Softly, Lautrec.. She whispered..

  You said it would be fireworks, but in truth it was just empty wine bottles.

 We were facing the masks.

 You were so loosely moored, you could hardly walk in a straight line. Like a boat with no anchor.

You have lost your compass.

Yes, it wasn't a good year for fairy princesses.

Don't leave now you're here, you may become you again.

What to do?

You don't like being told what to do, no matter how gently.

Jeez.  You are like the distant sound of a telephone ringing, a 1950's green telephone.

Did you bump your head? Stop reaching for something to say!

All we can do is stop! And the only person who can stop us is ourselves!

We should escape from this story?

No, let's stay. But prepare our boat for high ground.

What is your animal?

A Tiger. You?

Serpent.

That figures. How did Dr Jimmy manage to unalive himself like that?

Ah! I knew it! It's over! 

But it's not possible. Not in my mind. And the strange little girl, who shits her pants.

He stabbed himself through the heart and hung himself with the wire coat hanger? It killed him! And what about shitty pants Wendy? She didn't do it, she only discovered his body.

That's what I mean, how could a tiny little girl kill a man of that size? But still, I'm not convinced he did it himself. The same method as the old couple in Queens? Where did he get the coat hanger?

From the staff room, he knew the code for the door lock. They didn't change it when he was arrested, no one thought he was returning.

She was very happy he was dead, Wendy I mean.

Knowing Dr Jimmy he probably abused her also. So of course she was hardly sad about it.

And the knife? It's all plastic cutlery?

Not for the staff. Again the staffroom.

It's too neat, too tidy.

Occam's razor.

But what if Wendy did do it? Some meds can give you brute force. I saw that anorexic girl, she picked up and threw a full water bottle from the dispenser!

Queen's.. It is a closed case.

Where did Wendy get the idea to kill him like that? He killed himself using his own method if he was behind the Queen's murders! She wouldn't know about coat hangers and a blade through the heart!

Depends when she was admitted, and if she saw the news reports.

Okay, you have a valid point. But she would not have access to the staffroom, to knives, hard objects.. So it doesn't tie in. They don't make harming yourself easily acheivable in Belle Vue. Let alone anyone else. The couple in Queen's. I wonder.

Wonder what?

I wonder if she knew them, or was related?

You think she killed them?

No, but maybe she witnessed something. What if she saw the whole thing play out?

They are not treating Queen's as a double murder, it's officially a murder/suicide.

And I told you, I don't believe it.

Strange thing though since you mention it.

What?

Dr Jimmy was found hanging from the wire coat hanger on the back of his cell door, the knife plunged through his hospital gown and straight through his heart. 

Strange thing? It's a suicide you said. So nothing strange about it!

His gown was hitched up and above his waist, exposing his genitals.

The same as the woman in Queens?

Well, I guess so.

And you think this is a coincidence?

It's not impossible! For gods sake!

It was Wendy.

It was NOT!

Yes, it was.

Dr Jimmy. Dead? Or maybe the only thing that died that day was one of his alter ego's. He's probably not dead at all. He's been dead before remember?

They removed his body.

Adam Chandler removed his body. No hospital morgue, just straight into the private ambulance and then presumably the funeral director.

And freedom?

Possibly.

God, you have one hell of an imagination!

Dr Jimmy was never going to harm himself, he's way too smart for that. 

And where would he go, supposing what you say is correct?

He has so many different lives, he could go anywhere.

So he is a chameleon.

Yes, yes he is.

And so now what?

So now I guess we must be very careful. Because for sure, he know's we are on to him.

Assuming he's alive?

Oh, he's alive alright.

She Is A Very Private Woman Who Never Sought The Limelight

 Listen. We have been ashamed, hopeless, tired, mad.. But always, all ways, we loved us.

It is possible that our ideas don’t suffer?

Such as the idea of suffering, for instance? 

But we are not ideas, are we?

No.

Well however quickly I forget what you're going to say, your statements are always an event.

The men you reduced to ashes are finally dusting themselves off Tiny Fair.

How am I supposed to decipher that?

As a beam of light.

You can't escape, and furthermore, you don't want to.

But I can't work by limelight.

You got this far.

How far is this far? Too far? Or not far enough?

You went to the precipice.

But I haven't gone over it.

I think maybe you did.

The edge of glory.

You created your own myth.

Well no one else was going to do it now were they?

I slowly realized

That you will never linger,

With distance in your eyes

And no ring on your finger. The drugs are okay.. I'm a poet..

There are mysteries. There are horrendous things. Monster's. And just one injection from the men in white would make… well, that has not happened.

