Limited Sunshine                                                                                  

            I woke up on day sixty-six and the ceiling was still stainless steel. I could hear Soap in the bathroom, most likely wiping down the sink with rubbing alcohol. He loved doing that.

            I yelled for him to come un-do me. I had slept funny and the buckles had left an impression on my wrist.

            Soap came twitching into our sterile little room and began to un-fasten my straps while maintaining as little skin-to-metal contact as possible while he worked.

            “They done these tight last night, huh, Big?” he asked. He finished and wiped his fingers on his starched patient shirt.

            They called me Big because I was five foot three. I was a riot to the other patients at Cedar Psychiatric Hospital. They really thought the nickname was hilarious.

            Soap was a more appropriate nickname to me, though, cause he was always cleaning and whisking away imaginary cobwebs from his hair. He even carried some antiseptic in his underwear cause we didn’t have pockets in our uniforms. There was also Little, who was really a beast of a man at six foot four, and Marbles, who was called that because he didn’t have any.

            I stretched deep. I hated being strapped down at night, but they had to do it cause I usually had dreams at night about my dad beating me. Apparently, I was a danger to myself.

            Massaging my wrists, I stepped into the bathroom. I splashed cold water on my face and analyzed the stubble growing in crooked on my chin. I reached for my special shave lotion, which I had made myself out of olive-oil, some of Soap’s antiseptic, and some chaffing lotion from the infirmary.

            Suddenly, something cold touched my bare arm and I jerked my head up, hitting it on the glass cabinet that contained only toothpaste and a hairbrush.

            Cherie jumped back and I turned around sharply.

            “What the fuck?!” I hollered.

            The beautiful nurse put her hand to her bow-lips. “My god, Big, I didn’t mean to startle you.”

            I pretended to be angry for a moment so I could stare in her large, blue eyes. I’d been in love with her since I’d arrived. She was perfect. I could actually stand an inch above her and she had a narrow waist and Betty Paige hair that was always perfectly coiffed. But she just thought of me as another crazy in the psych ward. Yes, I’d driven my car off a cliff, but yes, I was also drunk at the time. Somehow that had qualified me as mentally unstable at my hearing.     

            She interrupted my precious five seconds of eating her alive with my eyes.

            “Big. You have to come with me to the meeting area. It’s an emergency.”

            I stopped looking sullen and raised my eyebrow.

            “Someone murdered Calvin Short this morning. Around four AM. Strangled him.”

            I wanted to be shocked, but I couldn’t put a face to the name. “Who the fuck is Calvin Short?”

            She looked confused for a second.

“Sorry,” she said quickly, correcting herself. “Someone murdered Sunshine. I’m sorry, Big, but it’s true.”

            I let the bullet of his name sink in for a moment before I realized that I’d been shot. Sunshine had been my best friend there.

She took pity on the way my eyes had glazed over so quickly and took my hand, leading me to the meeting room. As we passed through the silver halls, I felt my insides pouring out. She kept pulling me and there was a large trail of blood coming out of my backside and it was warming my stomach where the news had hit me. Sunshine had really been the only fucker in the place that I ever liked. I was even planning on keeping him around once we both busted out of the hospital.

The meeting room was stuffed with pale-faced patients, all muttering or flat-out crying. Marbles was just sitting in a chair, playing with clay.

The head doctor stood up on a chair to address us.

            “My good men.” He cleared his throat. “Calvin Short, who was most widely known as ‘Sunshine’, was strangled to death early this morning in his bed.”

            He let the information sink in and I noticed Soap wiping his hands frantically on his pant leg.

            “We are very concerned about the safety of this establishment, and about your own safety. There will be a detective coming in later today to question all of you and all of the staff. Because we are taking the necessary precautions, you will all have your rooms locked until we figure out how Mr. Short was murdered.”

            I was trying not to look like I was affected by the information. I pretended that it was just another nightmare I had to deal with.

            “Now,” he cut through the murmurs, “please go to your respective therapy groups. Breakfast will be served at a later time today.”  

                                    *                                  *                                  *

            Therapy. It was always a drag. Today would be worse, though, cause I knew we were going to sit there and talk about our  “feelings” concerning Sunshine’s muder. I doubted that anyone’s reaction to his death could be contained in neat, structured sentences. I would have rather used my fists instead and squeezed all the off-white lightbulbs in that hell of a hospital until they popped. That’s how I was “feeling”.

            Cherie rounded us up into our uncomfortable folding chairs that faced some invisible melding pot that was supposed to act as some healing force when we talked about our past and all that shit.

