Inversion Inside of the Asylum

His eyes narrowed in on the woman speaking, it was as if he was not listening as the lonely woman sat there telling the tale as to why her husband ended up in the state that he arrived here in. I sat there listening intently to the bazar story that seemed to fascinating to be real. However the account of the woman could not be anything else. Allow me to elaborate a little more.

It was noon on the day that she came walking into the Ravenswood Asylum, I was the newest intake officer, it was my first patient for the intake, I had thought it was this woman as she began rambling on about her husband being missing and when he arrived home the night before he was not he anymore. She went on in the dazed ramblings that he was taken over by someone or something else entirely, as if he, himself, her husband, had been replaced and inside of he crawled or was infested by another walking around in him as if he were but a suit that one would wear to a wedding or reception of some kind. Instantly I charged the woman’s design of her once husband and called a local constable to engage the woman with me at his earliest availability. I informed the constable of the location to which the man in question was according to the woman whom entered in this day. She was placed into a small room for observation.

It was nearly dusk when the constable that I had called for arrived, I had added several more patients by this point and all seemed to be recounting the same if not a similar event as the first woman who entered here did. I explained to the constable that each person, whom appeared to not know or understand the others who came before and after, that each recipient was received precisely one hour apart from the first and so on until he broke the pattern that appeared to be holding us hostage.

The constable called for the first woman, and we waited for her to arrive. She was brought into the small interview room where the only light was from the small candle that was nestled in a small crevasse where only I could access it. Here she was brought in, her jacket holding her hands and arms in place, chained, and bound, safety for myself and the staff was implemented, each person entered for this day was such bound, we were running low on supplies for any more patients, the woman’s hair shuffled into place by an attendant who was asked to allow her to be seen as we too were needing to observe the woman’s eyes and expressions.

“Please state your name?” the constable ordered.

“Virgina Don… Don…” the woman seemed to not be able to account for her last name, the distain that crossed her face when asked once more to try to remember it and give it as identification was more haunting. The woman seemed not to indulge the constable with it nor myself when I asked. She seemed to me to grow more and more agitated with each time we repeated, “What is in a name?” the woman spoke coldly and with a wicked tongue that lashed outward at both of us, “Did you find the one responsible for murdering my husband and taking over his skin?”

The constable nor I could answer. We moved on to asking a different question. However with each passing moment the woman grew more and more depraved from the woman who came in here in a panic-like state. What I once thought as a fit or a need for an enema or that her husband needed to pay more attention to her… regardless of the initial hypothesis, it appeared to both of us as the conversation allowed, that the woman was in fact the one who … I cannot say it or even give myself to believe it… the next patient was brought in as the woman was escorted back to her room, here was but a male, he was smaller then the average male that was brought in to us on a normal day, his eyes heavy as if from lack of sleep or that of working the nights long inside the mine just on the outskirts of town. He looked well put together, short black hair, mussed as if from a cap, his coke-bottled glasses nearly falling off because he not being able to adjust them, he was dressed, upon entering, in a white shirt and overalls, now that the jacket covered him, he seemed more tame then the woman prior, however, as we learned once again, looks are more deceptive then the heart would have thought.

Upon the first question asked, what is your name, the man lashed out in screaming fits. The clam docile nature was abandoned, and all reason left the man. The only remnants remaining here of the man was that of his looks and stature.

We interviewed as many as the constable could stand to. He rose and placed atop his head a small round bowler hat and lifted his night-stick as he made his way from the interview room to my office, where I followed behind. He and I spoke for but a moment. He wiped his head not removing the cap but as if the cap was apart of his head and caked in sweat. Looking at his unusual reaction I took it upon myself to at once admit the man. He too seemed to become infected with the madness that seemed to be occurring whenever these people seemed to be spoken to or with. I say this in a way that seems more dramatic then I’d want, however all is as said, it became more and more apparent to me as I witnessed the attendants acting in the same bazar manner. I took the only action that would satisfy the irresistible urge to confine instead of ignoring and allowing the madness to flow out onto the streets of Ravenswood.

When I took the state of the Asylum, I recounted the persons in and about, each count was different then the last, as it was more and more appeared without knowing who was who and when they found their way into the building.

I at last found one unaffected and I stood in the meeting room where he was kept. I walked to the man who had, as it looked to me, himself together and unaffected from the people who were. I asked him his name, he gave it.. Dr. Emery Scott… I looked at him and told him that it was impossible to have that name, he looked at me with a smile and the smile was that of nightmares, as he rose to his feet and asked me my name… “Dr. Emery Scott…”