1 PINK CADILLAC
SHORT STORY
Kristina Morgan | 1st Place
I
shared a room in the psychiatric hospital with Bethany. Bethany is bipolar. In a manic state, her speech is so fast that it barely makes sense. Most of what she says is gibberish. However, she managed to alert the staf to the fact that she was afraid of me. She told them my stare was mean and that I called her stupid because she couldn’t talk properly. Neither of these things was true. Well, maybe the stare was. It drove me batshit crazy how she wore her t-shirts inside out, tags showing, and put her underwear on over her cotton slacks. “Annie Cobalt,” the nurse said to me. “We’re moving you out of Bethany’s room and into Gladys’s room because everyone else is afraid of you. Gladys is fearless and not one to push around.” The patients were afraid of me: afraid I would turn my stare on them, sling profanities, spit on them when lockdown became too hard. I have schizophrenia, and when I was sick with psychosis, I was hard to be around. I barely The patients were noticed the other patients put as much afraid of me: afraid distance between me and them as they I would turn my could when walking in the hall. They also never looked me in the eyes but would bow stare on them, sling their heads as if in reverence; at least that profanities, spit on is what I liked to tell myself, reverence them when lockdown instead of fear.
became too hard. It is true: my illness had left me unkind. Once, I took a swing at Penelope when she came too close to me. Fortunately, I just punched air. When I wasn’t sick, I thought of others often before myself. Did my friend with a cold need groceries? Did a friend with a broken arm need help washing her hair? I would genuinely want to know how they were and if there was anything they needed from me. I was good at making good. Sick, I was consumed with myself. My emotional pain left me hanging from a tree of doubt. I felt that I could not move on in life. I couldn’t be bothered by interactions with others. I didn’t think I could ever wave hi or have a small conversation about food. Psychosis was worse than just being antisocial. When psychotic, I was locked inside a hard shell of plaster. Nothing could touch me, and I could touch nothing. It was a stalemate of reasonable thought. I knew I couldn’t move into sound judgment anytime soon. I tried to spread my wings, only to fnd there were none attached. I would crumple to the foor sobbing, saying that if I couldn’t be a bird I would die. I begged someone to please kick me senseless. Living with schizophrenia is like slathering toast with hot sauce; I am bland and then fre is added to me, igniting me in my hard 39
