3.

Inside out

Anxiety is the dizziness produced in any reasonable being who stands at the brink of genuine freedom

- Kierkegaard

*

“Time for your next session, dearie.” The orderly pushed a small cart of drawers into her room with a distant smile, collecting vials and needles from its guts. Tam sat up obediently in her bed as they attached the restraints to her wrists and ankles and prepared to wheel her out the door.

“Change of plan,” a new voice said, and she looked up. A tall orderly, a commanding stare. His hands already gripping the beds railings. The other orderlies deferred to his effortless authority without a thought. “I’ll be looking after her, thank you.” The orderlies disappeared to the next item on their list.

He wheeled her in the wrong direction. The bed rattled over unfamiliar bumps. She stared at him, confused. A new face, but there was something she recognized in him too. Black hair. A sheaf of black hair escaped the elastic cap. She lifted her hand to touch him, but the restraints held her back.

He pushed her bed into an empty, unknown ward, and pulled the curtains. She sat in the blue silence, the curtain walls forming soft vertical lines all around her. They were very thin, but blocked out all sight of the outside world. If it weren’t for the faint sounds of orderlies working beyond, she could doubt it existed at all.

The man was untying her wrists. The restraints fell away. She turned her gaze from the curtains to them. She was fairly sure this order of things had never happened before. But then, she was never quite sure of anything. Too often she was wrong.

“Come on, we don’t have much time,” he was saying, and her hand lifted to touch the hair poking out from under his cap. He pulled the whole cap off, and his memory returned to her, slamming into her mind.

“Marcus!”

“Yes,” he answered, working on her ankle restraints, “didn’t you recognize me?”

“I forgot…” she whispered, and he threw her a look. A mix of pity and frustration and anger. She slipped into silence before it. Her legs were free, and he lifted a bag onto the bed from where it had been resting by the wall. The bed shook, the curtains shook as the bag thumped onto the bed: her world shivering. A breath might make it all disappear. She held her breath, curling her legs underneath her, still looking at him, undergoing the wash of memory, waiting for them to subside so she could order them into a sequence, tidy them away. It was so rare that she had a string she could work on.

“Here,” he said, pulling some clothes out of the bag and handing them to her, “put these on.” He was pulling off his orderly uniform, and she was sitting as if still restrained, holding the clothes absently.

“What are you doing?” she asked. Her thumb rubbed over the thick woollen material, exploring the new texture.

“I’m getting you out of here.” His own clothes were beneath the uniform, lifting to reveal his belly for a second then falling back into place.

“Outside? I’m going Outside?” she asked. In her voice there was fear. Anticipation. Hope.

“Yes.”

“Did the interviewers say I could?”

He slowed and looked at her a moment. He looked hurt, and she felt ashamed for doubting.

“Yes,” he said gently. He smushed a beanie to cover her bald head, and his eyes were soft. She shrugged off her beige gown and pulled on the unaccustomed, thick fabrics, the heavy awkward shoes, quickly as she could, not wanting to anger him. There was haste in his movement and tension in his body. He was waiting for her; so she hurried. She wanted to go Outside, but the concept was frightening as well. It was so sudden. But she knew, that for her, time to prepare would be wasted, forgotten. There was no point wasting it on her.

Her feet felt trapped and crowded and weighed down after so long of being free. The thick fabric around her body held her close, and she tried not to pull at it.

“Ready,” he asked at last. Though she was absorbed by how alien her body looked in the new clothes, she nodded. He buckled the bag shut, swung it onto his back, grabbed her hand and pulled the curtain aside. Her little blue world was destroyed in the sweep of a hand. Her hand gripped his, and for a second he pressed back.

Towing her behind him, he was walking towards the far doors, the furthest she had ever seen. She'd never been this close to them, just seen them at the end of the corridor, distant and wondrous. Now they were approaching at an amazing speed. Years of distance broached in seconds. He pushed through them – nothing stopped him – and towed her into Some Place Else.

A New place.

Tam hadn’t seen any place new in… years? She didn’t know how long. Her mouth was dry, her eyes chilly and stretched. The unfamiliar length of wall - the colour! The wall colour was pale green! - the odd numbers of doors of the corridor, the wooden skirting boards, everything was new and strange and attacked her. Her steps faltered in time with her heart, but his grip kept her moving forward relentlessly. She stared at the linoleum, hard, blocking the excess she couldn’t absorb. Her hand rubbed self consciously at her chest, trying to ease tightness. Her blood thrummed in her ears, thankfully muffling the unaccustomed sounds and voices.

Anything could happen here. She had never realized before how important, how comforting her Ward had been. In the scattery world of her shredded memory and her patched-together present, some things had always remained the same. She had taken for granted the soothing regular length of the corridors, the height of the ceiling, the patterns of colour of the paperwork on the notice board. The day might throw at her any combination of events, but these were certain constants she could always rely on. Here, there was nothing. Anything could happen. It was chaos. She felt her mind spread thin over too much, taut, reaching.

The only familiar thing was the linoleum, and she stared at it, clinging to it like a life preserver. Maybe this is a bad idea, she thought, panic fingering the edges of her mind. I’m not ready, I’m not right. But the interviewers had said. They knew best. They knew what was right. She must just be strong, and let it happen.

Marcus talked in low, confident tones to the people whose attention they caught, and their gaze would sweep past with a meek smile, or a nod. The blood pounding in her ears masked the words he said; she understood nothing. She saw only the feet intruding into her cherished world of linoleum. She wished at them hard to go away, and they did.

The thick fabrics swaddling her body trapped the sweat squeezing from her skin. Her mouth was so dry it felt tacky, her tongue swollen. She wondered if she had sweated too much, and was dying. Her head felt heavy and light together.

The doors in front of them slid open, and she was suddenly blind. She stopped, rigid with terror. Her heart was a stab of pain in her chest. The world was brightly white and aching. Brighter than the ceiling lights. Brighter than surgical lights. Seamlessly, entirely white. Her vision was gone.