For Clover

[Clover]

de·tain

/diˈtān/

to keep (someone) in official custody, typically for questioning about a crime or in politically sensitive situations

“she was detained for seventy-two hours”

---

It’s my word of the day. I don’t have access to much, but I have a dictionary. Don’t ask me about citations; let’s just pretend I’m that intelligent. The damn book doesn’t have a cover anyway. It’s missing most of the pages or covered in layers of crayon or marker. At least I’m not on lockdown anymore. At least I’m not in prison anymore. At least I’m not another menace on the street. Isn’t that right, Judge Bright?

The doctors testified on my behalf and then they dragged me out of a cell to put me right back into one. In some ways, this place is worse than prison. I’m a risk. I’m on suicide watch. I’m so fucked up that I can’t even have a roommate. I’m that scary girl at the very back of the ward, right near the emergency exit. I feel like I’m under someone’s microscope. The other guys and girls tell me to play nice and pretend I’m making progress, but I’m not sick.

Laugh at me. Tell me I haven’t started treatment and I’ve got a long way to go. I know what I saw. I know what I felt. It wasn’t a psychotic break and these pills won’t help. The man made me do this. I’ve already given a sketch artist a description. The man’s picture is on my file. It’s the picture that has these crazy doctors thinking I’ve got dissociative identity disorder or schizophrenia.

I wonder how many others have this same problem. How many of them are just like me, perfectly sane? And then I see the ones slapping themselves and tugging at their clothes. I’ve seen a girl crush her food and snort it up her nose--she told me she had to feed her mind. None of it compared to the scene in the showers. The boy had ripped the soap dispenser from the wall and swallowed ten ounces of the bubbly stuff.

Everyone listens, but they don’t hear anything. Or maybe it’s the other way around. I’m not saying that I’m entirely innocent. I know what I did. I’m saying I know what I saw. He made that happen. He made me kill them. I don’t know what happened after the--

I don’t want to talk about it anymore. Chalk this up to another therapy session. I’m seeing their eyes, the tiny vessels in their eyes. I had such clarity in that moment. I saw everything as I sliced through them like butter.

I didn’t want to do it, but he made me want to do it. It was by my hand, but it wasn’t my sword and it wasn’t my will. It sounds archaic, doesn’t it?

Sometimes I wake up and I’m right back to that day. I’m sitting on my bare mattress, staring at that ******* yellow wall. And then I see the red all over again. I see red. Red. Blood. Anger. I was so angry.

It was him. Look at the picture in my file. I know you’re reading this. I know you have access to the file. Look again.

[Clover]

nee·dle

/nēdl/

a fine piece of metal with a pointed end

“the nurse jammed a needle into her arm”

---

There’s a circular bruise around the hole in my arm. I know I’m making it sound worse than it is, but it’s a hole. If I squint, I swear I can see right into my body. Or I could have seen right into my body. The scab formed over the actual hole, creating a red center in the midst of a purple circle. Eventually, it’ll turn yellow. Yellow, just like the walls of my old bedroom.

I had a therapy session. No one calls it a therapy session though; they call those sessions “meetings.” The doctor sat on one side of the cherrywood desk, two nurses along his right side, and I sat on the other side of the desk. The doctor stared down his nose at me and asked me how I slept. I didn’t even get a chance to answer. The nurses did all the talking for me. They told the doctor I seemed depressed. They said I hardly slept. How would they know when they never checked on me? Were their cameras in the bedrooms?

And then he asked me the same question everyone else asked me. He asked me if I remembered that night outside the Necropolis. When I told him that I only remembered the sound of the blade and the overwhelming anger, he clicked his tongue and the two nurses began scribbling on their notepads. They brought up scientific names of drugs, brand-name drugs, and then strict dietary requirements.

They decided that I had an anger management problem. They still couldn’t decide between a one-time psychotic break or schizophrenia, but the doctor swayed one of the nurses to his diagnosis. Just like that, I was schizophrenic. Clover wasn’t even my name anymore. I guess I lost that when they gave me this damn wristband. (It itches like crazy.) I’m patient C.O. 135. That’s my first initial, my middle initial, and my room number.

How long am I going to be here? The others told me never to ask that question or the doctor would say that I wasn’t focusing on recovery but escape. What’s wrong with escape? How can I recover from something that’s not a problem? Whatever happened is a one-time thing. It’s never going to happen again. I’ll make sure it never happens again.

