"Ms. Nesbitt? Hello?"

I open my eyes to see a woman looking at me with pursed-up lips and an opinion already forming in her pointy little head. Dammit, if I'm going to waste such time daydreaming (or was it dreaming, period?), I could at least be refreshed by the experience. You know, wild sexual adventures, exhilirating explorations of bug-free wilderness, that kind of thing. The dew and the sunrise were pretty good; I could have lived with that. This room feels stuffy and hot. But that person who talked to me really kind of shook me up, more than I'd like to admit.

"Valerie, is it? I'm here to admit you," the woman says. Like I've been waiting outside the door all this time. No, they're plenty quick about locking you up, but you're not actually there until you get The Chart.

I've never been in a hospital before that I can remember, and this hasn't caught me at the best of times. I really don't know if I can summon up the energy to talk to this person.

Maybe that's the whole problem, what put me here: an energy leak, like a hole in a tire. And all they need to do is stich it up, pump me full, and drive me away. Except most people, when they get tired, if they get a chance to rest they're fine. Most tired people would not experience the world as so many waves licking around their ankles, hips, neck. There is no darkness innate in tired. Or maybe there is, and no one passed me the guidebook.

Maybe everything's wrong with me, maybe nothing. I've never felt so lost about my life. (That means you're borderline) whispers a voice in my head. (Persistent identity crisis. Manipulative behaviour.)

Oh yeah, and I have voices. I actually thought everyone had those, until earlier this quarter. My roommate, who is talkative, is taking Intro to Psych. Not that they teach you about voices there; they save that kind of juicy stuff for Abnormal Psych. But conversations have a way of meandering, and we got on the subject late one night.

It was when she was talking about how sorry she felt for schitzophrenic people, maybe. She said something like, "Do you know that crazy - mentally ill people, some of them, hear voices all the time in their heads? Like, they can't get away from them."

I've learned to be neutral and follow along. Maybe it was when I decided to open my mouth and swallow the water that I found out talking about myself made people uncomfortable. Imitation can be closer to the real thing than the thing itself, and I was always a quick study. So social interactions, fraught with hidden dangers, are mostly a matter of me nodding and looking interested. When I've heard a person talk for a while, I pick up their cadence, their style. When I'm in a group of people, I mold myself to the accepted flow, which never has too much room for individuality anyway.

Every interaction, every situation, has hidden expectations, concealed sinkholes. I walk carefully. I have a reputation for being quiet, but I'm not a quiet person. Just too tired to venture into unsafe waters. Too anxious.

"So tell me, Valerie. What brought you here to Wilbur County Memorial?" I thought tiredly about what would happen if I punched her in her lipsticked, sickly sweet mouth. I'm not a violent person, but I should warn her to check the box that says "hostility towards authority figures."