            “Marbles,” she spoke in her harmonious voice. Sunshine and I used to try to imitate it and hoped that if we ever got stuck with some dumb broad, she’d at least have a voice like Cherie’s. “Marbles, do you want to talk first?”

            He was still twisting his hunk of clay around and looked up as though he’d just realized we were there.

            “What, Nurse?”

            She smiled. “Mr. Cohen, your friend Sunshine was murdered last night. I find it pretty shocking. How are you feeling about it?”

            He blinked three times. “Who is Sunray?”

            Little jumped up out of his seat, interupting in his booming voice.

            “You stupid fuck, you don’t know who Sunshine is?” His face was getting all red and bloated like it usually did when he was feeling self-righteous. “He’s the only one who would ever buy your shitty clay masterpieces, you idiot!”

            Marbles shrugged and looked back down at his wad of clay, beginning to pull little lop-sided ears out of the putty.

            Cherie cleared her throat. “I guess you have something to say, Mr. Tilding? I know this is probably the most disturbing for you, considering that you share your room with Sunshine, right?”

            “The hell yes it is!” Little shouted. “I didn’t hear a fucking thing! I could have been killed, too!” He looked traumatized by the idea. “That Sunshine was innocent! Why the hell didn’t someone kill that kid from the other group, section D, who drools when--”

            “Mr. Tilding, you know you don’t mean that. Don’t go wishing death on other people,” warned Cherie, adusting her skirt. I had been trying to look up it.

            “Okay, sorry Nurse,” he apologized. “I wanna meet the murderer, though. I’ll give it to that fucker good. I’m just glad he didn’t get me, too. Shit.”

            Cherie nodded her head sympathetically.

            “I would kill the murderer, too,” spoke up Soap.

            Cherie turned to him, pleased. “That’s brave of you to stand up for a friend, Mr. Anderson, although I don’t know if two wrongs make a right.”

            He grinned that spotless grin, receiving her compliment like a boy, love-struck.

            She turned to me. I looked into those eyes and watched her bow-lips in slow motion as they puckered and opened into an O as she asked me what I thought about the whole situation.

            “I think it’s fucked. That poor kid was only, what, nineteen? I liked him. He had admirable qualities.” I was trying to sound calm. Not mentally insane.

            “You were close to him, weren’t you?” She cocked her head side-ways at me.

            “Yeah.” I paused.

            “I’m really sorry, Big. People should never have to go throught these types of things.” She looked back out the glass window into the dining room. Breakfast was getting prepared. “Is there anything else anyone wants to get out there?”

            “Yeah,” I said. “I’m gonna find that murderer and return the favor.”

                                    *                                  *                                  *

            I paced during breakfast. I didn’t want to touch my cornflakes, but that wasn’t really new. I kind of spent too much time pouring in my milk until it overflowed and the flakes were soggy.

            I walked up to one of the nurses guarding the dining room door.

            “Hey, lady, can I use the bathroom?”

            She smiled awkwardly, struck by the fact that I had called her ‘lady’.

            “Sure, Big. Because of the new security, though, you’ll have to walk back to your own section B to use the restroom.”

            I shrugged and pased her, walking quickly. The hallways looked strange and empty. Everyone was locked up in the breakfast room and now the solo spaces felt foreign and even more depressing than usual.

            I didn’t stop moving until I reached Room 1, Section B. Sunshine and Little’s room.

            I held my breath and twisted the door-knob, and to my scared-shitless shock, the door wasn’t locked.

            I was even more horrified when I entered to see a body covered with a white sheet resting on Sunshine’s bed. I could feel the dead weight of his limbs pressing his matress and a giant lump formed in my throat. I wanted to cry, really. I thought it would have been moved by now, but I realized that the hospital was hours from anywhere and the detective hadn’t even arrived for inspection.

            Most of me wanted to run the fuck out of there, screaming like one of the nurses, but the less intelligent side of me pulled my fingers over to the white cover. With painstaiking hesitation, I peeled it back, choking on my spit when the light of the room softly hit Sunshine’s pale face.

            I froze there in shock, somewhat amazed at how different he looked. He looked surprisingly peaceful for a poor kid who’d just been strangled to death.

            I tried to be less scared and began inspecting his body. The impressions on his neck were visible, kind of bluish-greenish. They looked around my size, actually, but I was too creeped out to actually measure them to my fingers. The prints didn’t help me much, though, because most of the guys at the hospital were built like me, except for Little. I had already figured that Little hadn’t done it, though. I just had a feeling.

