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Show Moon -163 quite shaken the idea he gave me that I might be crazy, a worry that's been stronger lately, what with the waking up at three a.m. in sweat and dread. I'm hoping that coming here will help me, though I've no idea just how. The grounds of the state hospital are attractive as state hospitals go. Td forgotten how many weeping willows grow here, how hugely the oak trees extend themselves to each other, how inviting the paths that lie beneath them. Once again, I'm sorry I didn't bring my art supplies. Pastels would work wonderfully for this. I drive slowly through the gates, quelling a momentary thought that perhaps I shall never drive out again. I park the car in the visitor's lot in front of the administration building, lock it, and begin to walk on one of those paths. A crocodile line of patients comes into view, sad people staring at their feet as if they need to remember how to walk. They are not accompanied by attendants wearing white uniforms; they seem not to be led at all, or they are being led by employees admonished by a modern administration to look like "just folks." Still, the patients (or do they call them "clients" now?) move as a single body, a thing creeping on its belly, each part necessary for an orderly unit. Will I be seen as some part of this-a tooth, a bit of scale-that has moved itself off the body? Words mean different things in a place like this. If you say, "I don't belong here," it is automatically taken to mean that you do. I turn around abruptly, thinking I ought to report in at the reception desk, ask if it's okay if I just look around, asking really: Is it going to be safe to be here? But these thoughts mean nothing to the viscera, for I realize I'm no longer truly afraid. They are pure form, obligatory concerns, a kind of tribute to the past, a nod in the direction of one way the story might have gone. |