the snake pit.00:28 Jan 01 2012
Times Read: 389
"This isn't funny anymore!" yelled the man in the straight jacket. He was alone inside a white,
padded room. At least the room had once been white. One of the walls was now covered in unintelligible
crayon scribbles which might have resembled a mathematical formula if any of the symbols had actual
meaning. The opposite wall was a collection of random dots, drawn by the same crayon. The third wall
had a small door in it, and the fourth wall was clear so the occupant could hurl himself into it without
disturbing his carefully rendered art. At the moment he wasn't smashing himself into his fourth wall,
but he was getting ready to do so.
Before he could, the small door in the third wall opened and two men stepped slowly inside. Both
were tall, and dressed in crisp white uniforms. The first was stout, barrel chested, and dark skinned.
His hair was long, but it was bound and tucked into a hairnet. He had stormy eyes, a small neat beard,
and a name tag that read `Grace'. The other was thin, but somehow gave the impression that he was no
weaker than his burly companion. He had hawkish features, a bald pate, and a perpetually uninterested
look. His tag read `Thorpe'.
"I see you're up and around again," Grace said, almost kindly. "Do you remember your name?"
The jacketed man started an acerbic reply, but it took him just long enough to answer that a tinge
of worry overrode his anger. "John. I'm John Crichton." And he was John Crichton, that much was certain.
Everything else in the universe he wasn't as sure about.
"That's good, mate," Grace smiled. Thorpe looked impatient. "Do you remember my name? Or where you are?"
Crichton tried to wedge himself up onto his feet, a difficult proposition with his arms still tied in the
jacket. "No," he admitted, with a hint of defeat. "I can read your name on your uniform, but I don't know you."
"Well I can see that I am not needed here. Call me if he needs to be restrained for some reason," Thorpe
drawled with a voice like bitter honey.
Grace gave him a sour look but let him go without comment. "Sorry about that, mate. Harve there feels
like this job's beneath him. You can call me Tyler, and this is the Quiet View Sanatorium, your home
for the last two years."
Crichton blinked as he processed this information. Harvey Thorpe? Tyler Grace? Those names were somehow
familiar, but off in a way he couldn't grasp. Two years in a mental institution? That didn't track at
all. "Thanks, Tyler. So, are you the next contestant on `This is your Mindfuck', or are you just Vanna
White. Or a fellow victim, I get this strange feeling I've seen you before."
"Still the paranoid delusional," grinned Grace. "It's good to have you back. If you promise me you're
not gonna flip on me, mate, I'll get you out of that jacket and help reacquaint you with the grounds."
Crichton twitched. "Okay, I'll play along for now, if it'll get me out of the straightjacket." To his
surprise, Grace started working on the straps to get him out. "You said it was good to have me
back...where'd I go?"
"Catatonic stupor. Sometimes it lasts for days, sometimes weeks. We call them your `episodes'. You
wake up from most of your episodes with some kind of amnesia. It usually wears off in a few days."
"And when I don't wake up with amnesia?" Crichton asked, flexing his newly freed arms.
Grace's eyes flicked downwards. "Those are the bad ones," he shrugged. "It usually takes both Thorpe
and me to give you your meds for awhile."
Crichton tensed. Should he be fighting this situation harder than he was? Hell, he wasn't even sure
any of this was real. At least by cooperating he might get a chance to run into a ladies restroom.
Someone was playing games with him. "Yeah, well, the episode is over. I'll try to be a good boy for
a while."
Grace stepped out of the door and held it open, gesturing Crichton ahead of him. "That's all we can
ask. Just remember, the general population here can be pretty excitable, so don't rile any of them
up or the tour is over."
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There was something hauntingly familiar about this place. The more Grace showed him, the stronger a sense of deja vu Crichton was getting. Even he had to entertain the possibility that he had spent some time here. "Hey Tyler, we don't play basketball with a huge Native American, do we?"