But it has happend.

Tomorrow it will all be gone.

This is like being a child,  when an enormous insult is pulled over your head like a sack, and you can never forget it. 

Remove the sack, no one told you it had to remain on your head forever!

You deal with the blows so much better than I do.

Well that rather depends on who I was at the time of the insult, was I myself or one of my many other personalities?

Who are you today?

I didn't get to know her properly yet, she's new. I emerge a different person after each transition.

So you don't know yourself?

Not yet. I'm not going to fuck with her though.

You scared of her?

Not scared. I'm cautious.  She's unpredictable. 

Be careful. Look around you. I am stunned by how easy it is to be a bad Person.

The bad people are mainly on the street Frenchy, not in here.

Goodnight, good work, sleep well. I'll most likely kill you in the morning.

I'm going out dancing tomorrow though, so can it wait?

I'm not sure murderer's can wait for the music to finish.

Here's sad Wendy. She's only 13, a really nice girl. But she always wears the same clothes and she stinks really really bad. 

Apparently this is a common defense for kids who have been repeatedly raped or assaulted by a family member. They don't clean themselves or they'll even soil themselves to make themselves undesirable to their abuser. 

God, that reminds me of a girl from school, I hoped she just had really bad hygiene. 

I give her a big hug every night in the common area when it is time to go to our cells. Will she ever get out of here? I hope one day she gets to smell nice.

Who knows.

Midazolam is my favorite. Oh... It's as close to an off switch for a human being that I've ever known..

We need to get out. You are getting too comfortable with the routine. Smile.

Hi Wendy, how's it going?

It's going well!

Good! I'm happy to hear it.

Did you hear?

Hear what?

Dr Jimmy, he's dead!

Dead? How do you know that?

I know that, 'cos I was the one that killed him!

Throw My Key Down The Drainee

 Trust me.

How? How can I trust you?

Because I'm asking you to.

Okay, I will pretend I do, but I really do not. And I can't pretend for very long.

Don't believe anyone, only believe yourself. For people lie, and let you down. You can only believe in yourself. There's always an agenda if you put your trust in other's. I trust in dreams, as Gibran says, for in them is the hidden gate. To eternity. Friendship is a sweet responsibility. Never an opportunity. Well, it isn't supposed to be.

You don't know how deep love is, until the hour of separation.

That is so true, unfortunately.

So writing it out, letting yourself bleed into the keyboard?

Exactly.

And the issue of trust?

Trust no one. I don't. Only myself.

Who betrayed you first?

My mother probably. Left me to the sharks. 

The one person you should be able to trust.

Exactly.

Husband's? Lovers?

All. All but one. So I don't trust them as far as I could throw them. But I walked away, not straight away but eventually. That is my method of dealing with. Separation is the cruellest cut. She's gone. She remains gone.  And I never look back, not for a moment. Because I never forget. I look in the mirror and I say 'You are better than this, you deserve better, so I go get better.'

Did you ever get worse?

All the time, no one is perfect but that's their problem, not mine. I built my house on solid rock. But still I skip happily through the meadows of red flags..

Conclusion?

Remain a mistress, not a wife. The price of an eighth of gold is too high. Freedom. You don't know how valuable it is until you put it in the hands of another person and it's taken away from you. Society dictates we must be partnered with another. I disagree. I don't need anyone to tell me it's time to go home, go to bed, get up.. I'm quite capable of telling myself.

Loneliness?

Freedom.

Love?

Pain.

Hate?

Not knowing something I suspect. 

So you'd rather be a mistress?

Yes, a courtesan or whatever you want to call it. Because eventually he will leave, and give all his shit to his wife.

You think it cheapens you?

No, it puts me in high value, because I can leave the relationship whenever I want to, I don't have to lose the precious gift of freedom. I enjoy the intimacy, then I like him to go sleep elsewhere. After he's mowed the lawn and refilled the woodshed of course. I don't need the dirty laundry.

That's all for today Tiny Fair, you may leave now and return to the ward. I have to say, I'm not quite sure why you're here.

I'm here because I'm not quite right.

In the head?

In every part of me. not just my head.

Okay.

Bien.

Once upon a time, there was a woman known as Tiny Fair.  She was  mental and  "freedom was her lover." Yes, she was a captivating enigma, with a mind as sharp as a blade and a spirit that could not be tamed. She roamed the world with a mischievous glint in her eye, challenging societal norms and breaking free from the constraints of convention. Her presence was both intoxicating and unsettling, drawing in those who dared to follow her on her wild and unpredictable journey. Some called her insane, others called her bad, but to those who truly understood her, she was simply a force of nature, a beacon of freedom in a world bound by rules and expectations. Rules and expectations could go fuck themselves.

