A Madness So Discreet

by Mindy McGinnis

They believe I’m doing them a favor by turning violent patients into timid lambs. But in truth I do it for the afflicted, to ease their suffering and the weariness of the world they’ve been born into, where we have yet to understand or truly help them.”

The darkness has long lived inside me, sown if not by my nature then by nurture.

assure you—although in one or two cases it really was quite pleasant.

“So are we really that different? The healthy and the ill?” Grace asked. “I would argue there is no difference at all,” Thornhollow said. “To me the insane are simply people who have chosen not to participate in the world in the same manner as the majority, and there are days I wonder if they’ve got the right of it.” “You make it sound as if hardly anyone is insane with a definition as narrow as that.” “Quite the opposite; my definition is too broad. I think we’re all quite mad. Some of us are just more discreet about it.”

There is more to you than beauty. There is more to you than strength. There is more to you than intelligence. You are a whole person, and I would have you treat yourself as such.

“Grace,” he said quietly. “The fault does not lie with you. It never did. You are not a temptation but simply a target for another’s black sin.”

Emotions had welled close to the surface, and she thought her heart had never felt so full as it did standing next to the defiled grave of a whore while lunatics sang the national anthem.

I knew the fam’ly, knew all their ’ouses from years of ’elpin’ me mum cart their dirty sheets ’ome, never knowing I was to leave a blood spot on one someday meself. “So I found me way into the bedrooms of all ’is menfolk. One by one they all ’ad me, each unbeknownst to the other and me makin’ noises like it’s me first toss each time. Them so proud of themselves, so ’appy to have a young, pretty thing moanin’ underneath ’em, the whole time I’m givin’ back to them what their own relation delivered unto me. From ’is cousins and uncles and grandfather, right down to the youngest brother, who only got but a minute or two of pleasure from it, I ’ad ’em all. And their pride will keep ’em from the doctor, and their sores will keep ’em from their wives, and their cocks will rot right off and they’ll be wiped from the face o’ the earth. And it’s Nell O’Kelly that’s done it to ’em.”

“Yes, I knew she stopped taking the mercury baths,” Janey said. “What’s the use of treating you like people if we don’t let you make your own decisions?”

“This is where we’re different, Doctor,” Grace said quietly, her fingers tracing their chalk notes. “We both look upon things that no one should see and yet we do not flinch. I see the blood and think of the person it’s leaving while your mind is only on the one who spilled it. My thoughts are on the people and yours the puzzle.” “And that is exactly why I need you.”

It’s a madness so discreet that it can walk the streets and be applauded in some circles, but it is madness nonetheless.”