Grace shook his head. "Movie. No Nurse Ratchet. Definitely no lobotomies." He turned a corner ahead of Crichton and greeted someone inside the next room. "Hey, Aaron. Guess who's up and around?"
Aaron? Why did his heart suddenly skip a beat? He ducked quickly around the corner to see...a man. Somehow not what he had expected. He was thin, almost effeminate, with a sharp nose, long, unkempt dark hair and a scraggly moustache. He struck Crichton as looking similar to a burned out Viet Nam veteran that used to visit his dad. Especially the look in his eyes.
"Jackknife Johny," Aaron smiled, and suddenly looked predatory.
"Uh...hi, Aaron," Crichton stuttered. Jackknife? "I...uh...I don't remember you. But I'm sure it'll come back to me."
Aaron bared teeth that could tear his throat out. "I'm sure it will, Jackknife."
After Grace led him away down the next corridor. Crichton had to ask. "So what's his story? He looks like he's been in one war too many."
"He has been. His last war was against a school bus. Heavy casualties," Grace said darkly. "For some reason, you two seem pretty tight, when you remember everything that is. No one else here will have much to do with him."
"So I've been locked in an asylum and my best friend is a mass murderer," Crichton said glumly. "My life sucks as usual." He stopped suddenly. "Hey Grace...why am I here? I mean, am I just crazy, or did I do something like Aaron?" There was something there. Was it guilt?
Grace seemed to hesitate, weighing his answer. "I don't think the Doc would want me to talk about that."
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Tyler paused in a doorway and placed a cautionary hand on Crichton's chest, keeping him back. There was shouting coming from the other room. Crichton leaned forward anyway to see what the fuss was, and practically did a double-take. It was a large space, probably some sort of common room, with patients decorating it like flannel debris. The commotion was being caused by a rather extraordinary figure, a girl wearing a loose gown and pajamas similar to Crichton's own. What was extraordinary about her was her complexion. Her skin was a pale gray that looked as though it had never been touched by the sun. Dark circles under, over, practically all around her eyes gave her a haggard, almost wraith-like appearance, which was only accentuated by a spiky shock of bone white hair. She was screaming and throwing a checker board at a redheaded nurse.
"I told you, I won't take them!" she shrieked, and pieces of plastic bounced across the room.
"You have to take your meds," the exasperated nurse whined with a slight Australian accent. She was holding a paper cup with three colored pills rattling inside, but the pale girl slapped the hand with the cup and sent the contents flying.
Crichton's mouth twitched downward in thoughtful appraisal. "Rebellious," he murmured approvingly.
"You have no idea," sighed Grace. "That's Rhiannon. Local wild child."
"Fleetwood Mac fans. What's she in for?" Crichton rubbed his eyes. Fleetwood Mac. Song lyrics. That he remembered. Listening to the song on the radio in his beat up pickup truck.
"Criminally insane. They say she killed her brother. Went totally nutters and stabbed him forty times with a butcher knife. They say that's when her hair turned."
"They say. What about her skin?"
"I dunno, mate. It's a skin condition, got some kind of name fourteen syllables long. Harve said it's a side effect, that it means her mom was pretty heavy into the drug scene while she was pregnant. Can't say if that's true or not, I'm just an orderly here."
Crichton's next question halted in his throat as the girl's rage suddenly cut off. He looked back to see Thorpe pushing her back down into her chair, a single cold hand on her shoulder. The redhead had retreated gratefully behind him, looking somewhat overwhelmed.
"Is there some kind of problem here, Rhiannon?" he crooned.
"N-no," she quavered. Then she gulped and closed her eyes, girding herself. "Yes. I don't...I don't need any medication today. I feel fine. Really."
"Come now," he said reasonably, in an almost sing-song voice. "We both know that your prescription says you have to take your medication every day. No exceptions. Otherwise you might do something else you'll regret."
