Free But Inside I'm Screaming by Elizabeth Flock Page A

do it right away. They probably have cameras all over this place…at the driveway especially.
    Mindful of her thirty-minute limitation she continues on past a low building resembling her own called Southgate. A few yards away she notes another identical structure. Medical Care Unit.
    Three Breezes is a blend of ugly fifties-style units thumbing their noses at the centerpiece of the acreage: an enormous turn-of-the-century Tudor mansion that houses the administration and admissions office. The rambling estate fools newcomers into thinking that they will be housed in similar luxury: the boxy one-storyunits litter the land behind the manor, though, rendering them invisible to new arrivals.
    “Okay, everyone, line up.” Isabel is woken out of her thoughts and follows the sound of the command. There, not fifteen yards away, filing out of yet another unattractive outbuilding, is a group of small children. “We can’t head over to lunch until everyone is in a straight line. Ramon? Get in line!”
    Isabel ducks behind a huge oak tree and watches the children take their positions.
    Jesus, they’re so little. They must only be about seven or eight. What on earth are they doing here?
    “Okay, guys. Off we go.”
    Isabel’s eyes fall to the end of the line. A little blond boy wearing glasses is studying the ground ahead of him.
    “Come on, Peter, hurry up,” the nurse calls over her shoulder.
    The boy named Peter is mumbling to himself.
    The nurse stops the group to wait for him to catch up. “Peter! Wake up! Let’s go!”
    After a moment Peter calls back, his tiny voice quite clear. “Could you please tell Ramon to stop stepping on the anthills?”
    Isabel is astonished.
    Anthills.
    She watches with tears in her eyes as little Peter trails the group, carefully picking his way around the pavement.

Sixteen
     
    I t is eleven o’clock and most everyone has gone to sleep. But not Sukanya. She is still sitting in the common room and staring straight ahead. At first glance it looks as though she is watching television because she is staring in that direction. But a closer look proves that Sukanya is looking through the TV, past it.
    Isabel stands in the doorway of the same room.
    “Topping tonight’s news, a five-alarm fire is finally out this hour.” The earnest tone of the TV anchor coaxes Isabel a few steps into the room. “It was a grueling day for firefighters, some of whom are being treated for smoke inhalation tonight at St. Luke’s hospital….”
    Isabel eases into the wing chair alongside Sukanya’s. The plaid upholstery is tattered but soft. Sukanya gives no indication that she is even aware of Isabel’s presence. Minutes pass.
    “And now, in our continuing series called ‘Taking Back the Neighborhood,’ a profile of a little boy—” the anchor cocked her head ever so slightly to the left, coordinated perfectly with a hint of a smile: clues that aheartwarming story was moments from unfolding “—who took on a giant…and won!”
    Isabel lets the sounds of the television wash over her. She looks at Sukanya. Then, as she turns back to the screen, she relaxes all the muscles in her face, her neck, her back and legs and finally exhales into a stupor.
    The pictures of angry neighbors picketing in front of city hall, once clear, blur into a comfortable kaleidoscope of color. The voices, once a cacophony, blend into a symphony of sound, and become a waking lullaby for the two women, side by side, late at night in a mental institution.
     
    Night after night Isabel and Sukanya sit immobilized in front of the television. To Isabel the newscasts that just months ago were precision Swiss timepieces are now melting clocks that litter barren dreamscapes. The stories that once implied competitive edge are now superficial jumbles of words tied together by nursery school segues.
    “Isabel?” Connie the night nurse calls into the room halfheartedly, assuming Isabel is elsewhere. But the twin wing chairs intrigue her.