The Departure of Prudence, Lamentations on

When people ask me why I am in here, or how I ended up in here, or something in that vein, I have to bite my tongue. The notion that one simple answer is the simple answer you want to hear, is mathematically improbable and simply ludicrous. But it is what you want. Its what they want. Ok.

One of the exercises the doctors taught me is to connect memories. Things in the past that felt the same, and see if I can find common threads. Maybe a comfort food, or a trigger on the opposite spectrum. This is what I tell them, maybe it is what I should tell you, because I think, deep down, you are asking the same question.

When I was very young, six or seven, I lived in a big brown house with my parents. My room sat atop the castle (just to my eyes of course, a slightly larger than average house to most).

I'm sitting on the ground, the light from the glass refracts itself across my bare feet. Red runs up my legs, and blue down my foot. Light is everywhere in the room, as if the cracks in the window were stains. For a brief second, as I stand, the broken light falls around me and I am a peacock.

I'm walking. The cracks criss-cross the pane, radiating from the single hole. I don't, and didn't, know where this hole came from. Standing at the window; sticking my finger in the hole; pausing. Running my finger along the shards. I begin to bleed, I begin to cry. I never know why.

Blood is flowing. Tears are flowing. Red runs down my hand, Blue runs down my face. Fluids are everywhere on me, as if the clothes on my body was a drain. For a brief second, as I yell, the world falls around me, and I am not a kid.

The summer before junior year, I'm peddling hard as we race down the hill. Her weight isn't much and mine is far less, but combined we have a formidable and foreboding mass. We are flying downhill, fast. I'm sweating. Her thighs are tightly gripped around me, her feet firmly planted on the pegs, her hands in the air as she cries out in laughter and joy. We are passing cars, we are passing the passage of passing time.

Cyrus comes screaming up next to us, pacing us well. He throws his hands up and starts shooting roman candles from each hand, no hands on the handle bars. He is going to fast. His front wheel wobbles and it is all over. His bike goes flying out from under him and he falls face first onto the concrete. As he falls I take a roman candle blast to the face. The bike careens to the left. She is gone.

I am alone and on fire.

Two years ago, the night that put me in here for good, I see all five naked eye planets. Mars is the brightest, with distant Jupiter (king of the solar system) up and to the left. Mercury is left and high, Venus crosses neatly over the horizon. I'm Marveling as the waves crash and the fire climbs.

People behind me, also facing the water, let their conversations blend into one. My hood is pulled up over my baseball cap, and I'm turning sharply. I'm sprinting towards the street that runs parallel to the beach. I'm not yet sure if they have noticed the gun. Even though it is dark I know a keen eye can still spot danger. That is why evolution exits.

I'm in the street facing head on traffic. People are screaming, I'm smiling, this is going to be great. I lift the gun and point it at the car's windshield, the driver is running in terror towards the water. I pull the trigger and hear the gas release. The screaming subsides into booing as the paintball hits the cars windshield.

A few tough guys from the bar are running at me as someone calls the police. I'm laughing hysterically as I put that barrel in my mouth and pull the trigger. The blast knocks me on my ass, and hurt. I'm still laughing. The guys pick me up and hold me up as I spit down myself. The blue paint and red blood are now forming a purple paste. No one is quite sure what to do, or how to react. I'm laughing.

In a few minutes I'm being hand cuffed. The police roll up my cuffs and look at the top of my wrist. In reference to the five X's I carved onto my forearm, the officer asks, "What are these?"

I spit through purple paste and laughter, "The naked eye planets."

Today all the doctors and orderlies will ask me if I feel good. I'll tell them no. They will ask why and I will say because they wont let me leave. They will then continue to not let me leave until they like my answer better.

I tell them these memories connect and they get a worried look on their face, and we both know I'm not leaving for a while.

And still every week I have to answer the same question from some new relative out of the woodwork, "Why?"

They want the simple answer. I don't have it. I have the truth.