Her shoulder sank under his weight, and she sucked in her lip as his strong bony fingers dug into her skin like talons. Her eyes watered and she gave a very small nod. "Something I'll regret. Something...else." She wilted, and this time accepted the cup from the nurse without complaint.
Thorpe smiled and released her shoulder. "Very good." He turned to the nurse. "If she gives you any more trouble, Julie, let me know."
In the doorway, Crichton felt rage building in his chest, and his neck tightened as he physically bit down on it to keep it from spewing out of his mouth. "That Thorpe guy, he's a real bastard isn't he. Strikes me as the type that enjoys his work just a little too much."
Grace shrugged. "He gets the job done, mate. In a place like this, that's all that really matters."
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"Hey Tyler, what's down that way?" Crichton asked, gesturing to the one wing in the convoluted maze of white hallways that Grace had yet to show him.
"That's the confinement wing. For patients that are too dangerous to interact with the general population. Or too dangerous to themselves to be unbound."
Morbid curiosity got the better of him. "Who's down there?"
Grace took a look in both directions, and then spoke softly. "Only two down there now. Aggro and Dan."
"Aggro?"
"Real name is Tim, or something like that, but as long as I can remember everyone has just called him Aggro. Like that Croc on Steve Irwin's show." Crichton's quizzical look prompted Grace to keep gossiping. "Huge bloke. Beat his wife to death with his bare hands. Always growling at people when he was out in the general population."
"What got him stuck in there?"
"The wild child." Grace's voice dropped down to a whisper. "Thorpe and I caught them after hours, going at it. He was strangling her, and she just kept going. She was even more pissed than he was when we broke it up. She ended up in the medical ward for two weeks, and he hasn't been fit to pull out of restraints since. Loonies." Grace shook his head, and then seemed to remember where he was. "No offense, mate."
"Hey, that sounds pretty nuts to me," Crichton shrugged, and mentally scratched Rhiannon off his list of potential allies. Maybe there was a reason he was hanging around with Aaron. "What about Dan?"
Grace seemed more comfortable with this topic, relaxing slightly. "Fat guy. Ugliest bloke you ever seen. Slit some woman's throat right while they were in the middle of it."
"We seem to have a motif here."
"Yeah. Every time we let his arms free he starts ripping his hair out."
"Charming. Hey Tyler...is there anyone in this place who hasn't killed somebody?"
The dark man hesitated. "I dunno, mate. There's still a few nurses I'm not too sure about."
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"Doctor Stark will see you now," chirped the redhead, and ushered Crichton into a small office.
Behind a desk sat a rugged looking man with long, straight hair and a large black eyepatch over the left side of his face. "Hello, John," he smiled. "Come in, sit down. I'm glad to see you back with us."
"Can't say I'm too glad to be here, Doc," Crichton folded himself into the empty chair and did his best to stretch out and look disinterested.
"Considering the alternative is fantasy, I would think you'd be happy to be somewhere at least," said the doctor, without a hint of malevolence. Crichton's hackles went up. "How much do you remember?"
"About myself? Not much. I remember my dogs. I remember American Presidents, A to Z. I remember my dad, and my truck. But my self...that's a blank."
"You seem fairly unconcerned about that."
"I'm sure it will all come back to me." Crichton tried to think impenetrable thoughts, on the off chance that this doctor could somehow read his mind.
Doctor Stark leaned forward, peering at Crichton's face with his single eye. "It always does. And it's never pleasant. No. So this time we've decided to try something a little different." He leaned back and tossed a folder on the desk.
Crichton eyed it, noting that his name was stenciled along the top. He forced himself to not jerk his hand out and snatch it.
"Go ahead, take a look," the doctor said softly. "Or are you afraid. You may not remember me, John, but I remember you. We have replayed this scene many times. You consider me a threat. I'm not sure why, but I attribute it to an instinctive mistrust for authority that you seem to have. But I assure you, I am your ally. I am not here to break you, John, I am here to help you." He pushed the folder towards Crichton.
