6 September 2013
They released me from St. Augustine’s nine months ago today. Gaunt. Haggard. Hair shorn like a sheep’s coat, thanks to one of my predecessors, who managed to hang herself from the rafters by her braids. Twelve years before I got there. They had been cropping the hair of all inmates since. At least that was what Mariska said, hair in god-awful spikes like mine, during one of her calmer moments in the back garden. The only outdoor space where some of the “lesser basket cases” were permitted to roam. Beneath gnarled, stunted poplars in the late-summer afternoons.
Shame she’s dead now. Cardiac arrest. Only thirty-six. Once beautiful.
If only the warders could see me now. None of them would recognize me. Gained a few curves since. Cheeks filled out again. Complexion no longer pinched or sallow. Porcelain veneers. Hair trimmed in soft waves, right below my shoulders. As it was when they first threw me on the boat to St. Augustine’s. I look feminine again. Nose is definitely an improvement. Dare I say refined? Ears finally pinned back. Chin and cheeks resculptured à la Venus de Milo. Lips a little fuller, thanks to hyaluronic acid. Tits perky and impressive, thanks to the joys of silicone padding.
The vanity tag, instead of the insanity tag, suits me better.
They stole seventeen years of my life. Seventeen fucking years. I can’t get them back.
But I can get my looks back.
And I will get my revenge.
7 September 2013
Raindrops slither down the windowpanes outside.
Darkness swallows them.
Terrible dream. The same one, too. Warders pressing down on me. Hands everywhere. Insistent. Restraining. Suffocating. Whirls of light above their heads. Shards of darkness everywhere. Stars dancing about as twinkling elliptical forms, like van Gogh’s Starry Night. But the stars are not whimsical. Nor are they playful. They conceal a malevolent presence. They harbor unforgiving hands. Hands forcing me down. Hands robbing me of my freedom.
Hands strangling me.
There are many consolations in being free. I can drink as much as I want. Shag anyone I want. Both drinking and shagging weren’t exactly routine occurrences at St. Augustine’s. Booze was only attainable if one had the appropriate means to bribe the orderlies. Shags were only achievable if one’s tastes were limited to women. Damaged women.
Plus I can type whatever I like into this little diary. No need to maintain a facade for the warders. A bloody charade. The pretense that my brain’s “normal.” So those little fuckers had been monitoring the contents of the iDiary they gave me. I ought to have written what they wanted to see. I wouldn’t have ended up spending seventeen years in St. Augustine’s. I would have cut my sentence short. I would have freed myself from their evil, restraining hands much earlier.
I should thank poor dead Mariska for the revelation. But better late than never.
We were in the back garden that day. Sunshine was streaming through the stunted poplars. Whitecaps were rippling across the ocean in the distance. She was sitting on the lawn, blade of grass in hand. Studying it with interest. As if she had never seen grass before.
How are you? I asked, deciding to make conversation. She gave me a silent, scornful glance. Began twirling the blade of grass in her fingers. Slowly at first. Then rapidly.
As well as I can be, she said. What about you, sweetheart?
What do you think? I said.
Aren’t we both on fire? she shot back, aiming a searing glare at the poplars. The ones that grew around the island’s perimeter, standing between us and freedom.
Then she leaned forward, a conspiratorial glint in her eye, before tossing the blade of grass back down on the lawn.
Overheard two warders discussing your case late yesterday night, she said. How Sophia’s unique. How Sophia’s different.
I always knew I was special, I said.
You don’t write in the iDiary they’ve given you, she continued with narrowed eyes.
I don’t bother with diaries, I agreed.
Why not? She tossed her question at me with a nonchalant shrug of her shoulders. But curiosity glimmered on her face.
No need to, I said.
But don’t you want to hold on to your past? Facts that may matter in the future? She raised a quizzical eyebrow at me, running her fingers through her shorn hair. Everyone keeps diaries, sweetheart. Because everyone needs a few vital facts about themselves. Because everyone needs something from the past.
I pointed to my head.
The facts are right there, I said. All of them. I still remember everything that happened to me after the age of twenty-three.
She cocked her head, staring at me with interest. Digesting my words. Perhaps even taking them seriously. Most inmates of St. Augustine’s tended to do so. After all, we had to live with each other’s plagues. Paranoia. Schizophrenia. Hallucinations. Delusions. Psychotic episodes. We had to suffer together. No way of bailing out. Not when we were locked up together on a wretched island.
How nice to have it all in your head, Mariska said. Deadpan. Couldn’t tell if she was being sarcastic. Hope you didn’t mention this superhuman ability of yours to the warders, sweetheart.
I snorted.
Why would I even think of doing so? I said.
Good, she said. Because three inmates who bragged to the warders that they have full memories are now six feet underground at the far end of the island. A rather inconvenient fact for them.
I narrowed my eyes in the direction she pointed, past a gnarled poplar swaying in the wind.
What happened to them? I asked.
No one knows, she said with a shrug. Or maybe no one really wants to know. Because my diary says the warders hushed everything up afterwards, making sure no one raised the subject. So you really ought to write in your diary, sweetheart. Every night. Like everyone else. Like a normal person. Like me.
Waste of time, I said with a sniff.
Not a waste of time, she said. Not a waste at all. The warders are also reading our iDiaries.
You’re fucking kidding me, I said.
Mariska rolled her eyes. Threw me a pitying look. As if I was the stupidest person she’d ever met.
The warders have our fingerprints, she said. They monitor our diary entries for continued signs of lunacy. Or for promising markers of normalcy. Even though the difference between lunacy and normalcy, as we both know, is slight. If you wish to be free, you should at least try to appear normal. By writing a diary, sweetheart. The sooner you do so, the sooner you’ll be out of here. Deinstitutionalized. You do wish to be free again, don’t you? She chuckled, a hoarse rumble at the base of her throat. After being locked away in purgatory for so long, the only way out of here is either in a coffin or a boat. You still have a chance at getting a return ticket. If you play your diary card right.