(.nick.name.)
Hal
(.birth.date.)
13th of December
(.age.)
Nineteen
(.reason.for.admittance.to.asylum.)
Talking to Inanimate objects, depression.
The boy sits in his corner, playing gingerly with his fingers, ringing them around and around each other. He almost looks lost you could say, his piercing blue eyes wandering around, looking at nothing. It is almost as though they see nothing as they search his surroundings.. His eyes are as blue as ice, cold and hard, but in the depth of his cold blue eyes, flecks of golden honey lay softening his icy stare, softening it into something more innocent, something that fills you with warmth. Dragging your eyes away from the boys you start to study his hair. It is a soft brown, locks of soft hair falling to just above thick shoulders. His hair is elegant and still glows with youth. His fringe parts away to the side and is carelessly flicked across his forehead away from his eyes. The soft browns are mixed with dirty blondes and a darker brown that shine like a halo when he steps out into the sun
The boy still rings his fingers around each other as your gaze moves to study his face. He has a sad face. His eyes reflect how he looks. Lips turned down at the corners. The longer you stare at the boy, the older he becomes. 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19.You watch as his eyes, ever so sad, move restlessly. You watch his hands grow and become more calloused as move around one another, uncomfortable. You watch has small tears leak down his cheeks leaving salty trails of water streaks down his face. You don’t move. You just stare, stare at him.
[i] I have never been the social type, I like to keep to myself. I thought that if I kept to myself there will be no reason for people to single me out. I would be safe. But I was wrong. I never went to social events, I never played in other peoples groups. I never made myself visible, slipping away in the shadows, just how I like it. Just how it should be. Me tucked away from the rest of the world. But nothing ever goes to plan. Not now, not ever. All my life I told myself I was nothing but a shadow, that keeping me away from the eyes of my District would keep me safe. That was until I lost the ability to see… But I’ll get to that later.[i]
Ever since he was a small child, Hal was odd. It was only when his parents died of a terrible sickness six years ago that he developed his condition. Doctors say his mind might have been damaged by the same bug that took his parents, but the other children prefer to think that he was always this way. Enoch doesn't differentiate between the alive and the dead, the living and the inanimate. The boy is just as likely to be found conversing with a tree as he is a person; he's eager to hear the stories that the furniture tells. Because of this, he's often conflicting others on the facts and declaring that the histories recounted by the walls are true. He's friendly, although often tired - a result of staying up into the early hours letting his bedsheets pour out their woes or his floorboards chatter away. The other children in the house like Hal for his gentle and caring temperament - despite his frequent babbling, he's the best listener to be found within the walls of the asylum.
There are few people who remember the boy I was before my secret keeping days and those who do think of that child as an accidental dream — mountain fog and star-crossed smoke signals. I struggle with it too, recalling little more than the echo of smaller footfalls or the comforting lull of my mother's voice. She sang and I would dance, hip-shake turn tumble fully-body spin around the living room just so I could hear my father laugh at my antics, my little boy naivety mistaking his amusement for pride. Back then I was bad at understanding, too caught up in what was right in front of me to realize that deeper meanings were hiding beneath the surface. I'm better now, tuned into the whispering of everything that has ever waited to be heard.
As my parents faded away, I had to lean in so close to hear them speak and that was when I truly learned to listen, discovering through their deaths more life than I had ever known. Suddenly, the whole world was alive. I know that's backwards. So many people have told me — over and over and over — that I must've been turned inside-out when I was orphaned, because they think I've got it all wrong. Heartbeats do not belong to thin air and the skin of the dead possesses no memory for the sounds of voices, they say, but I can only smile knowingly in response. After all, I was once like them, deaf to the undercurrent of meaning within all things. My mother's last words did not fall short to the silence of her mouth and eternal stillness; they are a song that hums wild in the floorboards of our living room and if I could go there now, the melody would still haunt each creak as I turn in time to the ba-dum ba-dum oh la la la of her final breath.
Floorboards are the closest thing I have to a mother now and when I miss her the most I curl up against their wooden arms, quaking on my bedroom floor as I press my ear to the knots and whorls of the scuffed grain. I cannot hear her in them, not in this house of orphans, but the dancing patterns of the boards remind me more of her son's eyes than any reflection I've ever seen of myself in the bathroom mirror. Warm brown and always dizzy from too much spinning, cracked at the corners with his father's laughter. There's so much none of us remember, but these are things I'm terrified I'll forget.
Listening helps. Some trees know history lessons older than humans and so the days when I would ride my bicycle down the sidewalks of the suburbs are part of their recent memory. They recall my tousled hair — burnt sugar in the sunshine — and the squeak of the rusting peddles; it rained a lot that summer and I had a bad habit of abandoning my bike in the middle of the yard, too distracted by the beautiful green flourishing around me to put things away for safekeeping. Sometimes I worry that the only things I know how to appreciate are all temporary and that I'll never know I love something until it's gone. I really miss that bike, you know. That house. Those summer leaves... there were a lot of wonderful things in my life and I wish I'd have loved them better and really listened to their stories when I had the chance. I can't help feeling deprived now. Little by little I'm finding those missing pieces in the walls and stories of my new home and the mismatched family that took me in. The asylum.
(.likes.)
spiders, snakes, really high trees, small spaces, dark places, old faces, the stories that the walls tell me,first impressions, pens, birthday parties, big dogs, warmth, written words.
(.dis.likes.)
winning, thunderstorms, scissors, fire, the swimming pond, my parents ghosts, truth, remembrance, change, falling behind, wars, reality, fights, never conquering my fears, the others, death, night, silence, rocking chairs- their voices are like thunder.
spiders, snakes, really high trees, small spaces, dark places, old faces, the stories that the walls tell me,first impressions, pens, birthday parties, big dogs, warmth, written words.
(.dis.likes.)
winning, thunderstorms, scissors, fire, the swimming pond, my parents ghosts, truth, remembrance, change, falling behind, wars, reality, fights, never conquering my fears, the others, death, night, silence, rocking chairs- their voices are like thunder.