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I found this
I found this on my computer earlier and thought, Hey, this looks interesting. I wrote it awhile ago for a school assignment and just now decided that it has potential to be my Next Big Project. Critisism of the harder variety would be helpful. And please--don't be afraid of hurting my feelings. My current only interest is making this better, and if that requires harsh comments and drastic revisions, then so be it.
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Schizophrenia
Katherine Stevens is thirteen
years old. She has brown eyes, red hair, and schizophrenia.
Schizophrenia is a disorder
that messes with the brain, so Kat sees things that aren’t there and hears
voices that she’s convinced exist but don’t. She gets so caught up in her own
little world that she sometimes can’t see or hear the real one. She is also
paranoid that basically everyone—everyone “flat”, or real—is trying to kill
her. This is a peek into Kat’s head.
They tell me it isn’t real. They
tell me it’s not there. Are they blind?
I can touch it. I can feel it purring when I stroke its back. I don’t know what
it is, but I’m sure that it likes me. It has green skin and purple fur and it
came through the wall to visit me. Mally told me it would come. Mally said—
Oh, no, it’s gone. They always
leave. I don’t know why they don’t stay longer. I like them. Sometimes they’re
purple or blue or green, or some color that I don’t know the name of. Sometimes
they don’t like me. Sometimes they bite me, but I never bleed.
Some of the people say that my
friends are not real. They tell me that I’m hallucinating. I think that they’re
just jealous of my others friends because I like them better. The ones that
tell me the others aren’t real are the ones who only tell me not to do things.
They are the only ones who name themselves instead of letting me make up names
for them. One of them, the one who calls herself Mum, she is the worst. She
always tells me not to do the things that Meg and Mally tell me to do. Her and
her kind are not shiny like the others. They are flat, dull and boring, and
they don’t talk the same language. The language that they speak is flatter,
harsher. I don’t understand why they don’t speak like the others.
The others are my friends. I like
them because they never look at me funny when I talk to the flat people. The
flat people yell at me and whisper about me when I talk to my friends. Mostly I
just ignore them, but they can be very persistent. Mum is most of all. She
makes me put things in my mouth, even though the shiny people feed me. She’s
always there, but sometimes I can’t see her. She can walk through the shiny
people and I don’t think she sees them. Maybe she’s blind. I don’t know what
that means, but she says it a lot, so I guess that means she is. Mally says
that blind means mindless. I don’t know what that means either. Maybe it means
that she can walk through things and people.
Sometimes I am jealous of my
friends. They can do things that I can’t do. Mally can fly, and Meg can walk
through walls. I don’t know if I can walk through walls, because every time I
try Mum comes in and makes me stop. She says I shake the whole house, but I
don’t hear anything.
Strawberry…
Who was that? It didn’t sound like
Meg, and Mally has never used that voice before. It wasn’t high enough to be
Mum.
Strawberry…eat it…
No! I don’t want to! Don’t make
me!
No…good for you…eat it…strawberry!
Something red, hovering in front
of my eyes. I know that it wasn’t there a moment ago. It didn’t come out of the
wall, so it doesn’t belong to my friends. What is it?
It smells good. It smells like
something that I’ve smelled before…before my friends came…Poison! It must be.
Mally says so.
I don’t want it! Don’t give it to
me! Take it away!
You have to eat something,
honey, you’re wasting away.
No! Poison! Help! Something is
pressing on me, pressing me against the walls that I can’t get through. They
are holding me down. I always knew the flat people were enemies! They are
making me eat it.
Mally! Help! They’re killing me!
Do something! But Mally just flies around on the ceiling.
Rachel, she’s hallucinating
again. She won’t stop!
Not again! She won’t…kicking me…
There are flat voices, two of
them, arguing. They fade in and out. They are angry and it’s my fault, it’s all
my fault. Why? What have I done wrong? I want to ask Mally, but he’s gone.
Kat…stop…you have to…
KATHERINE, STOP THIS NONSENSE.
WE ARE TRYING TO HELP YOU. OPEN YOUR MOUTH AND EAT YOUR FOOD. I AM NOT GOING TO
ASK AGAIN.
