Silhouettes

There’s something about a double occupancy room that’s only half full. The in-patient wing is decorated with bodies just outside the door, but it’s just you in this room. Even so, there seems to be an indiscernible guest close by. Like the clean white sheets on the wheeled bed just feet away is home to some silent hospital ghost.

Andrew Mcmullan has been in the hospital for two nights, and a stupor that accompanies every sterile canvas has now taken over. This one clad in scrubs, IV bags and the smell of stale rubbing alcohol. “I needed to keep it all together for my parents. I couldn’t have them worry about another child of theirs.” He told the psychiatrist. What Andrew told others oftentimes couldn’t convince the skeptic in him, and those thoughts quietly ate at his head.

“Unfortunately it’s difficult to recognize problematic thought patterns that snowball into self-harm, and even more so to reach out for help.” The psychiatrist said with no inflection, as if partially asleep. Andrew is somehow more exhausted now than when he leaves the office late at night, which he did routinely. The ride down in the elevator from the 21st floor, like clockwork, was the time Andrew’s body registered it was teetering on limp collapse. He took a mental note of the two brands of tired so different, you could bottle them up and sell them accordingly. Office fatigue, $109. Psych Ward Exhaustion, $1,099.

“Mr. Mcmullan, I’d like to discuss your depression history in order to gauge how to move forward regarding treatment.” Andrew immediately wanted to excuse himself and go to the bathroom, or to get a cup of coffee. Instead, there was a long and awkward pause. The Psychiatrist’s eyebrows were an organized mess of black, white and grey hairs poised one on top of the other, as if bracing themselves to spring across the expanse of his deeply wrinkled forehead.

“My little sister passed away last year.” Andrew straightened up, cleared his throat and continued having no intention of divulging how. “It’s been a blurry existence since then.”

“I see, I’m sorry.” The psychiatrist deftly took notes in indiscernible chicken scratch on his clipboard with markedly dulled edges.

“I might just need a higher dose of what I’m taking, or a different medication. The first two I tried either had too many side effects or made things worse.”

Satisfied with Andrew’s summary for attempt of suicide, the Psychiatrist got up. “I will evaluate your medication intake history, and by tomorrow you will be notified what your proposed treatment plan is moving forward.”

“When will I be discharged?” Andrew asked calmly despite the gnawing anxiety.

“You’ll be notified tomorrow. Get some rest, and I’ll see you then.” The psychiatrist slid out of the room, leaving no room for negotiation.

“Fuck.” Andrew’s Bambi-esque gray eyes darted from the foot of his bed over to the empty one next to him, then to the mint green curtain pushed towards the wall separating both. Irate with the lack of control he had over what he could do for the rest of the night, Andrew shut his eyes. His conscious mind began to drift and lull as he observed the still nothing that is the in-between, a slivered membrane separating the confines of his conscious mind with the portion that travels. He then passed out the way light escapes a room with a switch. The voice of Andrew’s baby sister began to fill and light up the space his mind occupied.

“Andypants!” Lithe, little dark haired Josie Mcmullan appeared and squealed infectiously at the sight of her older brother. Beside her was a large wicker basket full of Chinese white pears.

“Jesus, kid you scared me.”

“I miss you,” She said.

Andrew watched Josie smile up at him with her sparkly brown eyes. He lunged forward and pulled her into a bear hug as she giggle-rocked against his chest.

“Where did you get those?” Andrew pointed to the basket of fruit with his stubbly chin.

“There’s this big pear tree where I live that grows these. You can even smell how sweet they are, see?” Josie held up a perfectly round speckled pear with both of her small hands up to her brother’s nose. Andrew sniffed it, but couldn’t smell anything.

“Delicious,” Andrew replied.

He recalled how Josie would often go on mini-rants with an eager audience nearby. What should sound like a noisy verbal onslaught was instead entirely charming. It was her effortless hallmark, compounded with the fact that she was just nineteen. She read a lot, watched loads of movies and used unpretentiously clever references that made everyone chuckle. It was as if in every instance, she knew what it felt like to be the person she was speaking to. No one taught her how to connect with people so seamlessly. For as long as Andrew could remember, it was a part of Josie just as much as her small ears. Josie suddenly sprang into discourse void of her usual charm.

“I’m still here, I’m just not allowed to talk to you. You need to know it’s not because I don’t try, it’s because there are laws I have no choice but to adhere to. I wish we could just talk normally again. I miss laughing so hard at nothing with you, I miss everything. It’s pretty and peaceful over here all the time, almost mechanically so, but nothing will ever be as funny or surprising or exciting as it was over there.”

“What do you mean, over there?” Andrew asked, half not-wanting an answer.

“The dead don’t vanish forever, Andy. We just live in between today and tomorrow’s layers, where you can’t see. You’ve got to stop believing I’ve disappeared.”

“It sure feels like you have.”

“Feelings lie, big brother.”

The loud clang of a gurney in the hallway brought Andrew back to the room in the hospital. His head throbbed and his mouth was dry. He slowly turned his head over and observed the outline of what looked like a nurse standing in the window frame of his door.