Play Detective

Ruined

Seconds and minutes and hours and days and weeks and months and years and scores and centuries and

All of them were laid out on fleshy tables as time slowed to a halt and the weight shackling him lightened to nothing. The blood sloshed in his head as the glassy tablets were forgotten and his hands ran through the haircut he'd outgrown. It returned to his ears when the strands found it appropriate to be dropped.

The room around him was stuffy smelling, the brown and the deep colors positively rancid tasting in the lightbulb that couldn't be dim enough.

Overall, his head felt dumb and heavy through this synesthesesic purgatory, and he felt the need to dislocate his bones to become smaller and thrash about simultaneously. The empty bed was gone, and there was scant evidence to prove that a bed had ever existed across the room. It was as if he had always existed in this solitude.

He knew better, but the current information was much more relevant to his thoughts.

In came the shame and the panic, smacking him around with sledgehammers as he sat paralyzed.

When he was freed, the panic had set in so far as to demand to be felt. The undertones of gloom and frustration had been mixed into a brightly colored concoction staining his face and his eyes in fluorescent red.

He attempted to quell the discomfort with idleness, but the olden chant laid true: idle hands are Satan's workshop.

Everything stalled to silence when he stood, but incrementally grew in dissonant volume when he stopped moving. He couldn't stop.

He was also very finished with the idea of remaining calm and passively allowing the smog to consume him.

His face pried his locked jaw apart and pushed his contravention through his windpipe.

Of course, then he was merely screaming.

Silencing himself, he scrambled over to the mirror above his dresser. In it laid a disheveled picture scratching hands through his hair before they picked up the hairbrush and nearly cracked the mirror at the corner- but missed and dented the wall.

He began to dig through the drawers. The door swung open to reveal two of his peers, and to witness the wooden drawer be flung into the window. A sound of shattering and splintering filled the air for a fraction of the second, and one of the other boys brought L to the ground.

It was all lost so quickly; L couldn't have been sure whether he continued to screech out into the quiet of frustration or grieving the muteness he displayed religiously.

Mr. Wammy forced himself through the crowd and into the doorway where he saw the boys wrestling. Taking matters into his own hands, he pried the other boy off and restrained L more effectively. He was, after all, the gentleman's responsibility.

"You did well, Edward, now find Mr. Ruvie or Nursey, and tell them to ring up the Hospital-"

"The mental hospital, sir?"

"Yes. Or the ward, whatever. Nursey would know."

All the while, the shouting and mad screaming had subsided, leaving way for irritated sobs and similar cries.

"Please, return to your chambers, this is under control."

Mr. Wammy dismissed the crowd, and still held L firmly to the ground. When the crowds had dissipated, he began to let L up, still keeping a firm hold on him.

Like a bony rag doll, the youth allowed himself to be sat up and the fearful tears wiped from his face.

"I know, I know, we're going to get you help. You can talk to me-"