The voice, the flat voice, echoes
around the room. It bounces off the walls and becomes a cloud of blue.
Beautiful.
The cloud morphs into a creature—a
DOG—and flies out the wall. I wish it would stay. It was pretty.
Someone places something in my
mouth.
EAT IT. The loud voice demands. I do.
My chair goes soft. I was sitting
on a chair? When did that happen? I don’t remember. Now it goes soft and
sprouts blankets. The room has gotten dim, dark. From far away I can hear flat
voices. One of them is Mum, the other is the one who calls himself Dad. I don’t
see him very often.
I try to ignore the voices. Flat
voices are so hard to listen to; they grate on my ears.
Listen to them, Mally whispers. Listen to them.
I listen to them, because Mally
said so.
We have to take her to someone, says the first voice. We have to take her
in before it’s too late.
No, says the second voice—Mum. I’m not paying some shrink to prod
at our daughter and tell us there’s nothing we can do except wait for it to go
away.
Marni, how much longer can you
go on like this? You’re running yourself ragged trying to look after her. How
long will it take you to admit that Kat is not normal?
Daniel, she’s fine. She’s her
own kind of normal.
Dad makes a queer sound. Honey,
I don’t know of any other children who behave like she does. She’s thirteen
years old and she throws tantrums like a toddler over a strawberry. Haven’t you
heard here talking to the air? She calls it Mally, and she has conversations
with it like it’s her best friend. That is definitely not normal.
Mum makes a strangled sort of
noise. All right. I’ll call and see if they have a time to see her.
Mally? What is “normal”?
It means flat. Like them.
I don’t want to be flat! Once, a
long time ago (maybe yesterday?), I didn’t have my friends. Mally wasn’t there,
and neither was Meg. Nothing came through the wall. Then Mally came, and showed
me the wall, and Meg, and my other friends. He showed me how things came
through the wall, and how to say hello and speak to them. He said that I didn’t
have to listen to Mum. If I listen to him, everything will be fine. Mally said
so.
The ceiling is floating above me,
away into the pink. It goes, it goes, far away from me, sliding into the
blackness. There are lights up there, purple and blue and green. And a big
teddy bear, which gives me a hug and pulls my arms off. He is whirling and
turning dark red, red, red…
Get in the car.
What?
In the car. Over there. We’re
going to see a doctor.
Oh, hey, a car. Look at the car,
Mally, isn’t it pretty? It’s kind of…floating. Is it supposed to do that?
Don’t be silly, Kat. What
nonsense about a car floating? The voice—it
must be Mum—is annoyed with me. Uh-oh. Uh-oh. Uh-oh.
Is Mally coming?
Mally doesn’t exist, Kat.
Of course I am coming!
What does she mean, Mally doesn’t
exist? He’s right there. Meg’s there too, right next to him. Even Scholarship
came outside, and it never does that. It usually hides under my desk because it
wants money. Clever Scholarship!
The world! It’s moving! The trees
outside are rushing past my window, probably late for Ammeeding. That’s why Dad
isn’t in the car, because he was late for Ammeeding. Ammeeding must be very
important, because he forgot his tie.
Another flat person names himself
Doctor Millman. I don’t like the flat people because they always name
themselves. They never let me name them.
Doctor Millman puts me on a table
and pokes me. He asks me questions that I don’t want to answer.
How long have you been seeing
these imaginary people?
They’re not imaginary! Mally’s
standing right there and you can’t see him?
When was the first time you saw
this Mally?
When he came through the wall for
the first time. How could I have seen him before that?
Can you read?
Mally, what does “read” mean?
It’s those letters on the page.
See? This word says “patient” and this word says “symptoms” and that one says
something I don’t know, and that one says “diagnosis”. It’s easy.
I can read! Of course I can read.
Doctor Millman—you can’t read.
You couldn’t a minute ago.
Mally just taught me! See? “Patient”;
“Symptoms”; “Something I don’t know”; “Diagnosis”. It’s easy!
Worried whispers. Doctor turned
into a bird and flew through the wall. Now I can hear him outside the room,
quite clearly, and he’s talking to Mum.
