New story: Untitled, Chapter 1. Draft 1

I heard the dead again today.

Like the last times, it started off just with them muttering to each other, then they seemed to be speaking more clearly to me. I hear the voices quite clearly but I couldn't tell you if it is the voice of an old man or a young woman or a child, it's just a voice. It speaks clearly, enunciating very deliberately but I can't tell what words its using. I've heard people speak in foreign languages before but it doesn't sound foreign. I cant remember or repeat the words or make sense of them when I hear them. After a while I stop trying to listen and it goes away. It doesn't fade out or get distant or any special effects. I stop thinking about it and after a while I notice it's gone.

I told the nurse and she must have told the doctor because that night they started giving me the little white pills again. The smaller the pill, the more powerful they are. The big pink capsules don't seem to do anything, no matter how many I take but after just one of the little white ones I fall fast asleep and don't wake up until the nurse wakes me up and I feel all sort of cotton woolly all morning.

I don't like the little white pills so when the voices start again I don't tell the nurse, I just pretend to read a magazine. There's a story in the magazine about a woman who killed her two children. I don't like the story so I don't read the words. I pretend to though, so they nurse will leave me alone. I'm really counting the 'a' letters in the article, then I count all the 'b' letters and so on. There are no 'z' letters in it. I remember a name I used to know “Etaoin Shrdlu”. I don't remember who he was or if he's alive or dead or a hero or a villain or fictional or real. This upsets me and I start to cry a little. I hide this from the nurse in case I have to take more of the little white pills again.

The nurse has yellow hair today, pulled back into a bun behind her head and fastened with those little brown wire clips. I think she has a name but I think of her as “Kirby”. I'm not sure where the name comes from but it keeps going around in my mind.

It's Kirby Grip! I remember the name for those brown hair clip things, that's why I used that name for the yellow-haired nurse. I look for her later, I want to tell her about my name and remembering about the Kirby Grip but I don't see her for the rest of the day.

Sometimes we have to do therapy. Someone in a white coat sits us all in a circle and asks questions. There are no right answers, it's not a quiz. We can all say what we want because the questions are supposed to make us think about stuff. Some of the shadow people just talk at random and don't seem to know when to stop. They just say the same stuff over and over again. Sometimes I try to speak. Today I tried to tell the story about the Kirby Grip and the nurse with the yellow hair but the shadows kept interrupting me

I call them shadows, but they're not like shadows, they're more like paper cutouts of people being blown about by the wind. They flap and bang and rattle in the wind and sometimes they get in the way when I want to see past them. I think they used to be people but in here there's only me and my thoughts and the nurse and the paper shadows.

I think I've always heard the dead speaking, even before I came here. When I lived in the white flat with the cars parked outside I used to turn the television right down and watch the pictures moving while listening to the voices. Sometimes the voices were quite stern and commanding and seemed to want to tell me to do stuff. But I never used to know what they wanted and that made me feel bad because I couldn't do what they wanted. Sometimes the voice was kind and soft and gentle and made me feel good. I like feeling good and I like doing things that make me feel good.

I liked the white flat. I could shut the door and nobody would bother me for days and days. I used to go out to the supermarket and buy stuff like breakfast cereal and milk and bananas and take it home and eat it. When they came to take me away from the white flat I was in bed and I was very thin because I hadn't been to the supermarket. I think I must have been more clever then because I can't remember how to go to the supermarket now. I don't need to go to the supermarket any more because the nurse brings me breakfast cereal and milk and bananas every day.

Today was different. I was looking for the nurse called Kirby, with the yellow hair but today the nurse has white hair with curls peeping out from under her cap. She didn't have clips in her hair. I realised straight away that the nurse is two different people, there are different nurses! This makes me think about the nurse a bit longer. The nurse is not like the paper shadows that rattle and bang and get in the way. The nurse is like a real person like me, but there must be many of them. I think of all the nurses going away to different white flats and going to the supermarket to buy their breakfast cereal and milk and bananas and taking them home.

The world is turning out to be a bit more complicated than I thought. As well as many nurses, there are many days and each one is a little different to the last. Today the nurse is different. I try to think about yesterday and the yellow haired nurse called Kirby. Thinking about yesterday is hard and makes me cry a little bit because I feel sad and sorry and I don't know why.

We did therapy again and I started talking about the yellow haired nurse and why I called her Kirby, because I couldn't remember her name. I don't think anyone heard me because the paper shadows were all shouting and hooting and laughing at each other. It made me think of monkeys in the zoo, except I don't know if I've ever been to a zoo or seen monkeys behaving like that. Perhaps I'm being unfair to monkeys but I'm pretty sure that the monkeys don't care. I start thinking that this is funny and try tell the nurse about it but the words all try to come out at once and I cannot speak about it. This makes me unhappy and I cry a little bit.

The dead are talking again. The voice is quiet and soft and reassuring and makes me feel happier. It doesn't seem to matter that I did not tell the nurse my story about the monkeys. It doesn't seem to matter that nobody wants to listen to me in therapy. It doesn't seem to matter that I cannot remember the way to the supermarket or what the supermarket looks like inside or what I have to do in the supermarket. Nothing really matters as long as I can listen to the soft and reassuring voice which makes me feel happy. I close my eyes and pretend to be dozing so I can listen to it.