Chapter Two:
THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE MUSICAL MESSAGE
When Ainsley woke up, her first thought was that she had been unsuccessful and unfulfilled in her suicidal aspirations. She detected heavy florescent light through closed eyelids, and thinking of the several month psychiatric stay she would now in her failure endure, sighed heavily.
There was opera music playing somewhere off in the distance, a soprano's piercing voice drawling out every Italian phrase in delicious fluidity. Ainsley allowed herself to be, for but a moment, entranced by the intertwining melodies of instrument and voice. Too suspicious of her surroundings to allow herself to be caught up for much more than a brief moment, she closed her ears to the music and forced her mind alert.
But it was hard; Ainsley had always had an appreciation for classical bits of life. She had grown up with it, and when she was little it was all she knew. Her mother was an accomplished pianist, her father a guitarist and collector of musical instruments. Her parents almost exclusively listened to classical music and public radio. Popular music was discouraged, and it was years before Ainsley was allowed to purchase her own CDs.
Despite the uncomfortably tight leash her parents had her on, young life wasn't all that bad. There were always odd new things to play with sitting around the house, among them, an antique accordion, a lightweight ukulele and harpsichord. Ainsley had fond memories of attempting to form a band in middle school. She would play the ukulele, and Catherine would play the pots and pans. Unfortunately Catherine wasn't altogether musical, and the plan fell apart only moments after it had been formed.
Things were much different now. 6th grade seemed a world apart. So many years had passed, and with the times, went the friendships. Catherine, like everyone else, would no longer speak to Ainsley, and childish dreams of a pot-and-pan band had ended with that friendship.
Ainsley was now a veteran when it came to visiting hospitals and she knew that within the white walls, there was never any real silence in which to concentrate. The pressure monitor near her bed made a click-click noise, and the line that fed a constant medication supply into her veins, hummed loudly. Not to mention the constant beeping of the heart monitor, the nurses out in the hall, or the sounds of the person across the curtain snoring.
She needed to buckle-down, to concentrate on what she would tell her parents and the doctors. Thinking up plausible explanations for her actions, was just another inevitable part of being crazy.
Ainsley had become so sensitive to sound lately, that the only time she could focus was in the bathtub with her head under a galleon of water. Every noise she heard became music, and within the music were messages. Constant, cryptic messages that reminded her just how crazy she was slowly becoming.
The first curious incident of a musical message, had taken place several years ago when she was a freshman in high school. It was lunchtime, and while wandering around looking for a place to eat her taco, she had passed by the band room. As she walked on by, she swore to god she heard someone planning to shoot down the school. But when she entered the room to get a closer look, she realized there was no one there, except a single boy who was diligently practicing his clarinet.
She knew him, his name was Roger and he was a freshman like her, albeit a lot geekier and more than a little strange. She knew he was tirelessly picked on by the older students, but weren't all freshmen? Ainsley was a member of the varsity swim team, which afforded her a little extra protection against bulling, but not much. She understood feeling like an outsider. Since she had turned fourteen, she always felt like everyone was talking about her. Still, she pitied him for wanting to spend his lunch break working. Had he no friends at all?
All at once, the boy noticed her and stopped playing. Slowly, sheepishly, he looked up at her. Ainsley met his gaze with friendly intentions, and smiled. As if by magic, everything around her turned cold and black and soulless. The room decorations irritated her. Roger's facial expression irritated her. Life irritated her.
It took only a moment for irritation to morph into much more primal, and pure hatred flooded her veins. The rage was overwhelming in her body; she clutched her hair and began to rip it out piece by piece. Yet in her brain she could think of no reason to be angry. She couldn't even begin to understand it.
The boy hopped up from his chair and ran from the room frightened. Ainsley continued to thrash insanely. Anger came in waves, each new emotion stronger than the next. She felt like crying out, or kicking down a door, or punching the wall; anything to let out the horrible anger burning inside her.
Before she knew it, she had run into the cafeteria, and at the top of her lungs told the entire school population that they'd be sorry for making fun of her. And worse that she had a plan to kill them all and they couldn't stop her. She claimed she had a rifle in the back of her car, and she didn't care if they killed her, as long as she got the privilege of taking someone out with her.
A teacher tackled her to the floor, and the lunch room was evacuated. The police were called. They searched her car, bedroom, and computer for evidence. They found nothing to indicate such an attempt, but she was still expelled from school, and charges of disorderly conduct and harassment were filed against her. Her parents admitted her to psychiatric hospital for testing. After several months, the head psychologist Dr. Dons, determined that Ainsley had had a psychotic break, and was most likely experiencing the first stages of Schizophrenia. She was put on anti-psychotics, and after several weeks of good behavior, released into the care of her parents.
That was the end of normal life, as Ainsley knew it. Because she was expelled from the district, she had to wait a year before going back to school, and then it was only to an alternative high school for troubled teens. Despite how hush-hush the situation had been with the media, she couldn't leave the house without groups of people whispering on about her. Some were brave enough to taunt her right to her face, but most just talked around her back, adding to her rumor-mill manufactured evil legacy. Even her parents began to have problems at work, and for awhile their house was routinely egged and spray painted with obscenities.
The police suggested they move away and start fresh somewhere new. But Ainsley's mother couldn't bear to leave the house she had grown up in. She said they had too much history there, and that it would be very expensive to relocate her father's business. So they stayed, and all agreed that they would try move past Ainsley's bad reputation.
Even at the alternative school, the other students were afraid of her. She was an untouchable. A ghost hovering right outside of life, but unable to communicate. Soon Ainsley gave up on trying to make friends. Instead, she slunk into a world of fantasy, writing stories and making music in order to pass the days. Her life became routinely sedentary, and to make matters worse, the longer Ainsley took medication, the more weight she gained. Her parents took her back to the doctor. They were worried because she had gained more than fifty pounds that year. They told the doctor that Ainsley's appetite was insatiable. Sometimes she would eat a whole bag of chocolate bars in one sitting. They pleaded with the Dr. Dons for a miracle cure that would give their daughter back to them.
Dr. Dons could not help them, and responded that weight gain was just one of the side effects of the medicine she was taking. They would all have to make a choice, which was more important, fatness or unstabilty? Needless to say, Ainsley parents felt that not being crazy, was more important. As long as she lived under their roof, she would be obligued to take the medication. And so she did.