Schizophrenia…schizophrenia…phrenia…phrenia….phrenia…
The word won’t go away. It follows
me, whispering in my ears. It sounds like poison. Doctor Millman is gone, and
the world is moving again. I can’t see Mum, but I can hear her voice from right
next to me, whispering and tapping on the windows. Maybe she can’t get out.
Where is Mally?
Silly! He didn’t come in the car.
He hates it when the world moves. He’ll be waiting for me when the world stops
moving.
What does he look like?
Like Mally. I can’t think of a
different way to describe him, except that he doesn’t look like the flat
people. He is rounder, fuller, more there.
And he doesn’t change colors every day like the flat people do. The flat people
aren’t as real as Mally is. Mally says so.
submitted by Jess
(August 6, 2012 - 9:09 pm)
(August 6, 2012 - 9:09 pm)
My aunt has schizophrenia. Sometimes, my dad has to go out to Montana because of it.
(August 10, 2012 - 9:39 am)
Wow. This is AMAZING. Write more asap!! =) It's kind of freaky, but it really draws you into the story. I love it!!!!
(August 10, 2012 - 11:54 am)
Utmost apologies, I currently don't have a computer to write on so I can't post any more of this right now. I promise that as soon as I can I will ressurect this thread to post more.
(August 10, 2012 - 1:28 pm)
Why is she sure it likes her if she thinks everyone else is trying to kill her? Green and purple is interesting, but surprising, it could give undue attention to the color. "I think they're just jealous of my other friends because I like them better." is sort of run-on, or it doesn't flow with the rythm of what's before it. Why does she say "Are they blind?" if she doesn't know what it is? Maybe you should elaborate on the flatness and the language- just saying they're flat is less convincing. I think "were my enemies" sounds better than "were enemies". You wrote "haven't you heard here..." instead of "her". "Doctor turned into a bird" is in the wrong tense. Why does she say "strawberry, eat it" instead of "eat the strawberry" or "have a strawberry" or something?
But I think it's a wonderful story! I love how it flows.
By the way, what are the numbers at the beginning for?
(August 14, 2012 - 4:54 pm)
@ Olivecube,
The numbers at the beginning indicate copy and pasting from another documents. Does the Admin know why?
Admin: I don't know the exact HTML details, but programs like Microsoft Word wrap text in a lot of formatting and style data, so when you copy and paste from programs that aren't just plain text the Chatterbox gets loaded up with HTML code it can't use. I think the program Notepad on a PC works--you can paste Word documents into Notepad and then into the Chatterbox. But the best bet is to type directly into the CB.
(August 15, 2012 - 8:10 am)
I use notepad. It works all right for me.
(August 15, 2012 - 4:08 pm)
Thanks for telling me!
(August 16, 2012 - 8:40 am)
Do you know if there is a way to delete the HTML from Word? Like if you just use the default font, the default size and don't change the color? Or something like that? Because when I try to copy and paste TNÖ (I'm on a mac right now) from word, there is a lot more HTML than just plain text. When I am back on Microsoft, I'll do some experimenting.
Spamster in his Spamster cage says fgro. Figaro, Figaro, Figaro
(August 17, 2012 - 7:37 am)
I disagree about 'flat' and 'shiny'; it sort of loses it's....it's....I dunno.... if she doesn't refer to them as that.
Strawberry, eat it does sound a little unnatural. It may be that they're trying to speak to her in a clearer way, but if that's not the case, you may have to change it.
She thinks the purple thing likes her because the paranoia only applies to 'flat' people, aka real ones.
No comment on the colors because I really don't know much about schizophrenia.
(August 15, 2012 - 9:43 pm)
That's true... maybe she could describe the difference more, at the beginning...
Oh, yeah...
(August 18, 2012 - 6:26 am)
And maybe "What's this nonsense about a car floating?" instead of "What nonsense about a car floating?"
(August 18, 2012 - 6:29 am)
Also, should she be aware of Mum's and Dr. Millman's gender?
(August 15, 2012 - 9:46 pm)
@ Tiffany W.--
I don't see why not. Schizophrenia didn't kick in until about a year before the beginning of the story ("once, my friends weren't here..."). She was eleven/twelve, plenty of time for her to learn gender differences. It's one of those things that kind of never leaves you.