I’ll find that asshole.

[Clover]

sun·shine

/sŭn′shīn′/

sunlight unbroken by the clouds

“sunshine came through the layers of dust and grime”

---

When I was seven years old, I had a pink bicycle with multicolored streamers and a shiny silver bell. Chingching. It annoyed the hell out of my mom, but it made my dad laugh. Dad loved it because he was the one that found the bike and secured the silver bell just over the right handlebar. Before my eighth birthday, Mom sold my bike to a neighbor kid and gave me a puzzle book instead. Dad bought me another bike the following week.

My parents were always at odds. Either they were fighting or they were using my sister and me to win some unspoken competition. If Mom didn’t have a heart attack, I’m sure the fighting would have continued into their senior years. After her passing, Dad just wasn’t the same. We turned our kitchen table into a junk table and ate all our meals in front of the television. Most of the meals consisted of takeout or fast food, not that June or I complained. I loved pepper steak and fried rice, while June preferred cheese pizza or soft tacos. When Dad started driving a truck, I started looking after the house. He mailed the money and I took care of the bills.

I miss him a lot. I’m twenty-six years old and I miss my dad. It’s crazy, right? I should be missing June more than anything, but I miss him. He’d know what to say or what to do. He’d help me. He’d believe me.

I remember when June ran away and Dad drove all the way back from Vancouver to try and find her. If Dad were around, June would have never been here. She would have been in college. She would have been living in a dormitory with hundreds of other young adults, majoring in English or French. She loved the languages.

I’m supposed to be writing about my family life. I was going to blow off this assignment, but it’s not too bad. Maybe it’s the fact that I got the window seat and the sunshine’s made its way through the bars and layers of dust and grime. Even the windows have metal wires running through the glass. Or maybe it’s between the glass. Or maybe it’s not glass at all.

Whatever they gave me is making my head thump in time with my heartbeat. Thumpthump. Thumpthump. The words on the page are blurring and melding together in one endless sentence. Hah. Maybe I’m a writer too.

The only family I have left is an aunt living in Maine. I haven’t heard from her in ten years. Zach hasn’t even called the hospital. He hasn’t even tried to visit. He probably thinks I’m crazy. He’s said it enough times.

What if I never get out of here?

Who would notice?

I’m all alone.

[Clover]

pal·pate

/pal′pāte/

to examine by touch

“the nurse began by palpating the area” (idfk)

---

More blood drawn. The guy, since it was a guy this time, told me the doctor wanted to check the levels of medication in my blood, but I think it’s just to piss me off. The level of medication doesn’t matter when I don’t need the medication. Today’s writing prompt is about compassion and the power of forgiveness. The longer I’m in here, the worse I get. I’m feeling more and more like the psycho from that night. Even worse, I’m forgetting what he looks like. Was he tall or short, fat or skinny?

Compassion and forgiveness. I’ll never forgive this hospital and its staff for keeping me here like a dog in a kennel. I do feel compassion for a couple of the other patients.

I wanted to quit after those sentences, but I can’t leave the group room until the therapist gets her rocks off on my newfound enlightenment. Those were her words with a little added sarcasm. So I’m sitting here, right next to the heating and air-conditioning unit, freezing my *** off. The seal between the unit and the windows must have cracked and deteriorated a long time ago. I can feel every passing breeze. I should have picked the chair next to the door, but I didn’t want to sit next to the Alzheimers guy. He smells like mothballs.

If I’m supposed to be writing about compassion and forgiveness, why don’t the families forgive me? Why doesn’t the justice system forgive me? What about compassion? Hypocrites. It’s not easy, is it? Exactly. It’s. Not. Easy. But it’s not impossible. Forget that last part. It’s optimism and it isn’t allowed in this hospital.

I know I wasn’t supposed to ask about my release, but I overheard the nurses at the nurses’ station talking about release dates. They named three patients and their dates, and then I heard my name. They actually laughed. The doctor laughed. I heard a woman say that I refused to cooperate and I had months, if not years, of anger management before I ever had a chance at release.

The Angry Man will be gone by then. He could be gone now. How many other lives has he ruined or taken? I’m the only one that knows the truth about that night. If any of the stories I’ve heard are connected to the Angry Man, then there’s a lot of work left.