            Trying to be a better detective, I leaned in close and smelled. I was startled to get a whiff of something alcoholic smelling, but more like rubbing alcohol or something. My thoughts immediately went to Soap, but I couldn’t think of any logical reason why he’d kill anyone. I didn’t think he ever even touched anyone. In fact, I really didn’t think anyone in my ward could have done it. Out of the five of us, Sunshine had been the best and we all had loved the kid.

            I was getting jittery from being so close to a dead person and I still didn’t have any idea who the fuck could have done it, so I turned to leave. Unfortunately, there was someone in my way.

            “Sir, what the hell do you think you’re doing in here?”

            A tall, heavy man in an official uniform was blocking the door, staring at me intensely. He was the detective.

            I panicked and decided that my best chance at getting out without repercussions was to up the crazy. Authorities never pick on the really crazy ones.

            “Police man, this was my friend,” I started in a childish voice, pointing back at the body. “I wanted to say goodbye to a great friend who sang the stars with me and shared the sugar ropes.”

            I tried not to laugh when I realized that I had just directly quoted Marbles. The detective raised his eyebrows at me, trying not to laugh at this mentally incapacitated patient, as well.

            “What’s your name, kid?”

            “Charles,” I said, trying to put that vacant, glazed-over look in my eyes like the really insane ones always sported.

            The detective looked down the list he was holding. “Oh. Charles Bennington. I guess I’ll talk to you first, then.” He looked over at the body and I could see he was scared of it, too.

            We walked out of the room and he pulled out a roll of caution tape, which he proceeded to cross the closed door with.

            “Will your friends know what that means?” he asked sarcastically. “If they don’t, tell them that it means ‘do-not-enter’. Like, bad, scary things are in there and you’re not allowed to enter. No entry.” 

            I wanted to punch him and tell him that only the ones who were drooling on their shirts woudn’t know not to enter a fucking door covered in caution tape, but I just smiled at him like a dope.

            “Well,” he sighed, “We can just talk here. Do you mind standing?”

            I shook my head.

            “Good.” He took a pen out of his pocket. “So, Charles. You knew Calvin Short well? Chased stars and stuff?”

            Calvin hadn’t really been that crazy. He was just eccentric. I didn’t like my friend’s death being taken like a joke by some stuffed in the brain detective.

            “Yeah. A very close friend for chasing stars,” I said, trying to remain glassy-eyed.

            “What were you doing this morning?” he asked, looking at me under heavy lids.

            “I was asleep. They tie me down at night cause I get violent dreams and fall out of bed sometimes and hit my head on stuff.”

            He shook is head, not really listening. I could tell he wanted to go check out Sunshine.

            “What sector you in, Charlie?” he asked. I could tell he was doodling and not really writing anything.

            “Section B, room 3. Share it with Soap,” I answered.

            He looked up at me. “Yeah, soap is a good thing to have in your room.”

            I stared at him as crazy as I could. His face shifted back to uncomfortable and he closed his notepad.

            “Well, thanks for the information, Charlie. Uh, run along back to your breakfast room and don’t come wandering over here again, okay?”

            I smiled. “Yes, sir.”

                                    *                                  *                                  *

            That night, I had a difficult time getting to sleep. The detective had questioned all six sections, all thirty of us, and the whole time, I couldn’t stop thinking about Sunshine’s strange face. It had been all stretched funny and sad and so silent at the same time. The rest of the cops had come later and taken his body away and I had to watch the white sheet fluttering down the street on a stretcher through my barred window. Now the days would be more hellish. Sunshine was the closest to sane and we could talk about Cherie and baseball and play cards and plan our escape.

            Not now, though.

            I thought about this while I was lying on my flimsy matress. I was thinking about how I didn’t even brush my teeth or finish shaving when I began to drift off to sleep without realizing it.

            In my dream, I was eight again and hiding under the living room table on that old, smelly, orange carpet. I could hear my dad’s feet dragging on the ground as he searched for me. Mom was out having an affair and the broken light-bulb and matches were his only consolation.

            I used to think he was being enlightened when he lit the thing up. Like he was trying to smoke electricity so he’d be a genius. The white powder never really came into focus at that age; I just thought it was funny that my dad was trying to smoke a lightbulb.

            His feet thudded closer. He was really angry this time, and before I knew it, without any actual transitions like dreams tend to lack, he was under the table with me, plugging up all the light and beating on me.

