Free World of Glass by Jocelyne Dubois Page B

would put a DO NOT ENTER sign on the bathroom door. I would not slit my wrists and stain the bathtub. This Mark could never live with. It seems urgent to die. I go into the washroom cupboard and put three full bottles of Lithium into my purse. I remember reading somewhere that an overdose of this drug can cause you to go into a coma or even die. I tuck an X-Acto knife in my jeans. I approach the front door. “Where are you going?” Mark shouts. “The mountain, the mountain.”
    â€œIt’s evening!” He clutches my wrists. His face is flushed. “Is it safe for me to go to work? What will I tell them?”
    â€œIf you go, I will die. Let me go,” I mumble. “Let me go.” He pulls me into the living room. “What are you doing? I ask.
    â€œDialing 911.”
    â€œPlease! I don’t want to go to one of those places again, they’ll kill me!”
    â€œIt’s an emergency,” Mark says in the receiver.
    I sit in a plastic chair facing the nurses’ quarters.
    â€œDo you remember why you’re here?” a middle-aged nurse shouts. Her dyed blonde hair frames a pixie face. I look at her and think “Goldie Hawn.”
    â€œWe want you to live a long time!” she says in a stern voice.
    â€œI want to quit smoking,” I tell her. She nudges an orderly and whispers into his ear. He gives her a cigaretteand lighter. She then puts the cigarette between my lips, flicks the lighter and says, “Puff.” She glances at my chin and notices two small white hairs growing on it. She brushes my chin with her fingers. “Good!” she says. I do not trust this nurse, this place. I look around: eggshell walls, drab linoleum floors. Not one poster or painting on the walls. I get up and through a large glass window. I see a screen. I look at it closely and see a patient peeing in the washroom. I look up at the ceiling and notice cameras in the hallways. They watch our every move, I think. Do they watch us undress and naked while we soap our bodies in the shower? Are there also microphones in the bedrooms where they listen to each word we utter? The rooms reek, a stale stench of sickness fills the air. I am suffocating. I crush my cigarette in an ashtray. I look around. The patients are catatonic. Drugs. One woman gets up from a chair and vomits into a garbage can. No one moves. I call out for an orderly to help this woman. “Shit,” he says and takes the bag away. I want to die. An orderly with tattooed, bulging biceps, a ring in her belly button, pulls me out of my chair and drags me to a room where there is a shower. She pushes me, knocking my head against the wall. She hands me a brittle washcloth and tells me to wash between my legs. “You’re a WOMAN!” I do not use this cloth but rub a small bar of soap over my legs and armpits. I do not wash my hair. I have no shampoo. I dry myself with a white towel, open the door. The orderly is standing there on the other side of the door. She sprays aerosol from a can all over me. “You mental patients stink,” she growls. All patients must wear a green cotton short-sleeved top with matching pants. I keep my socks on to protect myself from germs. A nurse from France – I can tell by her accent – hands me a sample bottle of Neutrogena shampoo. “Here, this is expensive stuff,” she says in a soft tone, a peaceful glow on her face. Days go by and I look for her, to say hello. She is thoughtful and kind, I think.
    â€œWhere is Mark? Is he still alive?” I worry. I sit down next to an elderly man. He wears a damp cloth on his head under a baseball cap. Rubber gloves cover his hands. “Toxic waste!” he shouts in the air.
    â€œWhat’s your name?” I ask.
    â€œHen…Henry,” he mutters. His shoulders are hunched over in front of a round table. Toast, coffee and juice are placed on a tray in front of him.
    â€œI have everything I