Crichton pursed his lips, and nonchalantly lifted the folder. There were charts first, but he flipped past them to the newspaper clippings that followed. "Childhood Friends to Test Theory," he read out loud. "A scientist and an astronaut, I thought people got thrown into this kinda place for pretending to be crap like that," he smiled, reading the particulars of the experiment from the article with interest. "Sounds like it'll work, a first step towards FTL. Go me!"
Doctor Stark folded his hands in front of him, and continued to watch Crichton read. Crichton's eyes snapped shut as a memory flashed across his mind like a movie. Space. So high it didn't even seem high anymore. Houston I am free and flying.
Crichton licked his lips and turned to the next page. "Worst Disaster in IASA History." Again the images danced across his vision, unbidden. Speed. A small module skipping across the stratosphere like a rock hurled across a lake. The way the module shook. The ungodly sounds it made. Off course. Spinning. Reentry. Blaring alarms and tilting instruments.
Stark's eye seemed to be boring into him.
"Hundreds Dead," Crichton read the final headline. "Commander John Crichton bailed out of his failing test module only five thousand feet over Sydney. His parachute deployed successfully and he was recovered in an outer suburb. But his module, dubbed `Farscape One' struck downtown, and caused the collapse of..." He couldn't go on. He tossed the file back onto the desk.
"That's just the start," the doctor prompted, pushing the folder back towards the agitated former astronaut.
"That's enough. I can guess the rest. Total breakdown. Someone proves that I did it on purpose. I commit some other depraved acts. I'm found criminally insane."
Stark nodded.
"That's bullshit," Crichton hissed. "It didn't happen that way. No pilot would bail out of a ship over a city. I wouldn't. This is wrong. You're wrong." He stood up to point at Stark. "This isn't fucking real!"
"I'm sorry you feel that way, John," Stark said evenly. He opened the folder and underlined the words `Paranoid Delusional' on the first chart. "I think that's enough for today." He clicked a buzzer on his desk. "Julie, could you send in Thorpe please?"
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"Well that looks great," Crichton said dully, as a scoop full of...something hit his plate with a sound that could only be described as a `splorch'. He paused a moment to see if his sarcasm had registered on anyone. Nada. Crichton sighed and moved on.
"What, no champagne?" Rhiannon smirked behind him, catching on to the spirit of the thing after all.
Crichton couldn't help but snort, which Rhiannon took as an invitation. She followed Crichton back to where he was sitting and swung a leg up and over a chair to sit down across from him. He looked up questioningly.
She tilted her head. "This seat taken?"
He hesitated. "No. I guess not."
She twitched and played with her food between her fingers. "Well I've had warmer welcomes. But not lately."
"There's quite a bit of gossip about just that," he said, a little more coldly than he had intended to. It sounded odd, talking about gossip in an asylum. "Sorry," he mumbled after she just stared at him for a moment.
"You're pretty judgmental for a mass murderer," she finally said. "So is everyone around here. I'm getting tired of frelling lunatics looking down on me, just cause they don't understand!"
One of the words she said echoed through his brain, a ghost of something he'd lost. He had a flash of something huge and alive and warm, against a backdrop of black. He shook it off. "Well I try to be open minded. And I have to admit I've wondered. Was it a suicide attempt?"
The corners of her mouth turned down. "It wasn't suicide. It was love."
He was startled. "You loved that guy? He was beating you to death."
"No. He loved me. That was how he loved me. It was worth it. It's worth it to be loved." Her eyes glistened, and he really looked at them for the first time. Black. As black as space had been. He drew back, disoriented, and really saw her. Pale skin, shock of white hair. More a specter than a girl. And yet somehow she stood out in sharp relief against all the other white in the well scrubbed rooms.
And she saw it flash within him. She leaned in and whispered. "They can hear. They can always hear. But I don't belong here. I didn't kill Harry. Everything I remember is wrong. I don't fit. I don't fit anywhere." She was practically gasping. It seemed like she was desperate, trying to spill everything out before anything happened to stop her.
