The Carousel

Schizophrenia

Pronunciation: /ˌskitsəˈfrēnēə//ˌskitsəˈfrenēə/

NOUN

1A long-term mental disorder of a type involving a breakdown in the relation between thought, emotion, and behavior, leading to faulty perception, inappropriate actions and feelings, withdrawal from reality and personal relationships into fantasy and delusion, and a sense of mental fragmentation.

“Nothing complements something exceptional quite like the calloused fingers of rust do. Remember George, everyone has rust, you just have a little more than everyone else." Thatʼs what my grandfather told me one night when the world was just a little too much to bear. I was too young to understand and I wanted it to stay that way forever. But then one muggy day in June, I sat in the middle of that godforsaken park with nothing but a bogus carousel for company. Now donʼt take this the wrong way, it wasnʼt anything to rival Holden Caulfield's, but it did have an unusually odd air about it. Perhaps it was the way the horses appeared to have just seen a branding iron, or the way all the light bulbs were missing from their lonely sockets.

Either way it was enough to make you think.

So there I was, glued to the park bench by the carousel, when the air seemed to have condensed around me. 

I wanted so badly to make that blasted whirligig go again.

I imagine it must have been a sensation similar to that of a mother having just discovered her miscarriage. At this point, the five stages were already spreading a comprehensive rot throughout my core. I figure I must have been around the tail end of number four, "depression", when that remarkable little troll shuffled into the epilogue of my life. All chestnut ringlets and olive-green eyes that bulged out between peppered freckles, he was an extraordinary sight to behold. I took one look and I knew we were but opposite sides to the same coin. "Hi." he mumbled as he swung a chubby leg onto the bench and hoisted himself up next to me. "Hello there." I offered. For some peculiar reason, unbeknownst to me, the natural "Where are your parents?" response escaped me that day. Instead I fumbled with the buttons on my shirt while he played with a few rocks he promptly emptied from his pockets. "What happened to the merry-go-round?" he asked with his attention still firmly fixed on the rocks. I cleared my throat and tried to speak but I found myself unable to answer the small stranger sitting next to me. "I donʼt know." I told him, because not knowing seemed like an incredibly liberating sensation to have. "Why." he said, rather less like a question and more like a statement.

"I donʼt know." I insisted.

"But why."

"I just donʼt know okay?!"

By this time, he was busy carving his signature into the grain of the bench with one of his funny rocks.

"Why." he said calmly, clearly not bothered by what I considered to be a very heated conversation.

That was right about when I relapsed back into stage number two.

"Be-BECAUSE I BURNED IT DOWN!" I choked, rising quickly from the bench and staggering a few paces towards the carousel. "I burned it down." The words felt like ashes on my tongue. I made a quick attempt to swallow the lump in my throat, but to no avail.

"Why."

And this time I really didnʼt have a logical explanation for him.

"I donʼt know."

He didnʼt challenge me, so I went on.

"Sometimes I donʼt know whatʼs real and what is not. I mean itʼs all real to me, but no one else can see it."

He nodded in response as if somehow he knew exactly what I meant.

"Me too. I always play outside with my friend Ava but Momma says I shouldnʼt pretend."

I chuckled and began to tell him that I thought my problem was a little different when he interrupted me and yelled "Look! Thereʼs Ava now!" as he pointed excitedly at the carousel.

And she certainly was. Bright eyed, giggling, and weaving through the horses and the circus animals. She motioned for me to join her, but I was rooted where I stood. I continued watching as she strolled about the carousel, swinging on the poles and humming the tune to "I've Been Working on the Railroad". She looked good there, among the rust and the haunted creatures. It suited her, unlike the way my rust treats me. The boy abandoned his rocks and tottered over to join Ava. I began to debate between whether the local parents had a very short attention span, or simply that children were just requiring less supervision those days. I watched them trample about for a while, because part of me felt like at least someone should have been there to make sure they were alright. However, as time went on, I began to wonder if they were there to make sure I was the one who was alright. They stopped to wave at me with flushed faces and sweaty curls. I waved back as they frolicked into the foliage, hands clasped tightly together. "Hey wait!" I shouted, dashing after them into the humid woods. I swear I looked for hours but I could not find them anywhere. I returned to the bench, deflated and frankly still quite concerned for their well-being. But they were gone and I had to begrudgingly accept the fact that I had lost them. I had already lost my place as an equal human being, I had lost my identity and then I lost two innocent children to top it all off. Suddenly, I noticed those rough, unshapely letters scratched into the seat of the bench. My stomach heaved with one of those sickening flips that you get when the elevator starts to go down. Six letters that said more than just a name screamed up at me. "G" for giving in to reality. "E", for erasing all the lies I had told myself. "O", for opening up my mind. "R", for reaching stage five, "acceptance". "G", saying goodbye to innocence. "E”, the end of my lucidity. The sane may very well have societyʼs approval, but I have a whole new world.