            It felt like his hands were around my throat and I started gasping. I tried to slip away from him. I had gotten really good at slipping away from him, even when he was almost smothering me, but this time, I wasn’t getting away and his grip was getting tighter.

            I woke up suddenly and bashed my head on the wall behind my pillow.

            There were no hands on my neck anymore, but I was definitely out of breath and the muscles in my neck were tender and throbbing. My neck felt a little bit slimy.

            My vision shot into focus when I noticed the door was open. It scared me frozen and I looked over at Soap’s bed with only my eyes.

            He was under his covers, fast asleep. His breathing wasn’t quick and he didn’t look so suspicious.

Collecting my thoughts, I became angry. Someone had been trying to choke me in my sleep. Some sick mother fucker was trying to off the only sane guys in the institution. I figured he must have run when I started making noise and waking up. The doors were supposed to be locked. They had been locked when I had went to sleep.

            I started hollering.

            I yelled and yelled and Soap jumped up and saw me yelling, so he began shouting, too.

            After about two minutes of yelling, Cherie and three other nurses rushed in.

            “Big!” she sang, silencing me and Soap simultaneously. “Big! What is it?! Why is your door open?!”

            My voice hurt from all the hollering. “Ms. Cherie, someone was trying to strangle me and they ran out of the door when I woke up!”

            She looked straight at Soap.

            “No,” I butted in quickly. “He was asleep!”

            She shook her head, letting it sink in.

“I don’t think anyone should be sharing rooms right now,” she said. I could see her cheeks flushing with fright. “Soap, come with me, and you’ll sleep in Section C where there’s an empty room.”

            He turned and glared at me. “I was asleep, you jackass.”

            “I know!” I yelled again. “Ms. Cherie, go find who was trying to off me!”

            She shook her head. “We’ll do a search. For now, I’m going to take Soap and lock your door. You’ll be safe for tonight.”

            “Cherie!”

            She stopped and looked into my eyes. I wanted her to stay with me. I wanted to wrap my arms around her and hold her like I had wanted to since the day I got there. She was the one who would answer my dream-induced cries and put a warm washcloth on my forehead. She was the one who humored me by playing cards when I was bored, even though she didn’t know how. She was the one who sided with me during therapy. She was the one I wanted right now, but I was still some mental patient in an insane asyllum to her. Nothing more.

            “Big,” she sighed. She was tired and her hair was deshevelled. “You’ll be fine. The door is locked. We’re going to inspect everything.”

            She turned off the lights and I watched them leave, Soap in tow, with a sinking feeling.

            I didn’t go to sleep at all this time.

                                    *                                  *                                  *

            I watched the sun rise on day sixty seven and dragged myself to the sink to wash my face. I looked in the mirror. The lines in my face indicated that I had aged about ten years since I’d arrived. I looked at the small bottle of antiseptic on the sink counter and frowned. Smelling it, I began to get a little nervous again.

I took a solid whiff, this time really concentrating. It smelled alcoholic. It smelled like the film on Sunshine’s neck. However, something told me that it just couldn’t have been Soap. He didn’t like touching anything.

            At breakfast, no one acted any differently. I figured the authorites didn’t want anyone to know what had happened to me the night before, incase they all panicked.

            I had a muffin and was picking at it when Marbles scooted over to my table.

            “I know who did it,” he whispered.

            I flicked a piece of the pastry at him. “Sure you do.” I was still bitter than I had almost been murdered and no one knew.

            Marbles started drumming his fingers on the table.

            I stared at him at then stared at his fingers, which were covered in clay.

            “Say,” I asked, changing my tone to friendly. “Marbles, what kind of dough do you play with?”

            He looked up at me angrily. “It’s my clay and I get to make the masterpieces. You can’t have any.”

            I was going to ask him more politely, but he abruptly stood up and walked to the fartherst corner of the dining room.

            Leaning over to where he’d been tapping his finges, I saw a slimy film. I couldn’t really smell anything distinct, but the whole damn room smelled like banana bread, so I just sat there, dumb-struck. His hands were around my size.

            I just sat there for a good ten minutes, confused and worried. I couldn’t tell Cherie just then what I thought, cause I couldn’t afford to let her know I had been smelling Sunshine’s neck. It was already an impossible feat to convince her that I wasn’t crazy. If I told her, she’d also make me talk to that detective again and would probably come with me, so I couldn’t play the part of mentally incapacitated and then I’d be in trouble.

            Watching the clock’s hand revolve, I stared at Marbles with a hatred I’d never known. Why the fuck was I in a crazy house with murderers? Why the fuck weren’t people like Marbles locked up at night like I was? I wasn’t even fucking crazy and they were letting a solid criminal play with clay all day and eat banana bread.