One man here, Carp, says he followed a nest of people just like the Angry Men. He said the members drove him mad and blamed a series of disappearances on him. He said he was charged with five counts of murder. I know he’s lying about the murder convictions, but he’s right about the number of disappearances. He’s also accurate with the feeling he experienced. He felt out of control. He lost his marbles and picked them all back up again.

Compassion and forgiveness. The definition of those words revolve around the word useless. Writing prompt complete.

[Clover]

ma·ca·bre

/muh-kah-bruh/

gruesome; horrifying; dealing with death

“nothing described the macabre scene”

---

I can’t even shower alone. Last night, a girl lingered too long in the showers and a nurse went in to retrieve the girl. Do you see where this is going? The girl had stabbed herself over and over again with a pen she managed to steal from one of the staff members. No one knows how the theft happened--all the staff have to deposit their belongings before entering the floor now.

Back to the girl. She said she needed to get the monster out of her body. I heard her screaming about a monster for almost forty-five minutes before two male orderlies held her down and pumped her full of meds. There were bloody footprints all over the bathroom tiles and speckled hallway tiles. A bloody smear led from in front of the girl’s door to the girl’s bed. The cleaning crew spent most of the night mopping up blood and sanitizing surfaces.

Because of that mess and the new rules, the word of the day’s macabre. I haven’t heard that word since high school, but it fits. It describes the rust-like smell of blood and the way her bloody arms flailed around as the orderlies dragged her by her upper arms. Kicking. Screaming.

We’re all reduced to sheep. The girl didn’t even have any clothes on. No one noticed. She didn’t try to cover herself. No one cares. We’re all below the staff. We aren’t human. I’m just drawing on straws now, since I know it’s **** here. I know you know it’s **** here.

There was one other thing. Carp disappeared. He went to bed with the rest of us and then he never came out of his room. The window wasn't open. The ward's locks weren't broken. His roommate said the aliens came and took Carp away. Can you believe that? Aliens.

[Clover]

re·mem·ber

/ri-mem-bər/

to recall; to bring back to awareness

“remembering that night is especially difficult”

---

June liked to dye her hair blonde. She looked like a prostitute, but I always lied and told her she looked pretty. I didn’t have the heart to tell her the truth. She spent hours on her hair and she looked like ****. Mom had blonde hair. I don’t think she remembers much about our mom though. She was too young.

The Angry Man took more than my sister and my freedom. He took my past and my future. I wake up kicking and screaming, so they’ve started sedating me. I’m remembering more and more. It’s hard to sleep. Whenever I close my eyes, even to blink, I see Karla, Celine, and Eva. And June. I see them. They’re angry, just as angry as I am--I mean just as angry as I was.

I thought I lost it and slaughtered them all, but we were all fighting. We were all punching and kicking and slapping and scratching. I remember my arms being covered in blood. It wasn’t all their blood. I have scars on my knuckles and white lines along my forearms. They attacked me and I attacked them. We couldn’t have lost it all at the same time when we were perfectly fine just before. He flipped a switch.

I only remember his smile and his eyes. He knew what he had done and he had some sick pleasure, or maybe he just lost it, like us. I don’t know if he’s human. Maybe he is an alien. Maybe he’s infected! He’s infected.

Rage.

Carp disappeared because he knew too much. Maybe the disappearances are because people knew too much. If I’m not careful, I’ll disappear. But isn’t it better than here? Isn’t anything better than here?

I sound batshit right now. Pacing and muttering and pausing and writing. I want out of this place. I don’t care how the Angry Man did what he did or why he did what he did; I’m still going to find him, wherever he is. Why did he choose me? Why did I have to live? It’s times like now that I wish I were religious.

[Clover]

ab·scond

/ab-skänd/

to secretly escape; to escape without attracting attention

“the patient absconded from the floor”

---

It’s raining right now. I can’t see anything beyond the water flowing down the windows. I’d given anything to be out there, but I’ll settle for being off suicide watch. Instead of bulky crayons, I get colored pencils. I don’t have someone breathing down my neck. I can keep my journal to myself. I get phone calls. I get open visiting hours from eight to six. It doesn’t sound like much to an outsider, but it’s everything in this place.

