Hanako

Chapter 1

Zach

Psych Ward, Professor Robert Powell Clinic

Newtown

PRESENT

The stench of urine is so strong here. I don't know what it is about the patients, but they can't seem to pee in the toilets. It reminds me of those public toilets at Parramatta station that you dread going into at all costs. I don't know, I have been called a bit of a neat freak.

But it wasn't always this way. The events that transpired in the past year of my life have truly ruined me. I'm at rock bottom. There's nowhere but up to go from here.

I'm out of the bathrooms now. I only ever use the dining room bathrooms if I have to. I do have my own private bathroom. And you'd think since this is a hospital, they'd be obligated to follow some sort of hygiene practices. Well, technically, even a mental health clinic should have some standards.

It's not really the stench of that toilet before the cleaner does his morning rounds, which truly bother me. It's more so the people that I'm stuck within here.

There's a chill-out space, right next door to dining room, where I often go to reread some of the books that the center has to offer.

There's a bit of Jonathan Dee, and then there's The Marriage Plot by Geoffrey Eugenides. Books are my little escape. I suppose that's not all that original. They're everybody's escape. You've never met a person that tells you otherwise. It's a cliché.

So shoot me, I'm a cliché.

But I feel that books have been my only friends in this horrible place. I can tell you that sometimes I feel the authors reading their work to me, feel their struggles as they try to give their best work to the reader. And it all seems so effortless. This little chill-out room is my refuge, my private little sanctuary.

Oh crap.

Bones has discovered my territory. Let me tell you about Bones. She's got these pearly white teeth that she grinds on the regular. It can be set off by almost anything. One minute, the serenity will be all around me in my sanctuary, in a world of pirates and dragons. The next, everything comes to a grinding halt, quite literally. I can hear her grinding her teeth at me right now. I try not to look up. She thrives on attention.

Eventually, the grinding fades until it is softer and softer, and then suddenly it stops altogether. I take this opportunity to glance up. The room is empty, and Bones is gone. She must have left to get some more food, the insufferable glutton.

I put the book down, and put my face in my hands. The darkness that my fingers create over my eyes is somehow comforting. I can't believe that I'm here, sharing space with people like Bones.

I clearly have the capacity to sustain interest in a book for longer than thirty seconds, but I'm still here. A year ago, I would have laughed if you told me I'd find myself in a mental institution. I often had prejudices about places like this, like the people that were here were here because they just didn't try to get better. Now, look at me, sharing my air with them.

I'm either a horrible person for thinking that or an uneducated one. I'd opt for the first option because increasingly, I'm finding that I hate myself just as much as Samia does. I can't believe what I've done, and I spend my days looking over my shoulder, mortified that this is my last day on Earth, that the monster will finally get me. Samia was right all along, but I didn't listen. I was too drunk on love. A machine cannot love like Samia loved me. Her hugs.

That's another thing. Her hugs.

They're like warm chocolate covered marshmallows on a cold winters' day. I may have had the worst day, but when Samia hugged me, every negative emotion I ever had, melted away. And I threw her away, like a ragdoll that had outdone her use in a five-year-olds' toy collection.

And that's why I'm here, in this dark, sad place.