Sanity by Judy Colella (beginner reading books for adults .TXT) 📕

“No, Anna. I gave it.” A gentle correction, but an important one.

During the less magical daytime hours, he continued to share his story. He told her about the unexpected visit by officials from some government agency, one associated with public health, about how at first he feared these inspectors would be murdered by the doctors or held prisoner there so they couldn’t tell anyone what they had stumbled upon. But with them were men in dark blue jackets with the letters “FBI” in white across their backs, and these men carried guns. They looked more dangerous than the doctors, but not in the same way. The hospital was evacuated almost immediately. Everyone – patients, nurses, orderlies, doctors – were brought outside. Except P-710. He had retreated further into the building, making his way to a private spot no one could possibly know about.

One floor deeper into the ground below the North basement labs was the Locker. The word on its door was “Morgue,” but they never called it that. The Locker held no whole corpses awaiting burial. No one got buried. Burned to ash, but never buried. Rather, this room with its icy cold air, bare cement walls and floors, supply cabinets and built-in freezers, contained body parts. Organs. Chunks of human tissue from every part of their former owners. And behind this repository of gore was another room separated from the main one by a false wall.

During one of his many escapes, he had found a way to remove the back of one of the supply cabinets which he’d pulled away from the wall. Working steadily, often until his hands bled, he had chipped at the cement bricks with stolen surgical tools until he’d removed enough to make what would become an opening he could slip through. Behind the bricks had been a wall of dirt, but he dug into it, placing the muddy soil in his slippers and dumping it outside through one of the small vents that kept the air circulating on the first floor. It took years, but by the time the asylum was investigated and shut down, he’d been living in this secret chamber for nearly a decade.

Access was gained through the cabinet, its back acting as both wall and door. Inside this cozy ten-by-ten space he kept a supply of candles, matches, some thick blankets and a pillow he’d managed to sneak out of the room that had once been his father’s, a change of clothing, soap, a toothbrush and paste, and as many books as he could fit in what room was left.

Naturally, he had to let himself get caught once in a while so they wouldn’t look too diligently for him, but most of the time he avoided the doctors so completely, a few had even forgotten he was there. On the day the asylum was raided, he chose to stay, using a combination of ventilator shafts and connecting doors between rooms to get to the Locker.

From inside his hiding place, he eventually heard people going through everything on the other side, even opening the cabinet behind which he waited, barely breathing.

“Sounds like what happened to Ann Frank,” Anna said, awed.

“Who?”

“You know – that Jewish girl who hid from the Nazis.”

He frowned. “The…the what?”

She searched his face for a few seconds and shook her head. “Wow. You really don’t know.”

“Oh, Anna. There is a great deal I don’t know. We were never allowed access to any kind of media, no radios used except by the doctors. We existed outside of time and away from reality. Well, most people’s reality.”

“But you knew about televisions and computers, didn’t you?”

“The Chief of Staff had a television, and they put a large one in the lounge used by short-term residents. The rest of us were never allowed to go anywhere near there, but I’d found a way to access that part of the building without getting caught. I thought it was sorcery the first time I saw one.” He smiled at himself. “And computers – the ones we had were nothing like what you have now. I asked Dr. Franco about that device she always brings with her, and she told me was a kind of computer called a, er, a lap…”

“Laptop.”

“Thank you. She showed me a little of what it can do. And her phone. It’s all beyond me, I’m afraid.”

“Hmm. But so – then what? I mean, after they shut the asylum down. When did you come out of hiding?”

“I waited until I hadn’t heard anything for several days. Of course, I was almost starving by then and needed to use the bathroom rather badly, so I probably would have come back out in any event.

“What I found astonished me. Everything had been almost literally torn apart. The offices were the worst. Every drawer in the desks had been removed, thrown to the floor, their contents removed, pictures and things yanked from the walls, the frames broken and empty.

The parts of the computers that stored information had been carried off, too. The operating rooms were in chaos. It looked as if they’d purposely wrecked everything in them and maybe they did. They’d all been occupied, I’m certain, their tables and beds holding patients in some state of torture. Every bit of medication had been swept from the supply cabinets, but they left things like bandages, peroxide and witch hazel, probably because they weren’t dangerous.

“Generally, though, the place was a mess, hospital gowns, articles of clothing, bloody rags, personal belongings, all strewn about, many crushed underfoot by the men sent in to clear the place out. Some of the windows in the lab doors were broken, I think because the doctors had stupidly tried locking them to keep the inspectors out. I’m calling them ‘inspectors,’ but I’m not really sure who or what they were.

