The Patient

by Jasper DeWitt

No building I have seen since seemed to so thoroughly embody the stern, bleak lines of arbitrarily enforced sanity.

I learned the hard way in my first months that you don’t point out reality to people who have delusions. It doesn’t help, and they just get angry.

The place was held behind two heavy, ugly, gray doors, and they opened with a buzz that sounded like it had been calculated to disrupt the human mind before you entered.

I know, it’s a dumb thing to think, but when you’re a kid desperate to be loved, you’ll believe anything is your fault if it’ll make your parents love you again.

As I walked up the sparkling limestone stairs, the door opened and a wispy woman whose face looked the picture of gracefully aging beauty swept down to meet me.