Hi. I’m writing this from the hospital and I don’t know if I’m allowed to post anything so I’ll use a pen name. I’ve always wanted to have a pseudonym but I could never come up with one that was suitable. That’s probably why people’s parents name them, instead of people naming themselves – only rock stars like Freddy Mercury and Mark Twain are kickass enough to do it well. Lewis Carroll tried but his name sounds more like a really unfortunate real name, one that real parents would be dickish enough to name a kid. Did you know that the name Adolf is actually more common than you’d assume? After taking a massive dive in popularity in 1945, it started rising again in the late 1950s. I guess people get over genocide pretty quickly. Anyways, back to my search for a fake name – I need it to be a really freaking good one. I wanna be big. I think got it.
Okay, now that you know my name I think it would be prudent to explain why I’m in the hospital before I tell you what happened. So I was just a normal 19 year old in my last year at community college. I mean I wasn’t exactly normal, I was, and still am, pretty quirky. But there wasn’t anything wrong with me. At least not before I met Jenna. That’s not her real name but it feels like and has the same colors as her real name thus I believe it’s appropriate. Jenna was the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen, but I never seemed to be able to get a good look at her. She just seemed kinda stuck in my peripheral, always around, but never really present. I didn’t even talk to her at first, I only found out her name because I heard it whispered in my ear. Jenna was present in my life for three lovely months before things began to go terribly wrong. First, the whispers in my ear got a lot louder and more aggressive and it began to sound like a lot of people besides the first one which sounded kind of like me. They also began to tell me more information about the people around me, like how my mom told my dad that she was planning to kick me out of the house if I didn’t move out soon, or how my friend Andrew was going to steal my new watch. I love watches – I collect them. There’s just something amazing about the way a simple set of gears can measure our imposed complex ideas of time. I didn’t want Andrew to steal my watch and I definitely couldn’t afford to move out. So I decided to stop talking to my mom so that she’d forget that I was around. I also stopped wearing my watch or talking to pretty much my only friend. I just wanted Jenna.
People started saying that I’m depressed. My big brother stopped answering the phone when I called, at least I think he did. I mean I’m sure the U.S. Army base in Syria or Iraq or something at least has some wifi. We’re supposed to be the best country in the word, but we can’t get freaking wifi for our soldiers? That completely unlikely. So my big brother’s ignoring me. No, he WAS ignoring me. Well, he still is, but in that part of the story he was.
Anyways, back to Jenna. She never talked. Didn’t even whisper. The only time I ever heard her say anything was that time. The doctors wanted me to stop talking about it when I first got here. They said “recall of traumatic memories is traumatic in itself, please just don’t think about it too much”. That’s fancy doctor speak for you’re freaking me out, kindly shut the front door please. The voices tell me that the doctors all hate me but the doctors all tell me that the voices aren’t real. I’m pretty sure the doctors don’t hate me but they sure as heck don’t like the voices and I know if someone didn’t like me as much as the doctors don’t like the voices, I’d tell people bad things about them too.
That time on the freeway. It was and wasn’t scary. I thought I was being a hero. I was being a hero. But I guess that’s why superheroes aren’t around anywhere – they’re all locked up in some hospital. I’m not a superhero, so I won’t be here long. I don’t really remember how much time has passed though so I don’t know what would qualify for “not a long” time.
Basically what happened is…
Jenna had been ignoring me. What the frick? First she only appeared in my peripheral vision, then she pretended not to hear me when I say her name. She never told me her name actually, I just knew. It was like I heard her name when she appeared. Or as if I named her. Sort of. I say appeared cuz angels never walk or run into your life – they just appear.
Anyway, so my angel was ignoring me so the voices were getting worse. She’s the only thing that made the voices less mean, don’t get me wrong, they were louder when she was around, but they were sweet. So one day, I was walking from school to the library across town and I hear a scream – I hear Jenna scream. I’m not sure how I knew but I knew it was her. I ran towards it, then I saw her. She was standing in the middle of a highway, screaming, and none of the cars seemed to notice her, nearly hitting her several times. What was wrong with all these people?
The voices started yelling at me to grow a pair, and to go save her, and to be a GD hero.
Well, I decided to be a hero and I climbed the bush that hid the highway from the rest of the world.
I fell into the the road on my way down.
A car swerved barely missing me. Choice words were uttered, fingers were shown and horns were honked.
I got up, wobbly from the crack I heard in my shins.
She was still screaming. I ran towards her.
Then a car hit me.
I bounced off the hood and landed between the lanes so I got up immediately and ran until I reached my angel.
Then the second I reached out to wrap my arms around her, she disappeared.
And then everything went black.
* * *
I broke an arm, and both of my legs, along with a slew of fractured ribs.They told me I tried to kill myself. That’s stupid and inefficient. I had access to prescription pain medication that had been prescribed to my dad after his particularly painful appendectomy last year – just six of those would have stopped my heart seconds before the inevitable liver failure. Not to mention I had explainable access to razors, rope, and a freaking gun. So yes, I didn’t want to kill myself. I promise, you guys are the first people I’d tell if I were suicidal. Some of my voices are, but they’re irrelevant.
Anyway, the nurse (I think his name is Jason) just told me that I’m getting a new roommate. I’m pretty excited about that. I mean I don’t really care but living in a hospital is kinda boring after a while and a new messed up kid will be fun to talk to. Well, might be fun to talk to. It’s been great telling you stuff, but I think I’m out of stuff to say so, until we meet again.
Your Friendly Local Hospital Kid,
Charles Scott