“I had emerged from my refuge in the morning, but once it got dark, I discovered that the building was no longer supplied with electricity. Fortunately, I’d learned how to work the generator on the second floor. It was for emergencies, and had a power supply the electric company knew nothing about. The janitor told me about it when I was about seven. He though it was a great joke on the utilities. I never knew why he felt that way. Perhaps he thought they asked too much for their service.” He stopped and nodded at something behind her.

A male nurse was approaching them. Anna glanced over her shoulder and then stood. “Everything okay?” she asked when he was close enough to hear.

“Yup. Just need Mr. C. for a sec. Gotta get a tissue sample.”

Max paled. In his experience, that meant another scar, pain. “No. You can’t do that.”

“Do what? What’s up, Max?” The nurse appeared genuinely baffled.

“What kind of sample do you want?” Nothing that had happened in this place thus far had indicated a sudden onset of atrocious behavior on the part of the staff. The terminology was the immediate problem, but not, he hoped, a precursor to the only reality of that term he had ever known.

“Uh, it’s a – here.” The man produced a sealed item which he unwrapped to reveal a cotton swab on a long wooden dowel. “Just open your mouth so I can swab the inside of your cheek.”

“What?”

“They do that all the time,” Anna said, putting a hand on his shoulder. “They aren’t going to hurt you or cut you up, you know.”

Uncertain, wondering if he should begin to feel foolish yet, he complied. The nurse wiped the cotton tip against the inner surface of his left cheek, then put the swab into a plastic container designed to keep it uncontam- inated.

“All done. Thanks.” With a last puzzled glance at Max, he left.

“What was that for?”

“No idea. Don’t worry about it; I’m sure they’ll tell you. Probably a health thing.”

Now he felt foolish. “I overreacted, I think.”

“Understandable. So you were saying how the hospital was left in a huge mess. Then what?” She resumed her seat.

“Then what…then nothing. I decided I was probably better off there than anywhere else. I must have been about ninety years old. The world had passed me by and I doubted I could cope with the changes. I also didn’t want to encounter worse than what I’d already seen and experienced. On the other hand, if people were nicer and hospitals were different, I might finding myself resenting my own decision to remain behind.

“The next thirty years were actually very peaceful, except for the two times when some young people broke in and vandalized the building. They must have thought they would find things worth stealing, and in the end, just broke and destroyed what time hadn’t yet been able to ruin. So that was it. I had that whole place to myself, and used the solitude to reconcile myself with everything that had happened there, to heal. Physically, there are things that will never be right because of what they did to me, but here – ” he tapped his temple with one finger, “ – here, things are much better.”

She stood up and stretched. “I heard something interesting today. I don’t know if they want you to know this or not, but I can’t see that it would be harmful.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The asylum. Seems the City has been fighting with the Weatheridge estate for years to get the place torn down. Good thing you aren’t there any more; the building and grounds were finally signed over to the city a few days ago, and they’ll be knocking it into rubble in a day or two.”

He wasn’t sure how he felt about that. Relieved, perhaps. Not upset. It had been his home, but it shouldn’t have been. Not under those conditions. Certainly not for that long. He was sorry to lose some of the books and a faded sepia photograph of his father that he’d found in the man’s bedroom when he’d scavenged through it for the blankets and an extra set of clothes. But had he really ever intended to return for those things? He thought not. The regret was too indistinct. Too long away by now.

He felt she was waiting for a reaction from him. He gave her a simple one. “Good.”

“Guess that’s it, then. The rest happened the day I saw you?”

“It did. It is.”

“Yeah.” She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. “Thank you.”

“You didn’t have to listen. I believe my sense of gratitude may be greater than yours.”

“You talk funny.”

“I’m old.”

The smiles they flashed each other over that turned into laughter. Max felt good now when he laughed. There was no hurt in it.

*****

Dr. Franco’s eyes had been filled with something that widened them when she looked at Max. He caught glimmers, hints to suggest what it might be, but opted for patience to draw out the explanation. She said nothing for several moments after he greeted her, staring at him with that odd expression that couldn’t stop talking.

“Please sit, Max.”

Finally. The sound was almost a relief. He sat, taking his turn at silence.

Dr. Garner had loaned her his office without asking her why she needed it. Normally, her meetings with Max took place outside in good weather, in the visitor’s lounge otherwise.

She folded her hands on the borrowed desk and drew in a deep breath, giving herself traction perhaps. “I now know beyond any doubt that everything you’ve told me is true.”

That wasn’t what he’d expected her to say at all. Something about Anna and his relationship with her, yes. Not this. “How?”

“We have the capability of mapping genes, and can match a person’s DNA with samples either taken or given. For instance, if a man commits a crime and in the process gets injured, any skin or blood samples found containing his DNA can later be matched with a sample of his living cells to place him at the scene.”

“DNA?”

She smiled and took