The Mental Patient

“Granted: I am an inmate of a mental hospital, my keeper is watching me, he never lets me out of his sight; there’s a peephole in the door, and my keeper’s eye is the shade of brown that can never see through a blue- eyed type like me. My name is Jonathan Marks, I am 17 years old, I’ve been in this place since I was 15 years old. Don’t ask me the reason for why I’m here, you wouldn’t want to know, and if you asked anyone else in this place, they’ll just say that nothing’s wrong and run away. You’d waste your time on that one. But I will tell you who sent me here though, that’s a real Lifetime movie if I ever saw one. I was sent here because of my darling mother, who had me when she was the ripe old age of 18, she got rid of me when she found out that there was actually work involved in taking care of a baby. When she found out the harsh reality of mother hood, she decided that she could handle it, so she sent me off the foster care system when I was only four and half, five years old. Don’t get me wrong she was probably a niece lady, but you see I wouldn’t know and all. Anyways I was sent away to foster care when I was about five years old, and so far in my life I’ve had up to seven foster families. So you could tell that the love for me was always there and so was a big dollar sign hanging over my head. So much that I practically raised myself. And you can come to the understanding of how well that turned out. The last foster family that I had, the Jankonson’s, they had about, eight or ten foster kids, and when they heard that they were going to get an eleventh, well you could just imagine their happiness, with the added bonus to their government checks, food stamps and all that glamorous kind of stuff. Anyways they’re the ones who sent me here, can you imagine? Like I said don’t ask me the reason for why I’m here.” I said to a reporter, who was at the hospital documenting the life of mental patients, I hope she caught on to my sarcasm when I was talking about my mom and my foster family.

I didn’t mean to freak her out, but it just seemed so easy. I mean how could you not. Here is this random reporter/ journalist person from the most random of newspapers, magazines, blog, or whatever, coming to document the life of a “mental” patient at a “mental” hospital, how could you not freak someone out.  You could just say hello with a real big smile on your face and you’d freak someone out. To be honest it was kind of funny, like I said once I finished talking, she paused, looking at me with the widest eyes in the world, almost as if they were going to bug out of her head, I saw she was completely freaked out when I told her not to ask me the reason for why I’m here. Like I said it was kind of easy freaking her out.

Then she realized that she was staring at me and snapped back into reality, well her reality. My reality is this mental home, but her reality is to get out of this mental home as fast as she can. She clicked her pen closed, oh lord I always hated the sound of clicking pens, it always made me cringe. Like I said she clicked her pen closed, then looked down at her notes, stared at them for a second, looked up and quickly closed her spiral notebook. It was the fastest that I had ever seen someone close a notebook that fast, it kind of made my jump back in my seat a little. Then I asked her “Is that all you wanted to know? Did you get everything?” The reporter lady moved her chair, got up and walked over to the door. She knocked twice and my keeper opened the door to let her out. Once the door closed behind them, I got up out of my chair and walked over to the door, and looked through the peep hole. I could see them talking, the reporter looked pretty frazzled, as if she hadn’t realized that she was going to be locked in the room with a convicted “mental” teenager. Anyways as I looked out through the peep hole I could see my keeper. Even when he was talking to someone else he still managed to give me one of those looks that only a zoo keeper could give to a pathetic animal, which was me.

He was the most  aggravating and annoying person I had ever met, he was always around like I was one of those stray dogs that always followed you. He was always watching to make sure that I didn’t do anything wrong. But how the hell could I? I’m in a MENTAL HOSPITAL, for crying out loud, there isn’t much you can do. The highlight of my time here has been beating some kid in checkers. But like I said he was always around, he was like one of those flies. You know the ones that are always flying and buzzing around you, and every time you just deal with it, ignoring it, hoping it will go away. But then it gets to be too much of an annoyance you just want to get a fly swatter and, SPLAT, the flying buzzing pest is gone. If only it were possible, and if it were you’d need a huge fly swatter.

Then while I was still looking for a peep hole, I could see the reporter lady walk back to the door. I quickly jump back into my seat as if I had never moved. When she entered the room, she walked over to her chair, clicked her pen back open, opened her spiral notebook, and began “Jonathan, it’s been nice talking to you, I have everything I need for my blog, but the one thing that would make it an even amazing story, is if you told me the reason why you were here”.

I just looked at her and kind of laughed a little under my breath, then I said “Okay, fine I’ll tell you. Alright so the reason why I’m here is because I’m a pathological liar. My mother did send me here, but only on account of her own benefit. She said that I did something, then the cops came to my house, I tried to explain my innocence, but she just kept ranting and raving that I was a pathological liar. And so everything that I had told you before was a lie. So you have no reason to believe me”. I said with a smirk on my face then I said again “Did you get everything you needed this time?”

She looked at me with that freaked out, wide-eyed stare, again. She nodded her head, clicked her pen, closed her spiral notebook, and walked out the door. I think she kind of felt fooled, but hey, that’s not my fault. She came into a mental hospital, and talked to a patient, what did she think it was going to be filled with? Some normal people just hanging around a hospital for fun? She didn’t have a clue, but if you’re wondering if what I said to her was true, well it was, well sort of. Like I said I’m a pathological liar, in a mental home, you guess if I’m telling the truth.