(August 17, 2012 - 9:14 am)
Ah, fewmets, I forgot about that... *facepalm*
(August 18, 2012 - 2:08 pm)
So it took me forever but I have the second part. It's about 1/8 as long as the first one, but it ends at a stopping point, so I couldn't seem to make it any longer. I tried to fix the weird spacing thing too, let's see if it works.
Also I took into mind TNÖ's comment about how Kat should still be able to see the real world.
Mum puts “lunch” in front of me. It is flat yellow and flat white and flat red. And it smells funny. I don’t want it. I want to play with Mally and with Meg. They will feed me with things that don’t look or taste flat, and that don’t smell funny. They always do. And their food doesn’t make me feel all tight inside like this flat stuff. I push “lunch” away, but Mum stops me. (Eat it. No arguing.)
She’s quiet, more quiet than usual. Usually she is telling me things like Don’t Put Your Hand In Your Milk and Don’t Crawl Under The Table and Please Stop Banging Your Fork On Your Plate. I try to ignore her, like I can with Mally when he is not saying things that I like, but Mum’s voice won’t go away. Maybe flat voices just do that. Maybe you can’t make them go away and they stay and grate on your ears. Mally says that must be so. But Mum is never quiet like this. I almost wish that she would talk. It makes me feel funny, when she is not talking, like if Mally stayed on the ground it would feel funny. Maybe she’s angry? It must be my fault. Whenever she gets quiet like that, she waits until Dad gets home and then shouts at him in her room. Sometimes she says “bills” and sometimes she says “rent”, but mostly she says “Kat” very loudly and quite a bit. She also says things like “doing the best I can” and “what else do you expect”. It’s almost like them talking last night, only last night they were quiet. Usually Mum is very loud.
I don’t like it when Mum shouts like that. It makes me want to hide in my bed, but sometimes Mally won’t let me. Sometimes Mally is very mean. But he says that if he leaves me, they will kill me. I don’t want them to kill me. I can’t let Mally leave me because of that.What if they do?
Mally?
He isn’t there. Where did he go? Did he leave me? Forever? MALLY!
(Kat. Stop shouting. Eat your lunch like a good girl and then we can go to the Park.) Mum is at the sink now, and she doesn’t look at me when she talks. She looks at her hands, and at the flat dishes she is washing. Her voice tells me that she doesn’t really want to take me to the Park. But she will take me anyway, because it is “good for me”. That’s another thing that she shouts at Dad when he comes home. “Good for Kat”. Lots of things she says are “good for Kat”. Mostly I don’t like them. Like the Park. She always takes me to the Park, because it is “good for me”.
I don’t want to go to the park! Too many scary people! They whisper about me and they look at me funny and if they talk to me, Mally says they will try to kill me. I know they will. They don’t like me. Mally, where are you? Don’t let her take me to the Park!
She is worried. See the worry-lines around her eyes. She might cry. You know what that means, when she cries.
Oh, Mally. Yes, I know what that means. It means Dad comes home early and they talk in their room. About me. I don’t like it when they talk about me like that. Maybe they’re plotting. I don’t know exactly what that means, but Mally says it’s bad. Mally lets me hide in the basement when they talk like that, behind the big cold pipe. He says they can’t get me there. It must be true, because Mally says so. I look at Mum again. Don’t cry, Mum. Please. I don’t like it when you cry. Can’t you see Scholarship in the sink? Even he doesn’t want you to cry. He came out from under the desk so that you wouldn’t cry.
Mum freezes with her hands in the soapsuds. She must not see Scholarship because she has her hand in his ear. She looks at me, and the worry lines deepen. Then she comes over and puts her arms around me. (Oh, Kat. Why does it have to be you?)
I don’t like her touching me. She is too close! I shrink away from her but she seems to be all around me and I can’t get away. Mally, help! Make her get off me! I don’t like it! Mally, please! The red is starting like it always does, first out of the corner of my eye and then growing so that it is all that I can see. I am falling away from Mally, from Mum. The red is so angry, angry at me. What have I done? What have I done?
(August 28, 2012 - 8:15 pm)