Story Sample - Visionary: Opening

Here's the opening to the novel I'm currently working on. Right now, I'm in the second edit. It is taking a while to get through but if I can get this story dialed in I may actually have something worth publishing.

Enjoy!

When they told me my brother was being admitted to a mental hospital, I imagined something arcane, ominous. Hospitals for the insane are supposed to be barred by high gates and barbed wire fences. Their exteriors gray and drab in reflection of the occupants’ faded grasps of reality. Facilities hidden in secluded lands far away from cities, isolated islands unto themselves, where patients posed minimal threat to the general population if one ever escaped.

Patients roamed the hospital’s estate, expressionless faces, barely aware of their existence. I conjured images of unwilling convalescents screaming down the hallways, fighting against the restraints of their straight jackets. Beds with patients restrained by heavy leather straps lined the halls. Echoes of tormented pain bounced around the walls and traveled down corridors of flickering lights.

Somewhere within these walls, one could find a room of archaic devices once considered medically appropriate, now banned in every kind of hospital except for the one they sent my brother. These antiquated instruments would be used by merciless sadists to inflict great harm to my brother. He’d be shocked, poked, prodded.

Needles.

Scalpels.

Scars.

The horrors of exploratory surgeries, lobotomies, and abusive staff were about to be the new reality for my poor Matthew. He was too young for such an injustice. I cried for weeks after he was taken away. But what did I know? I was only a fifteen-year-old girl.

Nielsen-Halsey Adult Psychiatric Health Services Hospital was nothing like I imagined. The outside walls were bright bricks of red and brown, immaculate and cheerful. There were no gates that clanked shut behind you when you pulled through, only a small boom gate that lifted up and ushered you through as it lowered behind you. Flowers and river rock bordered the exterior. Chalk-white sidewalks led the way from the parking lot to the main entrance. If I visited on a day when the weather was nice, the skies were clear and the sun shined down in bright radiance, Nielsen-Halsey almost felt inviting.

I never fell in love with the place. After my teenage naïveté died away, my fears of the unknown turned to discomfort with the familiar. I always had the sense that Nielsen-Halsey was trying very hard to convince me that it was a normal place, a happy place. Anyone would be delighted to stay there. But I knew if I could scratch below the amiable facade, tear away those bright bricks, turn over the rocks and flowers, I’d find something disgusting, something that had to stay hidden.

My hatred for the hospital was compounded by the fact that I travelled there so often. For eleven years I made the six-hour roundtrip every weekend. I went with Grandma for four years. After she died, I went by myself. Convincing anyone else to go with me was impossible.

“Hey, I’ve got a great plan for this weekend! Let’s sit in a car for six hours, get patted down by asylum staff, and sit in a tiny room with a mental patient.”

None of my friends, the few I had, were interested.

Go figure.

I was alone. I was the one who had to watch what the hospital did to Matthew. I was the one who watched as the treatments and medications ate him away piece by piece until the Matthew I loved turned to a husk of himself. The light in his eyes faded. His smile permanently disappeared and he walked with his eyes down and shoulders slumped as if he were nothing more than an over burdened pack animal.

My tolerance for Matthew’s deterioration reached its peak after a particularly bad visit. He wouldn’t look me in the eyes, barely looked up from the table at all.

“Matthew? What’s the matter?” I asked. He wouldn’t answer, only shake his head. I reached across the table and touched his hand. “Hey, you can tell me. What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” he said. “It’s just the meds. That’s all.”

Matthew made the mistake of glancing up at me. He must have wanted to see if I believed his lie. What I saw broke my heart. A single tear trickled from the corner of his eye. Matthew the saw the change in my face and quickly looked back down at the table and swiped at the tear running down his cheek. “Really, it’s nothing,” he said.

But I knew what it was. Despite Matthew’s refusal to talk to me, I knew his stay at the hospital was killing him. Maybe not physically. His body wasn’t dying. At least, I didn’t think it was. But the things that made Matthew alive, the hopes and disappointments of humanity, were dimming and Matthew could feel his spirit’s languid demise. It was then I realized the Matthew I loved would no longer exist if things remained unaltered.

Maybe that was the point. There was no denying my brother was sick. His sickness tormented him and everyone around him. Hearing about Matthew’s hallucinations terrified me. I couldn’t imagine what they did to him. He’d vomit, occasionally wet himself, lapse into seizures, drift off into trance-like states. He didn’t sleep and the nights that he did he’d wake up screaming in horror. Sometimes I still catch myself jumping in my sleep in anticipation of Matthew’s panicked cries despite the fact we haven’t slept in the same house since I was fifteen.

Intervention was necessary. Something had to change or Matthew would have really lost his mind. The hospital adopted sedation over coping. Patients were easier to care for if they no longer cared for their own existence. Robbing Matthew of himself was the preferred course of treatment. I think it was partly laziness on the part of the staff. Tell the doctors a patient is doing well when he’s drugged to stupor. Tell the doctors a patient is difficult and showing signs of regression if he shows signs of being too aware. Doctors really don’t have a clue what’s going on. They dose, prescribe, and let the therapists make the judgments.

The other part, for Matthew, had to do with what everyone though he did. Matthew murdered our parents. That’s what the police said, anyway. Matthew was dangerous and if his unpredictable mood swings were left unchecked he’d remain a danger to everyone around him. It didn’t matter that investigators never proved Matthew did anything.

Matthew loved our parents.

I think what he hated most about the visions was how they stole his innocence. Matthew could see all the secret things people hid from the rest of the world, the filth and vulgarities buried beneath wholesome covers. He didn’t see specifics. Matthew couldn’t look at a man and instantly know that man was cheating on his wife or abusing his children. Clouded shadows hung over the people like shrouds of disease. Matthew didn’t want to know who was diseased and who wasn’t. He wasn’t interested in vulgarities. He just wanted to love everyone and to be loved. Matthew never wanted to hurt anyone.

Except, he did once.

But that one doesn’t count. Matthew smashed Daniel Chalmers face so hard that Daniel had to have his jaw wired shut and most of his teeth reconstructed. When Mitch told me the awful things Daniel had said, I was glad Matthew broke that worthless jerk's jaw. I still am. And if I ever see Daniel Chalmers again I’d probably try to break his jaw a second time.

I still won’t allow myself to believe Matthew is or ever has been capable of so much as conceiving the murder of our parents. There will always be doubts, I guess. Little assaults on my brain like tiny pieces of shrapnel, sharp and dangerous. Questions like why there were no signs of forced entry or why I found my brother with all over him. I have to fight against those suspicions and doubts as they dare to tear away at the shield of innocence I’ve propped in front of him. If I submit to them, if I give in to rampant speculation and turn against Matthew, he’ll have no one else in the world left.

What the doctors and therapists say doesn’t matter. What the police say doesn’t matter. What Grandma said doesn’t matter. They can’t be allowed to matter.

So I cling to my happy memories of my big brother as a caring, sweet, and considerate boy. A boy who wasn’t afraid to cry on his mother’s shoulder or to show vulnerability to his father. Matthew is a good man and I will always believe in his decency. I have to.

But then, if I feel so sure of Matthew’s benevolent personality, why do I feel afraid? Matthew is coming home today. He’s sitting in the car beside me. I’m bringing him to my house. And I’m scared.