"A thing may happen and be a total lie; another thing may not happen and be truer than the truth.”                                                       Tim O’Brien, The Things They Carried

[ excerpt ]

The first year was the hardest because everyone has your face. But thank God they don’t have your voice. Just your puffy baby-cheeked face.

The doctor’s words made me understand that what happened to me was a dark, evil, and reprehensible secret, and by association I too was dark, evil, and reprehensible. While it may not have been her intention, this was the message my dim, overcast mind received. To escape the confines of the infirmary, I once again disassociated myself from my emotions and numbed myself to the pain ravaging my body and mind. I acted as if nothing was wrong and went back to performing the necessary motions to get me from one day to the next. I existed but I did not live.

I wanted to tell the doctor that if only something were wrong with my body it would be fine, I would rather have anything wrong with my body than something wrong with my head, but the idea seemed so tortuous and wearisome that I didn’t say anything. I only burrowed down further into the darkness.

If only my mind were as easy to fix as my body.

I looked around but there was nothing much to see. The leaden, bare wall is the only thing in sight – not even a window! A wave of frustration swept over me since I hated anything plain and simple. I was anything but plain and simple.

The walls and the ceiling have those sprawling flamboyant patterns that committed every artistic sin known to mankind. It is dull enough to confuse the eye upon inspection, definite enough to constantly irritate and provoke study, and when you follow the lame ambiguous curves for a little distance they suddenly commit suicide – plunge off at outrageous angles, destroy themselves in unheard of contradictions.

The color is repugnant, bordering on revolting; a smouldering unclean yellow. And with a solitary light coming from a light-bulb that was installed before Moses parted the sea, the shades are dull yet lurid orange in some places, a sickly sulphur tint in others.

It was the simplest, most complicated pattern I’ve ever had the misfortune to set my eyes on.

The fact that there is no window infuriates me more. I longed for another thing or another space to see, aside from that repulsive wall. But upon longer thought, I decided that the setup must be for the better. You see, they wouldn’t and I couldn’t trust myself with anything I could hold on, let alone something I could get into.

Every open window was a challenge and every sharp object knew my name.