This week, I was supposed to digitize all of Dr. Marnen’s patient files. I was feeling good about my progress when I saw it. A second filing cabinet, hiding behind the shelves, that I’d never noticed before. Sighing with fatigue, I yanked open the first drawer. I plucked out a …
“No, Mama! Mama, no! Please, Mama, don’t let them take me! I’ll be good, I swear!” the girl screamed. Tears flowed from her eyes as she thrashed against the two-adult woman dressed in black. They held her arms firm and pulled her deliberately up a small set of stairs. “Now, …
They move again tonight. I lay and watch them, seeing as it’s all I can do. They slip and slide through the street lamp window curtain shaded light and I know my eyes have begun to fail. Or perhaps the eyes are fine and my mind is finally going from …
Part 1 This is your captain speaking. I’ve just turned on the seat belt sign. We’re expecting a fair amount of turbulence coming up, so we ask that you please remain seated until the sign is turned off. We’re on pace to land at Newark International Airport at 3:30 a.m., …
A couple of months ago, I found a diary written by a young girl, Florence Blackwell, who was a patient at the Kings Park Psychiatric Hospital on Long Island. Without telling the entirety of the story over again, there was one person who was instrumental in Florence’s survival of inhumane treatment at the hospital; a nurse named Mary.
I grew up on Long Island, right outside of the Kings Park Psychiatric Center, home of the legend of Cropsey. I was always a good kid, never broke any rules, never really pushed the limits of what was and wasn’t “allowed”. But recently, I moved home after graduating from college, …
I Found a Diary Tucked in a Brick at an Abandoned Psych Hospital Read More »
Katy took a long hit on the pipe. Her eyes rolled up and back into her head. She choked on the smoke that invaded her lungs, and an attempt at a giggle was unsuccessful. Her blue eyes watered and her almost-laugh was strangled by another coughing fit. “I’m gonna die!” …
Any mother who has more than one child will admit-if she’s honest-that she has one child who worries her more than the others. This has nothing to do with love, but rather some children’s propensity to find trouble-the child most likely to get in a fight at school, or picked …
“I can’t sleep,” she whispered as she crawled into bed and spooned against my back. “Jesus, you’re cold,” I murmured. She only snuggled closer, throwing her leg over mine. I lay there for a few beats, caught between my alcohol-induced sleep and wakefulness, until I realized whatever this cold thing …
Craig Brockwell was found by his wife, dead on their living room floor, a plastic garbage bag tied off around his neck, and an empty bottle of Xanax on the kitchen counter, next to a suicide note. My initial external examination of the body revealed no indications of a physical …
I just got this sweet little job over on the Northside. It’s too cool; I sit with this old lady from the evening to early morning. I don’t like to party and all that, so I don’t mind. I get there and feed her through the feeding tube and I …
“Alright, can you count backwards from 50 for me please?” The nurse asked sweetly. I nodded and opened my mouth. “50, 49, 48, 47…” I could barely remember finishing the numbers, as all I could suddenly see was darkness, as my mind succumbed to the anesthesia. Before I knew it, …
John sat with his grandmother on the balcony terrace overlooking West Bay Road and the lower Hampshire valley. The lush green fields from springtime were now singed-brown; the lack of rainwater that summer was turning the place into the Mojave Desert. A screaming hawk flew overhead, much like John it …
It’s quiet. There is no sound. No light. Nothing but the darkness. I am asleep… or at least… I think I am. I begin to hear a noise, a faint whistling sound. It grows louder and louder. I open my eyes and I’m on a beach, the waves crashing along …