Then something happened to stop her. Aaron gave her a swift clip, just enough to send her to the floor in a heap. "Move it, slut. That's my chair you're sitting in," Aaron said, looking down at her. Then he turned to give John a brief nod. "Jackknife."
Rhiannon stood and tried to muster a little dignity. Failing that, she grabbed her tray to walk away. "Jackknife," she parroted on her way out.
Crichton gave an embarrassed wave and turned to Aaron. "What was that?"
"I could ask you the same. I've seen you fall pretty low after an episode, but never low enough to go sniffing around that skank."
"I wasn't sniffing around anything, just talking. You got some kind of a problem with that?"
"No problem. Just watching my spot until you remember everything," Aaron said with a grim set to his jaw.
Crichton practically choked. "Hey...uh...Aaron...don't take this the wrong way, but, were we more than friends?"
A half smile crept onto Aaron's face. "Would that disturb you, if we were?"
Crichton's eyes darted back and forth, and he was suddenly distinctly uncomfortable. "I guess I don't know. I mean, I'm a guy. You're a guy. We're just...two guys, Aaron."
"Bullets penetrate flesh. They don't discriminate. Man or woman, it's all the same to a bullet. We're like bullets, John." Aaron's half smile turned slowly into a sneer. "Does the ghost excite you, Jackknife? If she does, we could do something about it. Both of us, together. Like bullets."
Crichton stood up and started away. He didn't bother picking up his food, he'd lost his appetite.
Aaron watched him go through narrowed eyes, and frowned.
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Doctor Stark stood stiffly as Thorpe slowly unlocked a cell. "Are you certain this is a good idea, Doctor? This late at night, it seems somewhat...irregular."
"Just open it," Stark hissed. "This is my asylum. Not your asylum. I'm the doctor, you're the orderly. I decide what treatment is appropriate here, not you. And don't you ever forget it, Harvey. Do I make myself clear?"
"Crystal clear...Doctor," Thorpe said through his perpetual frown, and then mumbled something else too low for Stark to hear. The door clicked open, and Thorpe quickly checked to insure the inmate had no ambush prepared. No such luck. The fat man was sitting placidly on the other side of the room, securely wrapped in a white straight jacket.
"That will be all, Harvey. In fact, take the night off," said Stark as he slipped inside the padded room.
Thorpe sputtered. "But Doctor, the inmates..."
"Will have to look after themselves for a few hours. Get out." Stark glared at the thin man with a look that bordered on insanity.
"Very well, Doctor Stark," Thorpe said crisply, and then paused. "Goodnight."
Stark waved dismissively as the orderly skulked away, looking for the world as though he had nowhere else to go. Stark carefully closed the door behind himself, but didn't let it catch. "I had to come, my love. I can only stay away so long."
The fat man on the far side of the room regarded him with placid eyes.
Stark held his breath and moved across the flow, slowly undoing the straps on the back of the jacket, and then pulling the apparatus up and over the fat man's head. The fat man sloughed off with the straight jacket, leaving a slender blue woman behind. Stark finally exhaled, gingerly touching one of her petal like cheeks. A low moaning sound erupted from the back of his throat unbidden.
"Stark," she acknowledge without emotion.
He pulled his hand away. "You still haven't forgiven me."
She tilted her head. "You tore me from the bosom of my goddess. You...contained my essence within this abomination. And then there is Crichton and Chiana. Truly, what is there to forgive, my love?"
Stark sat silently for long moments, staring at her with sadness and longing. "I had to," he finally said slowly. "I saw it all. I saw what would happen. And I couldn't let it. And I couldn't kill him...not after all I owe him. So I had to...but I couldn't face eternity without you."
"You've told me this before. And yet you don't have me."
"But I have hope. We have all the time there is to come to terms. If you weren't here then I would have nothing, and this abomination as you call it would truly become a receptacle for madness. No...I can take the truth. You can take the truth. My truth, your truth. But Crichton and the Nebari...I have to keep them distracted. For their own good. For all eternity. I can do it, but not without my hope."
