The Gray Zone

She awakened to the glare of bright lights. Glancing around the room, she realized she had no idea where she was. She tried to get out of the bed and discovered cuffs confining her to the bed by her wrists and ankles.

“HELP,” Shelley yelled. “Someone help me.”

A nurse, dressed in a crisp white uniform and scuffed white shoes appeared at the door.

“Stop screaming. You are scaring the other patients,” she scolded.

“Patients? Where am I?” Shelley screamed again.

“You don’t know where you are?” the nurse asked as she approached Shelley.

“You’re in the Bennington Sanitarium in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.”

“What?” Shelley was more confused than ever now.

“You don’t know why you’re here?” the nurse asked.

“NO,” Shelley shrieked.

“Let me go get the doctor. I’ll be right back.”

Shelley started to cry quietly. A sanitarium? What am I doing here and how did I get here? The last thing I remember was going into the theater, she thought.

A very nice-looking, young man with a stethoscope around his neck entered the room, pulled up a chair and began to speak.

“Hi Shelley. I’m Doctor Dolan. You are at the Bennington Sanitarium for the Criminally Insane. You have been with us for almost four months. You don’t remember how you got here? What’s the last thing you remember?” he asked.

Shelley’s mind was reeling.

“The Criminally Insane? What the hell am I doing here?” Shelley screamed again.

The doctor reached out his hand and touched Shelley’s shoulder in an effort to calm her just a little.

“Calm down Shelley. We can remove the restraints if you promise to calm down, stop screaming, and answer some questions,” he offered.

The nurse wanted to argue that removing the restraints prematurely might not be a good idea, but she kept quiet.

Dr. Dolan reached around and released Shelley’s hands. While he was freeing up her ankles, Shelley rubbed her wrists, now sore and red from the restraints.

“OK, I’m calmer. Why am I here?”

Dr Dolan spoke again. “You really don’t know, do you?” You don’t remember anything?”

“Please tell me why I’m here,” Shelley pleaded.

“You shot and killed a man at the theater. One of the actors in the play.”

“WHAT?” Shelley screamed again.

“You promised you would stay calm, Shelley,” Dr Dolan reminded her.

“I just don’t understand. I shot and killed a man?” Shelley challenged him.

“Do you remember the last thing you did?”

Shelley knew she had gone to the theater to see a show called The Gray Zone.

It was advertised as a moving story about a girl who is brought to the death chamber in Auschwitz but doesn’t die.

Her grandmother had survived the concentration camps and the emotional and physical scars. Nightmares were a common occurrence. Her grandmother would wake up screaming from the flashbacks that came to her in her sleep. Her grandmother had come to live with Shelley and her family when she became ill and she and Shelley then shared a room.

“I sat in my set in the third row and waited for the show to start while I read the handbill. The show was very intense and I remember thinking how lucky that girl was surviving something like that. My grandmother survived a death camp, but she was not a happy person. She had horrible dreams about what they did to her and seeing her friends die horrible deaths all around her. Millions of people including the man she loved.”

Shelley hesitated. “Then the story took an expected turn. The Jews found the girl and hid her for three days before she was discovered by the SS. They determined that the girl should have died and would therefore be put to death.”

Shelley hesitated again. “That the last thing I remember.”

Dr. Dolan just looked at Shelley and shook his head.

“I think I might get it now,” the doctor said.

“You stood up and yelled at the actor playing the SS soldier,” Dr. Dolan said.

“Apparently you yelled ‘leave my grandmother alone’, reached into your pocket, pulled out a gun and shot.”