifting and moving before my eyes. There is a blue sky above me, below me, all around me, and the clouds are playing hopscotch and jumping rope. It is so happy here. There is no sorrow, no confusion, no one to think that I am crazy and treat me like the little girl that I am not. This world is wonderful. I am completely weightless. I play hopscotch with the clouds. I dance with the leaves. I float in the happy blue that is all around me like water, but it is something better than water, because here I am completely free. Everything is peaceful here, and I don't ever want to leave.

But now something is wrong. There is a weight on my shoulder that wasn't there when I got here. It is guiding me somewhere. I succumb to it, because there is little else that I can do. It is guiding me somewhere, and I know that I have been to this place before, and I know that I don't want to go back. The world is fading. The blue sky is turning grey. The clouds become faces that I don't recognize entirely, except that I know that I have seen them somewhere before. The leaves become hands. Someone is holding me down. The wind has turned into the breath of words. Someone is speaking, but I don't understand what they say. My arms and legs are beginning to convulse, and everything is blurry. All of my wonderful colours are gone and I am left with shades of white and black, swirling shades of white and black that try to choke the life out of me. I open my mouth to scream but there is no sound; there is only a hollow echo. I want to cry but I can't. My body feels like all of the water has been replaced with lead, and I have no control over my motions. I am waiting for the darkness but it does not come. I need the darkness. I am trying with all my might to break free from those grips, but I cannot. Where is the darkness? I know I am trying to scream, but I hear nothing, feel nothing.

And finally the world goes black.

This is the darkness I have been longing for. This is the darkness that will never be replaced by light. This is the darkness that always wins.

It is cold here. But it is a nice cold. It is the kind of cold that runs through and through your body and reaches down into the very depths of your being so that you cannot feel anything. It is the kind of cold that will never bother you because you don't really feel it anyway.

Yes, this is the cold and this is the darkness for which I've been waiting. The people on the outside world never understood me. They always thought I was crazy. They were always treating me like a little girl. But now I don't have to worry about them. Now I can just sink through this darkness, through this nothing, and let the cold numb me all the way through.