LXXXVII | Some Loud Sounds

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I leave.

It doesn’t matter
where I’m going.

Almost immediately

I crash
into something hard.

Warm.

A someone.

Dark eyes
blink down at me.

A hand
reaching out.

Wrinkled,
trembling,

but reaching out.

A smile

that’s not apologetic,
not threatening.

A smile of wonder.

There’s nothing wonderful
about this place.

Or this world.

I want to die.

‘You don’t see them?’

We’re in the greenhouse.

I don’t remember
walking here.

The woman with uncombed hair

is one of the new patients.

I don’t remember
her name.

‘Queenie.’

She points to empty space
and tells me that’s a fairy.

On the rowan branch

shaking
in the circulated air-con

sits two winged “brownies”.

She continues
pointing out

the “wonderful wonderful world”

and I understand
why she’s here

in Wonderland.

The name Queenie
is probably also

one of her wonderful

hallucinations.

She made it all up.

Then convinced herself
it’s true.

The same way
I’ve convinced myself

Tammie liked me.

A hallucination.
It’s better

(isn’t it?)

to believe those things.

Makes the world

a “wonderful wonderful”
place.

There’s a loud

metallic click

followed by a
deafening siren.

It’s so loud—

the words coming
out of Queenie’s mouth

are that whining siren.

My head

is full
with just the siren’s call.

I laugh,
bending over

so I don’t fall.

I don’t know why I’m laugh—

I can’t hear myself
either.

The siren blares.

On and on and on.

There’s no end
to its whining.

Whining,
whining,
whining.

Whining,
whining
whining.

It starts bouncing off the glass,

getting under my skin.

Queenie’s mouth
is still moving

but I hear only

the siren.

She’s still
pointing at empty spaces
animatedly,

but I only see

the siren.

I cover my ears,

but the sound
bleeds

through my fingers.

My fingers go numb
from pressing on my skull.

It’s useless.

I try to leave
the greenhouse

but Queenie’s fingernails
dig into my arm,

pulls me to see

yet another

nothing.

Her “wonderful wonderful world”

is

whining,
whining,
whining.

I grab her

with my numb fingers,

pull her
to the door of the greenhouse.

She resists me.

I escape alone.

The siren follows me.

It’s even louder here
on the landing
of all the bedrooms.

A smell fills the air.

Smoke.

It’s hot.
But not really

because I just came from the greenhouse.

What’s

happening?

The eyes
on the abstract paintings

are wild.

Flickering.

(They never flicker.)

I climb down
two at a time.

Hand on the walls,

steadying my wobbly
knees.

The siren pulses
from the walls.

The stairs change colour as I go.

They’re getting darker.

Hard to see.

This accursed sound.
What the heck?

It fades everything I see
into black.

Heat buffets my face.

Makes my scalp prickle too.

Sweat drips
from my brow.

Downstairs at last,

I understand
what the siren is

for.

Down here
is where Queenie’s fairies

really are.

 

 

 

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