This is my Symphony

1

I lay on my bed and I stare at the ceiling.2

White is the color of purity, I think idly. I don’t really care.3

White is a clean color, a soft color. 4

[***He sits slumped on the wall, breathing shallowly, wishing death could come a little quicker. It doesn’t really hurt. He’s glad. 5

His senses are over-come with desolation.6

He doesn’t really want to die anymore. 7

But it’s going to happen, so he embraces it.8

Blood paints gruesome pictures on white walls.***]9

I liked white, because you can pretend there are colors on it, paintings on it, and it doesn’t feel so lonely anymore.10

I could leave my room.11

I’m not in a high-security ward. I could go to the game room, or the library.12

But I have all the paper and books I need in here.13

I turn over on my bed, and look at the padded walls.14

They aren’t really padded.15

I’ve never been violent.16

I can hear somebody crying next door and I want to tell them that it’ll be alright.17

They have hope of leaving, it’ll be okay. They’ll be gone from this place, they’ll be back in the real world sometime.18

I used to cry.19

[***He leans against the walls, fingers the bandage around his neck and wonders how he didn’t manage to die.20

Instead he ended up here.21

It could be worse, it could be much worse.22

But they say that if he does well enough, if he goes to therapy, he’ll be able to leave soon.23

It’s hope.24

But all he can think about is failure.25

Failure, failure, failure.26

He always fails, he thinks woefully.27

He clutches his legs to his chest and he weeps.***]28

I stopped crying after a while.29

I started reading, writing, and composing again.30

I love composing.31

I was an artist before I was put in here.32

I used to make music before I was here, but it never worked out.33

It was too bad.34

[***He throws the papers against the walls, and they scatter, floating downward.35

The musical notes, small and perfect on the page, smudge.36

He is bitter. 37

Suddenly he wonders if people in Heaven (or maybe Hell) value music.38

He decides to find out.***]39

But now I make all the music I want, I write all the notes and I play them on the piano.40

Here it seems there is music all around me.41

I hear the person next door crying still, I hear somebody screaming, I hear doors opening and closing, I hear nurses rolling carts with our medication down the halls.42

It’s all music.43

[***Two years later, at twenty-three, he is famous.44

He smiles from the cover of ‘Time’ magazine.45

He’s been smiling a lot since he got out of the special hospital.46

He is proud.47

His story is told to people in the special hospital and he gives them hope.48

He seems normal.49

He still takes anti-depressants.50

But it’s almost like happily-ever after.51

His first famous piece is called ‘Asylum’.***]52

I turn around in my bed so I am facing the ceiling again and I hum to the music of my hospital.53

This is my symphony.54

-The End-55