            I went the whole day without saying anything. I was scared, but I also figured that since everyone was sleeping in separate, locked rooms, there was no way that Marbles could hurt anyone for just this one night. I could spend the night thinking about how I would turn him in without being suspicious to Cherie or the detective. I could have a whole night for thinking.

                                    *                                  *                                  *

            My thinking that night only lasted about fifteen minutes before I fell asleep again. I’d finally gotten to shower and shave, which always calmed me down, and now I knew who the murderer was, and that he was locked in his room. After thinking about it for the whole day, it was even more reassuring that the killer wasn’t trying to target anyone in particular—he was just fucking nutts. He probably didn’t even know he was doing it. Probaby thought he was playing a game with Sunshine. Probably thought Sunshine was a giant block of clay.

            For the first time in a long while, I didn’t dream about my dad smoking lightbulbs. I instead dreamt about Cherie.

            We were not in the hospital. We were in what I guess was her house, because it was small and tidy and smelled good, just like her. She wanted to go on a picnic to a park, so I decided to dress up in a  suit. I was having tremendous difficulty putting on my cuff-links, but she came to my side and adjusted them properly for me, her eyes smiling up into mine.

            Then her front door wouldn’t open. It was like all these little disturbances had been set up just so I couldn’t take her to the park, and dear Lord, did I want to. I found a key on the ground and un-locked it, and when it swung open, the fresh air and blinding sunlight was almost too much.

            Her slender hand slid into mine and my heart leapt. We were walking and the grass felt smooth and slippery under my feet and we kept walking, looking at each other sheepishly, like two little kids in love or something, until we reached a beautiful hill surrounded by a black gate.

            I took her house-key and worked at un-locking it. It clicked open and made shuddering sounds as we pulled it apart.

            We ran up the hill as fast as we could.

            “I’ve always loved you, Charles,” she said, sitting down at the very tip of the hill. I sat down next to her. The hill was very spongey. I could see a whole city from up there, but I didn’t know which city it was. “I always knew you weren’t crazy.”

            My chest was pounding. “I’m not.” I could smell her intoxicating smell enveloping me.

            She leaned into kiss me, but pulled away at the last second.

            The sky turned darker and the hill sunk shorter.

            Her face was blurring away.

            “Cherie?”

            The sky got so dark, so drastically dark, and I felt myself getting smaller and Cherie getting larger.

            Her face warped back into distinction, but she was gone and I was starting into my dad’s eyes.

            I was scared shitless.

Then I got really fucking pissed off. I wanted Cherie back. I wanted her back that fucking second. I didn’t ever want to see him again in my life, and especially not now, right before I was going to kiss her. I wanted him dead.

            Lunging towards him, my hands grew larger and I took his bottle neck and began squeezing with all my might.

            “Big!”

            I was squeezing and squeezing and tears were coming out of my eyes until I felt four strong arms pull me back and I hit the hill with my head, but it was hard as stone.

            Opening my eyes, Cherie’s small nursing quarters melted into focus.

            She was standing in the corner now, gasping, as two of the security guards knocked me to the floor and began to strap my hands behind my back.

            She was crying.

            I realized that I was crying.

            Something sharp pierced my hand and I dropped a small paper-clip I’d been holding. My head was throbbing and my mind was racing.

            I couldn’t believe it.

            I’d almost killed her. I almost killed myself.

            I killed Sunshine.

                                    *                                  *                                  *

            I got moved to a whole new intensive lock-down psychiatric hospital after that. It was more for the criminally insane, and it was two entire states away from Cedar’s.

            I had been too skilled at getting out of places and slipping out of my wrist-locks, probably due to all the wild escapes I’d made as a kid. Even though it had been obvious that I killed Sunshine, they also linked me cause my self-invented shave lotion had been made from olive-oil and antiseptic. I had never noticed that it left a residue.

            The nurses hadn’t really wanted to move me, cause they knew I hadn’t meant it, but now I was a classified murderer and the courts ruled that I be sent to the killer looney bin.

            I wrote Cherie a lot of letters, but I never heard back. It was okay, though. I was sure she read them. She probably just wasn’t allowed to respond.

            In my new room, I had two windows. In Texas, the clouds were always fat and I’d even started learning how to paint. I’d gotten really good at painting, actually. I had a lot of solitary time on my hands now.

            The only thing that was ever hard for me to paint was the sunshine.