Chapter 5: Illusion

I was not alone in my misery. No sirree. As a matter of fact, my “home away from home” was quite well-populated. Of course, not all of the “inmates” were refugees from the legal system such as myself… and it was quite clear that some of them belonged there: for life.

Dexter, for example, was quite a likeable fellow most of the time. But when he got a wild hair up his ass, he’d find some way to save up his meds for a while, then OD on them. He was constantly being taken out on a stretcher, only to return to the dreary, sterile ward we all shared.

At first, being allowed to leave my room and mingle with the general population of the looney bin was a real thrill. I didn’t care how many cards short of a full deck any of these people were: it was human interaction, which I had been severely deprived of ever since the “trial”. I couldn’t think of the trial as a real thing… it was intangible. It had no substance. The effect on my life notwithstanding, all it seemed to be in retrospect was a doorway through which I passed on my way. I still did not know where I was going, but as time wore on the picture of where I had been was becoming painfully clear.