Face the Morning Sun

 I never thought the day would ever come. Night turns to day, and with it a whole new range of emotions. Today's spotlight is shining on total indifference! I am night and day, black and white, from a once raging inferno to solid ice. And my ice is dangerous for everyone. 

My mind goes back to hot freshly ground coffee and roaring flames from the grate, and your heart.

But indifference quells the flames. 

The fire is out?

Almost, almost entirely. However there remains some smoke from the smouldering ashes.

Smoke can resurrect back to flames.

Unless you let it sputter out. 

And did you put on some more wood?

No. Why should I? Why didn't you? I am cold. And happy to remain so.

I can't drink the coffee in here.

Take a cup of squash. It's grape today, not too bad and quite sweet. Still disgusting though if I'm honest.

And when the puzzle is solved, where are we?

We are on the river, with the ferryman, do we return to an unknown land or stay on the boat?

I'm going to stay on the boat for a while. On our own personal River Styx.

And live between the living and the dead? What if you fall in?

I will attempt to swim to the other side. But if I make it, I will have to wait until I am reborn into another body. However my soul will remain the same.

I will find you again?

Maybe. You found me this time. Only next time, remember to bring your matches and leave behind your mask.

I don't recognize you, which mask are you wearing?

The mask of the stranger.

Dr Jimmy's eye's were burning, he couldn't wipe away the constant watering due to the restraints on his wrists. How long had he been here? He couldn't remember. His neck was itching... And then he remembered in a slow motionlike video replay his last night in Riker's. The bedsheet on the metal frame of the empty bunk above his. It was supposed to end there. Why was he now here? He recognised the male nurse taking notes.

Morning Dr Jimmy. We need to start bringing you back to the land of the living.

The land of the living dead you mean! Adam, untie my hands, you know I don't need to be restrained! I'm a Doctor for chrissakes!

Sorry boss, no can do. Care for some squash? It's grape today.

Stick it up your ass!

Have a nice day Dr Jimmy. Oh, I almost forgot.. I need to take a swab from you.

A swab for what?

For our records, we need your DNA. It wasn't done earlier, some admin error.

I refuse! You Incompetent fool! How dare you!

Yes it was a mistake while booking you in apparently, but no worries, I have your back. Open wide.

My DNA won't prove a damn thing!

It may prove your innocence though, no?

Please don't take the journey alone, I will come with you.

Some journey's must be made alone. 

You're not strong enough for this.

I'm stronger alone, you sap my strength, I can feed my own energy but you are like a monkey on my back that drains me.

You are so vulnerable.

I may look it, but please know this, it's just another one of my masks.

In the chaotic hospital room, the sound of screaming filled the air as Adam Chandler tried to calm down Dr Jimmy who was now totally immobilised and forced to submit to the DNA test. Despite his best efforts, he felt powerless to subdue the rage in the face of the Jimmy's fear and anger. As the test was finally completed, Adam couldn't help but wonder about the secrets that the results would reveal, and the impact they would have on this patient's life. What had led to this? A seemingly respectful professional and family man being forced to submit to these tests. What had happened at Riker's that had brought him here? Sure, Dr Jimmy had always been an arrogant prick, but what was going on? Everyone knew about the alleged rapes, but what else was he hiding?

Warning - May Contain Nuts

 Power walking to 80's music or watch Stuart Little?

Oh no. Not again?

We could play cards?

I had hoped we'd left here forever, but here we are. Again. The looney bin.

The legal high's are pretty radical huh?

Yeah, the government issued stuff is pretty good I must say.

Can you feel your hands?

I can't feel nothing. Like fucking nothing! Ha!

There's a guy on the front desk trying to force his own admittance, he's had a row with his girlfriend. He's begging to come in here and here's you complaining all the time. Ungrateful bitch you are!

Ha! That's funny! Trying to get in here to get away from his girlfriend?  She must be fun to live with if this place is a better alternative.

How did you get admitted this time?

I told my Doctor I needed sleeping meds because my Grandma kept on grabbing my foot when I was asleep. Then she would hurl herself at me screaming and I would have to throw her on the floor. He asked me how old she was, and I told him she'd been dead forty years, so he called an ambulance. 

Knowing you this is probably true.

And you? How did you get in?

Yeah, I told the girl behind the counter at Macdonalds to give me an empty coffee cup as I needed to jerk off.

And knowing you this is probably true! Surprised they put you in here and not in jail!

And yet here we are...

Well I'm going to sit here and watch the clock. Get my ice cream cup at 8pm then go to bed.

