The Asylum

Chapter 4

Muse reminds me of onions.

Well, actually, no.

Not onions. Maybe apples. As a child, I would always instruct my mom to peel my apples, making them crystal clean, sparkling like sapphires in my young eyes, before she gave them to me. The peel was a slimy, cold distraction to me, hiding the sweet, crunchy interior. As I visit Muse more, I feel like my mother, slowly peeling back the cold exterior that hides what's truly on the inside. I'm not sure what exactly I'm uncovering, but I decide that I'm interested in seeing what I find.

Over the next few days, I visit Muse's ward to give her a new dress, some new shoes, to clean her floor, and to give her some food. She still yells and is defensive when I enter, but over time, I'm noticing small things, such as how she sits closer and closer to me every day, and how her hands unfurl like baby bird wings when she sees what I have to bring for her. I feel as if I am taming a wild animal whenever I visit her. Or that I'm walking on eggshells. One slip, and I fall on the sharp spikes.

If any employees notice Muse's more civilized and nourished appearance, they don't voice their confusion, which I am incredibly grateful for. I doubt I wouldn't be fired on the spot if someone found out I was continuously ignoring direct orders.

As I'm walking to her ward for the sixth day in a row, slinking as best I can, I take the time to study one of the paintings on the wall leading to her ward. It is a beautiful pink and purple butterfly, flapping its wings on a warm summer day, plants and flowers sitting below it. The butterfly's wings are touching the frame of the painting, its head toward the sky, ready to leave the pretty scene for something better, something fleeting.

With a start, I realize that once I leave this job, Muse will fall back into the same routine she's gotten used to, with dirty floors and bland food and, worst of all, no company. Has she gotten attached to me? Will she wonder where I've gone? Why I've abandoned her?

I shudder at the thought.

As I reach her ward, smiling at her, her frowning when she sees me, though I can see interest underneath it, I decide that I'll worry about that when the time comes.

"Hello, Muse." Once again, I quickly open and close her door. She barely registers this, instead focusing her attention on the book in my hands, staring intently at it. Muse reaches for it, but I move my hand away before she can take it.

"This is Moby Dick," I say. "Let me read it to you."

I sit on the ground, and Muse follows, resting a hand on my shoulder, as if it's an armrest, to get a sneak peek from the book.

I smile.

"Call me Ishmael..." I begin.

Muse sighs.

"Okay," I say, closing the book, making a mental note of the page we left off on. "I'll read more to you tomorrow."

Muse doesn't respond, just keeps her eyes closed, as they have been during my reading of the first few pages. Whether she understood the book or not, she certainly has enjoyed it, milking every second of it. I imagine the words bouncing off each other in her head, her chewing on them, tasting them on her tongue. We ought to appreciate words more, in my opinion.

After a few moments, she realizes with a start that I have stopped reading, and she grows angry. "More, more!" She grabs my arm, gripping tightly like it's a ball, and shakes me. "MORE!"

I glare at her, having gotten used to her violent outbursts. I feel strange for scolding her for wanting more of the story, but it is a precarious situation we're in, after all. "Stop Muse. I told you I'd read more tomorrow." Shaking the dust off my pants by patting my pant legs and ignoring Muse's protests, I stand and head towards the door.

"I'll see you tom-"

"5 from today,

Be sure to delay,

For if you don't,

You shall pay."

I spin around.

Muse's voice had gone down, deep and gravelly, and her eyes had been half-closed, as if she'd been preventing herself from sleeping, as she had spoken. Her hands lay at her sides now, floating on nothing, and she looks at me lazily, yet strikingly. She's hunched over. Somehow, she is unsettling; at least more unsettling than she usually is, and my eyes widen, a shiver finding its way through my spine.

"W-what?" I stammer. I search my mind, but I'm fairly sure that's not from the book. "What did you say?"

Her eyes open fully once again, and she stands. "More, more!" Her hands reach for my book, and I hastily leave the ward and close the door before she can hit me, all in one motion, fluidly, as if my limbs are liquid.

Looking back through the bars, I look into Muse's eyes, dark and seemingly lifeless, yet with a spark, if you look deep enough, like deep space, with stars sprinkled throughout. I am proud to look deep enough, though I feel more fear than pride at the moment.

"5 from today..." I mutter. I try to recall the rest of the poem, but the words blur in my mind, the shapes and curves tangling together, though I heard it just moments ago.

I shake my head and leave without saying goodbye, feeling her eyes bore into my back.

Over the next few days, I go back to Muse and continue reading to her. She's always entranced, her body going still and her eyelids resting on top of each other like the pages of a book, resting on the other, making the story into a movie in her head, I hope. I wonder if she escapes through my words, seeing herself on a huge ship at sea, yelling Thar she blows and befriending a whale. But every day, whether she escapes in her mind or not, she'll always repeat that same cryptic poem, warning me of unknown dangers to come; or so I think. Only once she'll recite it, I've learned; she'll never say it twice in the same day, no matter how many times I ask. And every day, I can never remember it; as soon as it's said, it slips my mind, blowing away like dried leaves in the wind, which is incredibly infuriating.

Finally, four days after she started saying it, I have the idea to write it down. I wish I'd thought of it before, in case she doesn't feel like reciting the poem today.

Do I want her to?

Strangely, I believe I do.

Hoping, I think, and returning to the present, I close the book and look at Muse. "Tomorrow, I'll continue the-"

As if on cue, and to my strange delight, she recites the poem;

"5 from today,

Be sure to delay,

For if you don't,

You shall pay."

As she does, I quickly wisk out the notepad I brought from home, thrusting it into the air briefly, a small victory, and start to jot the words down. They finally form on the pages, spilling from the graphite at the tip of my pencil, and I smile as the mystery becomes real, tangible.

"You... will... pay... Okay, I'm sure I have it." I smile at her, and she looks at me blankly.

There is a moment of silence, and then-

"More?" she asks.