:a u r e l i a:

Arrival was standard, I suppose, from what I've seen on TV. There were a few forms for Gustav and I to fill out, handed to us by the sickeningly optomistic left-handed secretary, and I went on my way. The woman, she explained to me that because of my circumstances, I would be under lock down after a certain time, and that — following standard psychiatric treatment procedures — I'd be watched very carefully for behaviour for the next seventy-two hours. Three days. Three days I, and the other patients, would be under close watch. It wasn't like I didn't understand, or like I wasn't used to it. People watched me all the time. An Italian resident of Sweden isn't exactly the most common sight. On top of that, it wasn't my first time going through the seventy-two hour watch. Before I had come to the Murder Therapy Asylum, I had been in a hospital where I was kept until I could get a transfer to a more suitable facility. I suppose that's standard as well, too. Then again, nothing about my situation could really be called 'standard'. I killed my mother. I killed seven other people, mostly women, that they were aware of. I stopped counting after a while, but I was sure that they were missing at least two or three, but who was I to correct them. Part of me wondered how I could have just killed them so easily. The human life is such a fragile thing, and it's so easy to disrupt its flow. It was so easy to end it. That thought was so abstract that I'd found my mind wandering toward it whenever I was alone with my easel. There were so many paintings of mine based on that very subject, enough to fill the bottom of my closet back at home.

Luckily, my painting supplies weren't considered 'dangerous weapons', except for the knives, which it's true could be used to kill someone, but I'd never defile art with the blood of a tainted human being like that. Never. Art is meant to be the purest expressions of ones mind, hence the reason that there's no wrong way to create it. It has to come from the heart, and as long as it does, it's beautiful. At least, that's how I see it.

The way I see it, someone had created the Murder Therapy Asylum as an expression of their heart to help those that they believed had a second chance. It was like... a home for the criminally insane, though how insane could any of us be? Sick, yes, but insane is just another term for radically different. I suffered chronic depression and anxiety, two things that made me different from most people that I knew, and I was practically normal until you added the fact that I enjoyed watching peoples' faces as they died and imagining them as my mother, repenting in her bloody death for everything she'd ever done to me. Yeah, that was what made me insane. Radically different, if you will. It was why I stood there in the hall, several bags gathered at my feet, watching Gustav leave me there, his car speeding off down the driveway. He was my last connection to mia madre, and in the fact that she was the last connection to mio padre, Gustav was also indirectly the last connection to him as well. There was this lump forming in the pit of my stomach as I watched the bright red Sunfire speed off down the driveway without hesitation. Elise hadn't even bothered to come along to say goodbye to me. That, in and of itself, was heartbreaking, and though I'm prone to tears at the slightest twinge of sadness, I didn't cry for this.

It just wouldn't have felt right.

:v e r a:

Silly Vera, troughs are for horses.

My laptop sat open on the left side of my desk and I stared blankly at the screen. Where had that thought come from just now? Who's to say, really; my thoughts came and went like summer breezes and such, so I never really dwelled on them that much. I didn't really have time. I had too much work to do as the secretary, more than I thought I would... all this checking in and answering phone calls, signing and forwarding papers to their proper owners. Mailing things, faxing things, recieving mail and faxes and phone calls, then returning all these things. When it got hectic, it was hectic, and when it was boring.... I put my feet up on the clean right side of my desk, turning just so in my swivelling chair to keep my legs from actually being on my right side. My heart skipped to think of whatever could be on my right, and not in the good sort of way. I don't know why, but I've always been afraid of things on my right. I mean, not always because it had to start somewhere.... I'm scared enough that I can't even write with my right hand, even though most lefties have really bad hand writing. Mine is... okay, but it's not the best either. I started writing with my left hand in the fifth grade, and I was still trying to get used to it. Some things just take time. A lot of time. Like getting comfortable in a sleeping bag when you're camping out on a mountain and there's a rock right under your spine. Do you know that feeling? You don't want to. It sucks.

I helped the Italian boy sign in and explained to him the seventy-two hour watch system, which he claimed he understood, and went back to sit in my chair. I could see the look in his eyes... not just the repentance and perhaps regret, but also the fact that he wasn't exactly sure about me. I smiled to myself, squeezing a foam stress ball in my right hand so hard that it was oozing between my fingers, releasing it, then squeezing it again. It was a therputic activity that I was supposed to do in my spare time to excersize the thought of having something on my right. Walls and other inanimate objects of the sort were just fine, I wasn't afraid of having empty desk space or an office lamp that was screwed down next to me — however, potentially threatening (and also harmless, but I suppose I didn't have to point that out) objects like paper, staplers, forks, pencils, pens, people, computers, food, plates, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, couldn't even come near me on the right, or else I'd have a panic attack and that's never fun. Still, I didn't have to stress myself about watching the little foreign kid as his step father left him, not even looking back. He had so many bags with him, like he was prepared to stay awhile.... I felt bad for him. I really did. My parents were a little more than upset with me about being the failure of the family, but I'd never wanted to kill one of them, and neither of them had ever turned their back on me like that before. As far as I knew, I was still their son, even if I dressed like their daughter, and they still loved me. Even if they were disappointed, I still had that.

I looked up when one of the nurses brought in a young woman sporting bright orange hair, which techincally one would consider, but that was just too orange to really be red, anyway. I watched her from behind the safety of my plexiglass and then reached for my clipboard. I had already properly filed the paperwork on Sebastiano Aurelia Marcelina Valius-Oxenstierna because I'm a neat freak like that, and had loaded up the necessary required forms for my documents. Still squeezing the stress ball, I made my way out to her as quietly as possible, so as not to disturb the Italian, and held the board out to her. "Excuse me, Miss, I'm going to need you to fill out these forms for your admission." After being rid of the board, I used my one hand to clear my dress — which was powder pink for today with mauve trim, fell just below my knees and worked perfectly with the flats I'd picked out because I wasn't used to heels just yet — and smiled brightly like I wasn't afraid of her jumping up and stabbing me in the face with the pencil. Seriously, the same thoughts were running through my mind while signing in the Italian — I'd been squeezing onto my stress ball just as furiously then as I was now, and I wasn't letting up. "Do you need me to explain the seventy-two hour watch, or are you already familiar with this?"