You found the least disgusting bed?

No, they gave me a pretty decent one this time actually.

Good for you. I'm in with a guy who shits himself. Deliberately.

A dirty protester hey? Nice. Don't ask him why he does it, his answer will put you in therapy. How long are we here this time?

Until we can get to Dr Jimmy.

He's in segregation?

Yes. Thorazined up to his gills. More than likely.

No conscience there then.

But he would talk in that state?

No, I doubt he will remember much.

Oh, and if a guy called Steve calls you after midnight, don't answer the phone.

Why?

Because he's a joker, he's a smoker and he's a midnight toker. But he don't mean to hurt no one..

Funny... No stopping you is there? 

I love you.

Is that you or the meds talking?

That's me talking to the meds. Stuart Little?

No it triggers me.

You're very tall for your age.

Huh?

You are a fucking 9 year old trapped in a man's body!

Yeah... All plastic cutlery and no locks on the bathroom door.

Ah well, better go peel some paint off the walls.

Eat the plaster also for a touch of realism, make your illness look more convincing.

Here comes the anorexic..

Well you would never get admitted with that would you.

Fuck off...

Working with people with eating disorders must be brutal.

Yes, she hid batteries in her ponytail to make her heavier at weigh in. But she managed to pick up a full water bottle off the dispenser and throw it at the nurses when they put her in lock down.

She accused me of stealing her Guatamalan coin collection.

Did you? 

 I was thinking about it.

Another night in paradise.

Here comes Nurse Ratched. Open wide.

The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls, and tenements halls, and whispered in the sounds of silence

 He never stopped running, you know? He was wearing these sunglasses, big thick black triangles covering his eye's, and a black rectangular strip adjoining them that covered his forehead.

Covering his third eye.

I asked him if he could see through them, or was he wearing them when he met her.

Oh no, you didn't say that. After all this time?

Yes I did! I did say that! I wanted to know! I wanted to know if he was fucking blind!

But then it came.

The men in tin cans. All lined up. In a cupboard.  I'd had them processed and put into tins, like dog food. But I was still afraid someone would guess and open a can with a tin opener, and see what I'd done.

Did they?

No, they didn't. I concealed the tin cans elsewhere, but thought it may look suspicious. So I put them all back into the kitchen cupboard.

Were they labelled? The cans?

Yes. With their photograph. I don't understand why I did that.

Perhaps you didn't.

No, perhaps not. But the thought was there. Imagine the tycoon with a flotilla of floating fish canneries. Catch, gut, can.  Maybe that's where his last wife disappeared to.

Bizarre.

No, not bizarre.  That's what I thought at the time. Sardines and ex wife on toast for supper.

When were you walking the steep steps downwards?

Last night. It looked easy enough but then I noticed that almost every other step was covered in dog shit. I didn't want to step into it, so my descent took what seemed like a lifetime. It took hours. When I looked backwards and upward from the bottom step, the climb would have been easier than the descent.

And so there is your solution. The path of easiest resistance isn't necessarily the best.  It's usually easier to walk downhill than climb uphill. But the results can be very different. And not always desirous.

Why do you know everything?

Was he at the bottom of the steps?

No. I began to run amongst a group of people, we were all headed in the same direction. It was a subway. I realized that a man, at the side, lying on the ground on his front was him. I stopped running and went back to him. He jumped up and threw his arms around me, laughing. We sank to our knee's, both laughing. He was wearing the blue shirt, and jeans. He didn't say anything, only laughter was the sound between us. He then stood and pulled me to my feet, and without saying a word, he pushed me back into the line of running people. I waved back at him still laughing. Then I continued this unknown race.

He said goodbye?

No he didn't.

Then that is where you shall meet him again.

What? In the subway?

Yes. The cold green lit tunnel.

Why? How do you know that?

It is the tunnel that separates the dead from the living, you must continue the race alone.

What if I don't want to continue the race? Alone?

You have no option.

But what if I make the choice, not leave it to fate?

Not your choice to make, unfortunately.

I've always made my own choices.

Not this time. It is out of your hands.

I don't like you very much. You are like a tourniquet on my emotions. My psyche.

I'm reality. You not only don't like me, you positively hate me.

I do.

Correct.

Again! Fuck you!

And fuck you too..

Metamorphosis Complete

Radiate. Stop the candle burning too low without snuffing it out entirely.

Technique. In life, learn to breathe slowly, deeply and exhale, slowly. Stop holding your breath. They want you to change? Don't change. Remain as you have aways been, true to yourself. You don't owe anyone anything, but they owe you everything.

