Her madness

The bell rang and snapped her out of the mire of her thoughts. She shook her head just to make sure she was completely back and in sync with what was going on around her. She gathered her books and headed for the cafeteria. It was lunch time and she was glad, for she hadn’t eaten anything since a few slices of pizza the day before.

As she walked to the east side of the campus where the cafeteria was, her thoughts crept back into the centre of her brain and pulsated their messages with waves of precision and definition. She had to give in to their beckoning call as a matter of utmost urgency. As the thoughts flooded in and got comfortable her heart stared racing at the realization of all that she was dealing with. It was something grave and her thoughts were making sure she did not think otherwise.

So engrossed was she in them, that the call of her name by a group of friends was drowned in the mumble of her own voice within herself. She let out a sigh of confusion expressing the inward tumult with the inescapable reality that she was nowhere close to figuring it all out. That, and the undeniable conclusion that all this anxiety was slowly having her appetite ebb away.

In that instant she decided she would eat when she got home. She started for the benches outside by the labs. She remembered she needed her coat and scarf that were in her locker as it was the coldest degrees of fall and started back. She didn’t mind all the walking. Her thoughts were still explaining themselves to her.

When she finally got to the benches, it was as if the winds and trees understood the convergence of negative emotion within her. The wind blew and shook the trees to shed its leaves. The leaves fell suddenly and without grace. The trees waved in protest at this sudden company and the wind whistled fiercely in agreement. She sat at pulled her head sock over her ears and started to slowly accept the facts.

Her father was right. He was always right. From the time he met him he told her that even though she claimed he was her best friend, he wasn’t good for her. He wore the afflictions of his family better than that brown coat he loved. She disagreed. All she saw in her best friend was the strongest and most determined soul that continually faced darkness in the face and succeeded. She admired that courage and sympathized with him in all that he went through. That was their bridge to each other. She understood him somehow and he knew she did.

Now she couldn’t understand the betrayal and deception. Why he had been found all alone in the cold of the night with a knife at his hand. Why she had been called and informed that he had been admitted in the psychiatric ward. Yes, his parents were divorced and he struggled with drinking at a time but he had gotten through all of that. Why were they saying he was insane!? He was the most sane and in control person she knew.

When she first found out two weeks ago, she wondered what the problem was. Whatever it would be she knew he would get through this. When she went to see him he was sober minded. He asked her how school was and they talked and even laughed for a while. Then just before she left, the comfort she had given into was robbed from her. She saw what they meant. He suddenly curled into a ball and sat at the edge of bed, violently rocking himself and saying the words repeatedly to himself; “ Change it now.” He said it to himself until he was screaming it at her and all the nurses that were trying to calm him down. He shouted it at the doctor who came in to sedate him and then mumbled it as he went to sleep.

She could not understand why he had kept so many things from her. Why he had fronted only what he wanted her to see. The talks she had with his mother ended her. Everyone was under the assumption that she knew all along, but she didn’t. She couldn’t. He would never have told her himself. She hadn’t known about the dizziness and fainting spells, the insomnia and drawings in black, the sleep talking when he finally slept. He had been overcome by it all. By the afflictions that surrounded him within and without.

Yes, with all that occurred all she felt was a betrayal and deception. He hadn’t told her and the worst part was that he had succumbed to it all. He had given into the madness. He had made that decision and choice to be mad. She was angry because she was alone and that’s all she cared about. She was ashamed of his weakness. She was ashamed of hers that caused her to dread being alone. She felt like she wanted nothing to do with it. She was angry for letting herself once think she drew from him in all his inward strength. The truth was he drew from her drama filled life that was just a distraction from the real action. But most of all, she was angry at what she was. A selfish little girl. Not one honest thought had gone out to her friend and it was all because this one thing, she could not understand. Yet she knew more than her existence that she cared deeply for him and wished him to be well. in some part of herself, maybe she even loved him? How could these opposing polarities of emotion be simultaneously present within her? Her thoughts spoke loudest in that moment.

How was she to be his friend? She didn’t know how to help him. Everyone at school was already staring at her like she was a mad one as well. She hated that she cared about that. The worst part was that she felt as mad with the despair and pain of it all. She was scared that during classes when she zoned out people saw her madness written on her face.

Who was she to be without him. No wonder her appetite disappeared. She always sat with him at lunch. It was like some vortex was being opened to swallow her as well. She put her hands to her face that were wet with tears and quickly wiped them away. She would be strong. She was strong. She needed to be strong. She hoped she would be strong.

The bell ending lunch rang and concluded the rantings of her thoughts. She stumbled as she got off the bench and into the halls of the school. Her heart fell within the pit of herself like an anvil dropped into a bottomless ocean. The madness crept upon her skin and tickled the back of her head. She rubbed her neck in response. With her face pale and ashen with tears, she staggered to her next class and accepted her fate. She had to fight her own madness now and somehow to do that.

She felt the madness consume her whole and scatter her thoughts into tiny fractals across her inner landscape. All of them lost and to be tediously gathered. She stopped at the door of her class and slowly slid against the wall to sit down at the back of the class. She noticed the expressions and stares the rest of her class gave her. She figured she knew what they were thinking but she couldn’t care and if she did, it was too late.

She was as mad as could be now.

Her own madness had consumed her.