Advanced Fiction Writing Assignment 13

Assignment 13

Author’s Note:  This is the second to last assignment that I had to complete for my writing class. In the lesson covered by this assignment, exposition, dialogue, and chapter break placement were discussed. Exposition is basically describing a setting very vividly, but the setting can be physical or mental. Dialogue was discussed as way to reveal important traits about your characters without writing long passages to describe them. Chapter breaks, to be most effective, are to be placed right in the middle of the action at the end of your scene so that your reader will have to push forward and read the next chapter because they are so intrigued. These are known as “cliff hangers.” We were supposed to write a short story incorporating all three of these elements. (And for those who don’t know:  ECT in medical lingo is short for electroconvulsive therapy, which is also known as shock treatment.)

Grade Received:  A, with many people commenting that this story reminded them of the novel “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”

Hell:  Third Floor, Second Door on the Right

Karen shifted uncomfortably in the hard plastic chair in the examination room. She had been admitted to the Chisholm State Psychiatric Asylum about a week earlier against her will after some well-intended beachgoer saw her jump off of the long elevated pier that jutted into the waters of Lake Michigan and flagged down a local Coast Guard rescue unit. They had slapped handcuffs on her almost as soon as she was pulled onto the boat’s deck and unceremoniously strapped her onto a stretcher and loaded her into the back of an ambulance as soon as they reached the shore. Since they discovered all of the heavy rocks and free weights she had shoved in her pockets and tied to her body, she wasn’t given an option as to where she was going:  Chisholm it was.

Karen felt angry and aggrieved. This was the third time this day that she’d been bellowed out of her incessant slumber by the booming voices of the orderlies to come talk to some person in the icy cold examination room. First she had to talk to some lady whose name she couldn’t remember about a topic that had so little meaning to her that she couldn’t recall any basic information about what had been said by either of them. The second time she had to make an appearance in the room, she had to talk to the extremely deaf old nurse Patti who chastised Karen for being rude because she’d raised her voice a bit because Patti kept saying “What? What? Speak up!” in response to Karen’s answers to her questions. Karen had rolled her eyes when Patti used an old-fashioned manual blood pressure cuff to take her blood pressure. There was no way that Patti could’ve gotten an accurate reading using that device:  the woman probably wouldn’t hear a nuclear warhead being detonated three inches in front of her, so being able to hear the soft, subtle sounds of Karen’s heart’s valves opening and closing was clearly out of the question. Now she was just waiting for the hospital’s psychiatrist to show up.

It was the same routine every day:  mandatory useless meetings with people who were uncaring and unfeeling and not particularly competent that accomplished nothing, just like the corporate meetings she’d attended at her most recent job—the one she’d just been downsized from, which was part of the reason as to why she was now at Chisholm. It wasn’t the only reason, though. It was just the final straw in an onerous bundle that finally broke the metaphorical camel’s back.

Karen pushed a strand of her tangled mop of blond hair, which hadn’t been combed or washed since she had arrived at Chisholm, behind her ear, folded her arms across her chest, crossed her legs, and leaned forward at the waist. Jesus, it’s cold in this place, she thought as she shivered slightly. She was only wearing two threadbare hospital gowns—one to cover her front, one to cover her back—a pair of panties, and the hospital-issued socks with rubber treads. Her grandmother had brought her a change of clothes when she had come to visit a few days earlier, but Karen hadn’t shown any interest in wearing them.

If they won’t let me die, they can at least leave me alone and let me sleep my miserable life away, she thought with depressive annoyance. And slept she had:  out of the six days she’d been at Chisholm, she’d spent maybe three or four hours total awake and upright. Life had become overwhelming and exhausting for Karen, which is why she’d jumped in the first place.

A primal, guttural shriek pierced through the exam room’s closed door, followed by the sounds of the hurried footsteps of the nurses and orderlies. Great, Karen thought, another one of the crazies here is out of control again. Another day in fuckin’ paradise. She sighed angrily, which was all the more effort and energy she could muster given her current emotional state.

God, I hate this place, she thought dejectedly.

A sharp knock sounded on the exam room’s door, and the hospital’s unsympathetic, compassionless psychiatrist, Dr. McGregor, walked into the room, took a seat at the metal office desk across from Karen, opened up a file folder containing a large volume of papers, started to shuffle through them, and then began to fire off questions in a rather brusque manner to her. He never bothered to look up and acknowledge her presence. She was just another random, unstable, self-destructive nut job who was keeping him from perfecting his golf game apparently.

“So, Miss Thompson—"

“It’s Tomcheck.”

“How are you feeling today?”

“Shitty, as usual. I hate this place! I want to go home!”

“We can’t let you do that.”

“Why not? I’ve complied with all of your demands!”

“Not really.”

“What do you mean? I’ve started coming to meals—"

“Only after we talked about putting a feeding tube in you.”

“Why should I have to eat when I’m not hungry?”

“You’ve lost fifteen pounds since your arrival.”

“So? I’ve needed to drop some weight anyway!”

“You haven’t been participating in the group therapy sessions.”

“You only said I had to go, not join in with the kum-bayh-ya! It’s all a crock of shit anyway! Instead of discussing important things like stress management or constructive ways to deal with your unpleasant thoughts and feelings, we spent an hour and a half yesterday listing any and every holiday we could think of, and a lot of people were just making shit up! Like Moses’s birthday! Apparently that’s a major holiday in some guy’s world, but he doesn’t know if it’s supposed to be on December 2 or December 10! Complete and total bullshit!”

“You’re awfully resentful.”

“Why shouldn't I be? I am on a floor with people who are actively psychotic, and they certainly act like it! I am so fucking tired of hearing screams and shrieks all goddamn day and all fucking night because I am not psychotic! I have never been psychotic! I am acutely, unpleasantly aware of reality! That is why I am here! The outside world got to be too much for me to deal with, but I never lost touch with it! I’m here because I needed a time-out from the rest of the world! Well, now I want to leave! I’m ready to go back to the real world!”

“We can’t let you do that.”

“Why not?”

“Because you won’t assure us that you won’t attempt suicide ever again.”

“Of course I can’t promise that! I don’t know how I’ll react six months or six years from now! I do know that I am not actively suicidal at this moment! I just want the hell out of here!”

“What about your spiritual life?”

“What about it?”

“Well, perhaps you should turn to some sort of higher being to find solace—God, perhaps. He doesn’t give you more than you can handle, you know.”

“That’s absolute bullshit! God giving you more than you can handle is the leading cause of suicide!”

“Have you ever considered the way you interact with society? You’re very resentful.”

“Of course I’m resentful! There is nothing wrong with the way I interact with society—the problem is the way society interacts with me! I am kind, good natured, trusting, accepting, compassionate, creative, honest, pleasant, and selfless, and how do I get treated by other people time and time again? I get used and abused at every turn! No—I am not the problem—the world is a vampire, set to drain!”

She glared at Dr. McGregor in fury, tears streaming down her cheeks. He never even looked up at her.

“Perhaps we try giving you some lithium and ECT,” he said dismissively as he scribbled something on a paper in his file folder. “You can go back to your room now.”

Karen stalked out of the room, more angry at that moment than she had ever been in her whole entire life. Silent sobs of frustration violently shook her body.