The doctor says I imagined everything. He keeps repeating that over and over. It doesn’t matter that the witnesses noticed another person. It doesn’t matter that Zach heard the whole thing. I had the weapon. I have to admit my guilt before I can move forward with treatment. I have to make up some ******** story and pour out my feelings. The nurses and counselors stopped trying to force some change. I don’t know what they expect. They hear me crying every night. I take sleeping pills to get rest.

I’m leaving here soon. Don’t think it’s a release from the hospital. These people will never let me go, not even if they had the chance. I’m breaking out. The doors on the floor open three times for meals and twice for the cleaning crew. Other than that, there’s a backdoor for the nurses and doctors. The back door leads into the floor’s office, so that’s out. The office is encased in glass and everyone sees into the room. I’d be spotted and punished, maybe even moved to a more secure hospital.

No, I’ll be going right out the front doors. I’ve run once. Why not a second time?

[Clover]

car·ni·vore

/kärnəvôr/

a flesh-eating animal

“have you seen my carnivorous plant?”

---

Have you noticed that I focused on myself more than anyone or anything else? It’s my journal. For example, I’m going to focus on Zach. He visited me for the first time. It was a few hours ago, right after lunch, and he brought me some dimestore flowers and a couple of outfits. He had to take the laces out of my sneakers and leave my belts behind, but he looked proud of himself. He also looked scared.

We followed one of the nurses toward the main room and the woman made herself comfortable in a chair by the door--Zach and I took a seat on a couch. I lowered the volume on the television and he tried to look anywhere but at me. He looked at the floor. He looked out the windows. He looked toward the wall of videos and books. I didn’t bother saying anything because I knew enough about him to read his expression. He was scared of the place and its inhabitants, but he was absolutely terrified of me. He didn’t want to be near me.

Clover. He sounded tired when he said my name, as if avoiding me and my predicament had made him tired. I’ll never forget the tone. I wanted him to hold me. I wanted him to stroke my hair and tell me that I could cry on his shoulder or in his arms. He just bent forward and covered his face with his hands. He wanted me to comfort him? I’m not sure. He sure as hell didn’t want me touching him. He flinched when I touched his shoulder.

“What the hell were you thinking?”

“What happened?”

“Is this because of the fight?”

“Why didn’t you just talk to someone?”

“What did they say to you?”

“Where did you get a sword?”

The last of his questions actually made me laugh. He looked at me as if I were some kind of monster. That just made me laugh more.

I was thinking I needed a night out with my sister and my friends. I lost myself in some induced haze of red, absolute anger. (It’s really hard to describe, you see.) Was it all because of him? That’s what he really wanted to know. It’s all about him. It’s always about Zach! Praise, Zach! Well, it wasn’t because of the fight. I wasn’t even angry about that, not anymore.

I didn’t talk to someone because there was nothing to talk about. I was perfectly fine. I wanted to have a few drinks, maybe a lot of drinks, and enjoy my free time. What did they say to me? What did they say after my hearing turned into the sound of my heart thundering in my ears? Who knows. I don’t know. Their lips were moving. My lips were moving.

Where did the sword come from? I had a sword. It just happened to get into my hands. I can’t say that it came from the Angry Man, not for sure. I blame him, but I could be wrong. I could have found a sword, for all I know. Was it a sword at all? Maybe the charges were trumped up by Harper Rock’s finest. I never did like cops.

When I sat there, refusing to answer his questions, he started cursing at me. He started saying the most horrible things. And then we were arguing all over again. He told me that he should have known I was a crazy *****. He told me he couldn’t find anyone in the city that hadn’t heard about my actions and his connection with me. Poor him. Poor Zachary.

He told me that all of the girls had closed-casket funerals because of me. He described how their bodies looked. He started talking about my sister and how horrifying she looked. He’d had to identify her body. He didn’t get to say much more about her. I reached out and tried choking him. I had my hands around his throat. If it weren’t for the nurse pulling me away from him, I might have choked him until his eyes popped out of his head!

The nurse gave me a choice to continue with the meeting. She’d heard the whole thing. She told Zach to cool down or she’d end the visit right there. He apologized. I apologized. I chose to sit in a chair across from the couch though. I didn’t want him near me, and I’m sure he didn’t want me near him.

He told me he sold the apartment and put most of my items into storage. When I asked him about the money, he said it went toward the attorney costs. He said he was done handling everything. He’d done more than enough. More than I deserved. He’d said more than enough to hint that we weren’t together. He didn’t care that much. I was a murderer, even if I wasn’t exactly convicted. He couldn’t love me, same person or not.