Some people are ungrateful.

Some people are blind, they are insensitive. They don't realize.

Well they should.

Don't lose sleep over it. Time will change them. And the sound of a door closing. Don't slam it shut, close it gently.

Silence is power.

But keep a window open, don't block them out entirely, that causes a wave of panic, and leads to turmoil and destruction. They will be unhappy, then angry, keep the window open.

Inside the turmoil, black or white? Happy or sad?

White. Happy. I found happiness within myself, and no one can take that from me because it wasn't given by another person. I discovered it myself.

The pursuit of happiness. All the time it was there, you just needed to see it.

Solitude is happiness. The sun. The light. The trees.

If it's dead and gone, let it be released. Don't hold it inside. That won't bring anything back to you, it will just cause pain. Release it. Let it go.

We are in the garden of a madhouse. That's why I came to this place. I find it more sane here. At least I can be myself. A reflection of myself is what I see in the mirror, not who everyone else wants me to see. A reflection of themselves. Be like me, they say, a brilliant academic, be like her, an athlete. No. I can't be someone else. I am me. I want to be myself. And you know? People don't like that.

If you can't be pigeon-holed at school, you are a misfit and are punished. Just for being an individual. How dare you.  You have to conform to societal roles. I was always a free spirit. A butterfly floating from one flower to the next. Except there wasn't always nectar, there was sometimes shit.

But something as small as the flutter of a butterflies wing, can ultimately cause a typhoon halfway across the world.

Don't conform to the world, transform.

The candle is burning so low

How can you be both deliriously happy howling at the moon, and yet mournfully black and sad at the same time? Like the utimate thrill of the heights of the rollercoaster, right back down to the black smoke  and depths of despair. Laughing hysterically,  then laying flat on the ground with bloody knee's and hot tearful anger?  Yet inside something is like you are still soaring with a light heart, and swooping through the clouds as carefree as a bluebird with a twig in his beak building his first nest,  and has just found his mate for life?

Why am I these two people?

Black and yet white. As black as the depths of hell. As white as pure newly fallen snow.

Black and white are not colours. What colour are you today?

Outside. Blue. I'm blue, but I'm also red. Inside I'm grey. Suffocating slowly. Like a slow suicide but on day release because the sun is shining outside and suicide in the sunlight is forbidden. Save that for the blackness and the emptiness of the night. For as the sun retreats, it sucks your life and soul away and into it's shade.

The dark is not for the weak.

Always conceal, never reveal. Yor strengths and weaknesses, learn to keep them under cover. In the darkness.

But the truth lives in the light.

No matter. Keep the light on, but the blinds closed.

You are so disturbing how you  find it relatively easy to read my thoughts.

I'm aware of it. I can read you. Every despicable thought, which are many, every pure thought too. And they are plentiful. But balanced.

Don't use the word balanced to describe me for shit sake.

My mind is racing. I'm stuck one moment within the groove of being kind, simple and thoughtful. At the same time I'm skipping into total thoughts of sheer destruction. I want to burn everything down. I'm a scratched vinyl record. Literally. 

You keep talking but I'm not really listening. I'm lost within the confines of my head.  See me smile? It's a pretence. Nothing is real. But what is reality? 

Keep pretending, keep the smile. Until it becomes real. Fake it until you make it!  What makes you happy? What makes you sad? Clouds are grey and full of rain. 

And people are fake and full of shit.

Sshh... Someone is listening in again.

No one is listening. The intrusion is all in your imagination.

No. Nothing is in my imagination. I know, I know. I fucking know.

You know only what I choose to share with you.

And therein lies the fucking problem!

The laughing man. The pushing hands. Talking in slow motion. He's there, always ready to show himself, when I least expect it, laughing, always laughing.

You are always laughing.

But it's fake. Maybe I'm laughing at myself.

Major arcana, the Fool. But you are ready to step over the precipice. Take the plunge over the edge. You need to do that. We need to do that.

You don't know where the edge is until you've stepped over it. Right?

Precisely. You are correct as usual.

Unless I'm imagining it.

But do we hold hands and go over together?

No, it's a journey we must make alone.

Well I'm going. You either come with me or you stay in your safety zone. Full of cushions and comfy sofa's, thick mattresses covered in duck down, smelling of Rose Jam. 

I have no such zone.

Good. Because either way, I'm stepping over the cliff edge. And very soon. I will give no warning either, so be prepared.

I need time to think.

No, no thinking about it. You either do it, or you don't do it. Either way, I am gone.

Okay. I was never really here. And I will never be here where I never really was, again.

Good. Go fuck yourself.