"I understand," the blue woman softened slightly. "But I do not forgive." Despite herself she reached out to stroke the stubble on his cheek. Then her eyes grew distant. "They are growing nearer to one another. I can feel this place shift when their eyes look in the same direction. They are stronger together than they are apart."
"And that's why I had to strike them down," he brooded.
"Closer now, almost touching," she said, still elsewhere. Then suddenly her eyes fixed on Stark again. "And will you keep them apart? Nurse their illusions until there is nothing else left?"
"No."
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Crichton was surprised to find the door to his padded cell opening of its own volition. He set down his crayon and peered at the opening. A moment later an explanation of sorts appeared, in the guise of white haired Rhiannon.
"Knock-knock," she giggled, and slipped inside.
"Okay, definitely not expected," he said drily, and picked his crayon back up. "How'd you do it?"
"I have my ways," she cackled, and plonked down on the soft floor beside him. "Grace and Thorpe are pretty sharp, but they aren't the only ones in this place who carry keys."
"Bravo," he said curtly. "You're not afraid of being caught?" He was looking at the wall instead of her, drawing in a small circle.
"No. Dr. Cyclops sent Thorpe home for the night. Grace won't be in for hours. Why, are you afraid I'll get you in trouble?" She poked him in the arm. "I never knew you were such a good boy."
He gave an exaggerated frown and stuck his tongue out at her. "Oh yeah, I'm a paragon of virtue. But really, you shouldn't be here. If you get caught, it'll go way worse for you than it will for me."
She grew quiet, and looked strangely pleased by what he'd said. She leaned in closer. "Whatcha drawing?"
"Stars. This is my night sky. I've been there. Someday I'm going back."
"I know. I know it sounds crazy...but I was born there. I think my parents didn't want me, so they dropped me off here. When you go back, take me with you, okay?" her voice turned pleading.
"Is that why you're here? You're looking for a ride?"
"N-no. No. I'm here because you're real. I can tell, you know. There's only four of us here. You, me, Dan, and Doctor Stark."
He dropped the crayon and leaned back. "I feel like that too sometimes," he admitted. "I could tell there was something different about you, but I thought it was just the way you look. But this place, there's something wrong about it. There aren't enough hours in the day. Or there are too many. Or the halls don't always lead to the same place." He lost the words, staring at his wall. "Crap. I am crazy."
She kissed the top of his shoulder, and then turned to stare at the wall as well. "What's that one?" she pointed to a large star in the center with a corona.
"That's the Sun, my guiding star," he said.
"And that one?"
"Well this group here is all local stars and clusters," he followed her finger, concentrating intently on getting all the names right. He had vague memories of working all this out, bizarre places from his imagination. "Those aren't. That one is called Moya. And there, LoMo. DamBaDa. Rygel." He kept listing stars, names that hung with him even through the episodes.
She smiled broadly. "Any aliens out there?"
"Other than you? Yeah. Luxanoids."
She laughed, but not at him. "That one, right there," she slid up against the wall. A small dot far off the center. "That's where I'm from. What's it called?"
"That one is Pip."
"Pip," she rolled it around her mouth, like something she had lost. "I'm from Pip. There, everyone takes their meds, and act like good boys and girls. They were taking me back for shock therapy when I was rescued by this totally lost human astronaut."
He laughed, but not at her. "I like it. Then what happened?"
She slid backwards almost on top of him, forcing him to put his arms around her. "Then a Luxanoid took us to LoMo. Great parties there. I did some acid, you shot up the place. The usual."
He snorted. "Yeah, that sounds about right. I am a notorious criminal in outer space. Most astronauts are." The laughter was fading somewhat as he started to actually notice her, pressed up against him. How alien she really was.
"John?"
"Pip?"
"Don't let me go."
"I won't," he answered, a strange resolve building in his voice.
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