The biographer asked, “When did you realize that you were mad, Mrs. Hudson?”
Sally Hudson’s manacled feet prevented her from moving. She looked up at the small barred window above her head. “They told me,” she responded.
“Who were ‘they’?”
“The kids in school. Mad as a hatter,” they said.
Jean Blasiar is a published author (Charles River Press), playwright (Off The Wall Plays), short story writer and theatrical producer. One of Jean’s plays was optioned by 20th Century Fox for a pilot.
While filling the pockets of her overcoat with heavy stones, she idly mulls over her long-held belief that removing a writer’s demons can also take away those angels that create wondrous prose. “Well, it doesn’t matter now,” she thinks, wading deeper into the River Ouse. “The angels have abandoned me.”
Cherry’s father is in the garage by the workbench when she gets home. She’s made it a habit of at least saying hello to him after school.
Cherry’s dad suffers from depression. A cockroach infestation makes it worse. He can’t take it anymore.
Her father pulls the trigger, sprays insecticide.
Piles of mail and past due bills scattered all about
Empty boxes, notebooks, and bottles of pills all sprawled throughout
All part of her identity to claim and control
The constant source of structure she will never let go.
Worn and torn, it represents both her burdens and her strengths.
Despite his disintegrating mind, Frank knew the doctors were peddling a form of quicksand.
Earlier, he found a hidden note from his dear uncle; hastily scribbled whilst succumbing to similar sedation.
Frankie – you’ll see when they’re through,
They’ll make a monkey out of you.
He smiled wryly for the psychiatrist.
My mother leans into my father and points at the elderly man at the far end of the nursing home dining room. My father sports a baseball cap; the old man wears a fedora.
Over the clatter, and behind the shield of her other hand, mother asks, “Is that you?”
He was a handsome young man. In the counseling session he spoke of politics, love, plans for college.
I marveled at his many strengths.
Tentatively, he then announced that he’d written the Beatles’ songs.
He wept in painful awareness of the impossibility of false memories, the cruelty of his illness.
The dude called me away from the roof’s edge.
“Come back to life,” he said. “Journey back.”
Through eyes with tears, I said, “I didn’t ask to be born crazy.”
“To hell with bipolar disorder, Jonah,” the dude said. “We’re going to kill this damned whale together!”
I stepped back.
I watched from the doorway as she tossed around in our bed.
Her hair was tousled, and cheeks stained with tears.
I learned long ago that when she lost herself, I inevitably would lose her, too. But I wasn’t prepared for this losing battle with the demons inside her head.
An animated Lion raises one eyebrow while staring through him.
Does he run? Does he glare back?
Reality is always contorted for his abused, fragile mind. Even the Lion is dubious of his capacity.
Against the odds, he makes a dash to safety.
Maybe soon he will open his eyes.