I didn’t have anything else to say. He didn’t have anything else to say. We sat there for twenty minutes, neither of us saying a word. It was stupid to think that he’d offer some kind of comfort. The whole time I was waiting for him to visit, I thought of him as some kind of home, someone and somewhere I could depend on for relief. He was still the same dickhead.

Before he left, he told me he wouldn’t be visiting me anymore. He left the storage information with the hospital staff and my attorney. He tried giving me a hug or a kiss on the cheek, but he kept stopping short.

Maybe the word of the day should have been cannibal.

He’s just that type of guy.

[Clover]

id·i·ot·ic

/idēätik/

incredibly stupid; unintelligent

“look at that idiotic woman”

---

Carp’s roommate disappeared.

I’m not sure what to think. The guy kept muttering and clicking his tongue. He swore he could speak to aliens. He said that they were his friends and they were coming to take him away. Well, someone took him away. The guy was too doped up to break out. This time, I heard that the window was open. The bars were torn apart and covered in a layer of blood. It looked like someone had ripped him through the window, like his bones pried the bars apart and his body broke through the glass.

I told my doctor that I thought it was something. Not a person. Not a human, at least. That’s probably why the nurses locked me in my room. I believe it now. I really believe.

There are others. The real idiots, the real psychos, are the nonbelievers. That’s the truth. It took being locked up in this place to realize the truth. We’re going to keep disappearing. We’re going to keep blacking out and forgetting chunks of our lives. We’re cattle. We’ll probably wake up covered in scars or missing limbs.

I can’t say I know what they want from us, or what they are, but I know that’s what’s going on here. Harper Rock is a cesspool.

I’m reconsidering an escape plan. Even if two people have disappeared, isn’t it safer here than out there? Or maybe we’re all infected with something and we’re just waiting to turn. We’re all destined to be red. We turn into people like the Angry Man and we feed on the ones that resist, ones unlike ourselves.

We’re on borrowed time. Tickticktick

[Clover]

om·i·nous

/ämənəs/

threatening; inauspicious

“the ominous clouds foretold my death”

---

I saw it again. Just outside of my window. It’s him. I can’t be sure, but I think he’s hunting me. He’s just waiting for the right moment to break into my room and snap my neck. I thought it would be beneficial, if only for humor’s sake, to tell my doctor. That got me solitary time. So much for a sense of humor and an understanding of human beings.

Back to the man. I’ve seen lots of people, hundreds of people. I’ve seen them stalking past my window at all hours of the day and night. I’ve seen suspicious sorts. This one, this man, was entirely unlike the rest. I saw him grab a woman from behind and drag her into the shadows. I saw it all from within my four walls. I didn’t know what to do, so I panicked. I couldn’t get the words out. I tried screaming and pointing. I tried jabbing my index finger at the glass. No one noticed the man or the way the light reflected off his predatory eyes.

That’ll be me. He’ll scale the wall, tear the bars from over my window, break the glass, and rip me from my bed. I’ll be another Jane Doe. That’ll be me. I’ll be in more pieces than my friends and sister combined. White walls smeared with blood and bleach-scented floors layered in shredded flesh.

I don’t want to die, not like that. I’ve seen him though. Sometimes he just stands there. Sometimes he paces back and forth. I’ve seen his shadow crawling along the walls and ceiling of my room. I can’t tell if it’s real or a side effect.

Ominous. That’s a good word for today. It’s a condensed version of the fact that I need to get the hell out of here before I lose what’s left of my mind.

And he’s back again. He’s just standing there. Now he’s waving, and I’m waving back. He’s going to kill me, just like the others. Disappearances. Broken windows. I’m next. I’m next and I know it. He’s waiting for me. If I do it myself, I can forget it all. No scaling the wall. No tearing the bars. No breaking the glass. No ripping me from my bed.

No Angry Man. No seeing my sister’s face as I dig the sharpened edge of the blade into the side of her head. It’s at an angle, so I only slice part of her head off. The first swing was so messy. I have to do it again to get the rest of her head. By then, it’s really a blood bath. So much red. So much blood.

She’s gone. They’re all gone. It’s just me. Me and the Angry Man. Me and the man below my window. He’s going to kill me.

How many of them are there?