2019 Writing Event Cleaned Slate

Venom Adhamm

No one is ever going to want me
"Let's see here..." the doctor murmured as he entered the stark white room, sitting down in the chair across from his patient as he flips through his notes. His blue eyes flicked through them, taking in at least every other word.
"Okay... Mr. Sheng, is it?"
"Yes that's right."
"Nice to meet you, I'm Dr. Monroe, but you can just call me John if you'd like. Now, I understand you've been in and out with us..." He looked back at his notes, seeking out the part he'd skimmed over, "...five times, is that right?"
"Yes that's right."
"Okay... You don't have any history of hearing any voices in your head, do you?"
"Only my own."

The doctor nodded, quickly crossing out a few things in his notes. He hated dealing with these kinds of people. People who were just sad, who had nothing particularly interesting going on in their head. They tended to be the most troublesome to deal with, somehow. Still, he'd at least put up the effort. It was his job after all.
"Have you been taking the medication we prescribed to you last time?"
"Yeah."
"Have you noticed any... let's say, changes in your mood or behavior?"
"No."
"Could you elaborate on that?"
"What's there to elaborate on? I feel like shit. I want to stop feeling like shit. That's why I've been trying to kill myself."

The doctor sighed, nodding again and jotting something else down in his crude handwriting that even he couldn't read sometimes.
"Well, we've put you through just about all our medications applicable to your... 'condition' already. You haven't gone to any of the therapists we've referred you to though, why is that?"
"I think it's a waste of money."
"Why do you think that?"
"Talking won't fix anything."

The doctor couldn't help but chuckle inadvertently at his patient's comment, before clearing his throat and folding his hands on the table that divided them.
"It's not really the talking itself that's meant to help you. It's about giving you different techniques to cope with the way you feel, and to divert your energy and focus away from any... negativity. Do you get what I'm saying?"
"Then what else is there to focus on?"
"Well, positive things of course. Even if there's nothing particularly good going on in your life right now, you've surely got a few treasured memories to look back on."

Sheng was cursed with a very vivid and tragically accurate memory. He recalled when he was a child, seven years old on the elementary school playground, crying alone in a plastic tunnel because nobody wanted to play with him. Twelve years old, confessing to his little crush for the first time, saying he like liked her. It was the first time anyone laughed at something he said. Fifteen years old, asking out a girl on a date for the first time. That laugh sounded almost exactly the same. It pierced his ears and spirit like a banshee, yet sadly did not signal the refreshing touch of death. It happened again and again, each rejection tearing at his soul. Seventeen, watching his family fall apart, their shouting and fighting louder than the police sirens that eventually got called on them. Eighteen, receiving his first, second, and third college rejection letters. Nineteen, being turned away from his first job. Twenty, trying online dating and staring at a blank matches screen month after month. Twenty-three, watching his mother pass away. Twenty-three, looking down from a high place for the first time. Nobody around him, his own miniature wasteland atop that building. He'd felt nauseous up there, the lights of the street and cars below seemed like they were spinning. He went home and tried to overdose instead.

"None at all? Are you sure?"
"I'm sure," Sheng replied quickly, not even a millisecond of silence between the doctor's query and his answer.
And only now came the silence, hanging like a bladed pendulum in the air, broken only by the shutting of the doctor's folder.
"It's about time for lunch now, isn't it? We'll talk again soon, Mr. Sheng. I'll call someone in to bring you to the cafeteria now."

Our perception of time is created by our mind. When that's fractured, it all bleeds together. Repetition and routine only makes it worse. Salt on your cuts. Sheng blinked, and he was a mess in the mess hall, looking down at a meager 'meal' on a styrofoam tray. Mixed greens. A dry hunk of meat you could barely cut through with the provided plastic fork and useless plastic knife. Sheng couldn't add to his cuts with it. Not even a faint discoloration beside his deep scars.

A plain hamburger bun. Glass of juice. It reminded him of old middle school lunches. Some of the food had somehow gotten onto his clothes. Sheng blinked again. In front of an old, fat TV now, watching some colorfully animated film. TV time was his favorite. A relief from the endless white that surrounded him. He blinked.

Walking down the long corridor back to his ward. There was someone banging on the walls, screaming that the demons were coming to get him. As if called for by name in that moment, a pack of orderlies rushed over with sedatives and a stretcher. Another was laughing maniacally at the former, and still another was trying to hide away from it all. Within a few minutes, it was all silent again. The hospital was a carefully constructed machine, and malfunctioning parts were quickly dealt with.

Sheng's room was shared with some ten or so other patients. He spoke to them only during the group therapy sessions, or when spoken to first. They left him alone for the most part. He gazed now out of the window, between the spaces of the mesh grille, eyes taking in the night sky of the world outside. The ugly world. The one that embittered him and forced upon his back one trial after another. He had no fond memories of it, and would have no qualms with leaving it. He remembered Katie, and all the other lovely girls who'd rejected him. He saw a single bird outside too. Black, nearly invisible against the grim sky. Perched upon the branch of a dying tree all on its own. It reminded him of himself. He tried to bang his head against the glass, but was stopped by the grille. Someone told him to "cut the shit." He said sorry and lied down on the hard bed without another sound until three in the morning when his eyes suddenly opened and he screamed in terror till the orderlies came to get him.

How he came to be in that metal sarcophagus was a blur to him. The memories came only in bits and pieces. The doctor spoke to him about having reviewed his file again. There were no treatment options left for him, save for one rather drastic one. Sheng could not remember the details of the treatment, just that he was willing to try anything to be free of the tormentous cloud that loomed over him, constantly raining down his past traumas until he drowned in them.

A voice came over the intercom.
"We're going to begin now, Mr. Sheng. Please don't move, and just breathe normally."
And breathe he did. There was nothing but darkness inside the cramped machine, nothing to do but to breathe and think. Eventually, he stopped being able to form new thoughts. All of his memories, his awful memories played through his mind like a slideshow. Flicking through them constantly on a loop. But with each loop, it felt like something was missing, until he could no longer remember anything. The blackness became blacker. Then, one morning...

Sheng drew the curtains back to let in the brilliance of the sun and the vastness of the sky. Two birds flew down and landed on the branch near his window. They reminded him of his first girlfriend, Katie, and how lovely she'd been to him. She and all the other girls he'd managed to have wonderfully fulfilling and intimate relationships with. It brought a smile to his face to think about them. He watched the two birds for awhile until his doorbell rang and a letter was slipped beneath the door to his small apartment. It was a bill from the hospital for an operation he underwent, though the bill didn't state exactly what it was, and his mind drew a blank when trying to recall it. Must not have been too serious of an operation. He thought little of it and set the bill aside to deal with later, deciding instead to use this time to take a nice hot shower.

As he stepped into it, he felt a sharp sting along his forearms. He looked down and they were covered in rows of cuts. For a second he thought he remembered some terrible moment in his life. That maybe these scars meant something. But no, he remembered that he got scraped up while playing around in the bushes with his friends as a young boy. That must've been it. That had to be it. Because there were nothing but good memories in Sheng's head.

Nothing but good memories.
 

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