Anything but Average

-Chapter 1-

Prologue

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All things the gods bestow, the infinite ones,
On their darlings completely.
All the joys, the infinite ones,
All the pains, the infinite ones, completely.

J.W. Goethe
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Tupp. The rumbling sound of dripping water crushed the deafening silence in the cell once again. No end, no begging just the everlasting emptiness between two drops.
But no; the gaps were not always empty.
On winter evenings when it went dark outside early and the lights needed to be switched on sooner, the sizzling sound of an inefficient neon tube, attached to the bare ceiling, filled them.
The world had gone dark outside a long time ago in that particular night of cold blue January and there was no need for light anymore at such a late or rather early hour.
Only if one stepped closer to the tiny aperture cut into the upper third of door number 311, one could notice the dribbling of the tap in the cell and there upon make out the despairingly malnourished frame of a haggard creature on the ground which might had once been a woman.

Her outgrown  hair hung tousled from her head down to her elbows as she sat quietly on the blank floor leaning against her beleaguered bedstead like a puppet thrown at that place by an angry child.
The pale blue uniform she was wearing, consisting of a short sleeved button-shirt tugged into combat trousers with several pockets on each side, seemed to swallow her corpse-like body as if it was not garment but rather a huge tent of fabric from which her head, arms and feet had somehow found their way out. All together, the woman appeared to be part of the room like some kind of strange furniture; motionless, enduring and lifeless.

But the most stunning about the inhabitant of cell 311 was her facial expression; Most nurses and guards felt haunted and hypnotised by that everlasting smile that was not even a smile in truth but rather just the lower eyelids pulled up a little. Her lips did not curl upwards at all. Tupp. One could have felt reminded of Mona Lisa's secretive in-turned mien had there not been those deep pits unter her sunk in eyes and cheeks, which made her face similar to a scull, and if there had not been  limitless insanity in her stare. Tupp.

Ten months ago before she became patient 311 her mind spun like a tornado round and round turning an enormous amount of sadness into ultimate madness.
Not that she was locked up without a reason; no it was out of question that somebody in her state of mind deserved nothing but a padded cell and solitary confinement.
Yet for the first weeks none of the asylum's personell who met the young woman understood how this very person could have accomplished those cruel actions they have read about in the newspapers or seen on television. Tupp. Of course they blamed somebody else for her crimes at the beginning as the intelligent and quiet patient coming from a good, wealthy family did not fit the image of a psychopathic maniac. It was always hard to face the truth but the worst ones always seemed ordinary at the first glance.
There was no other explanation to the happenings for them than an undiscovered mental illness which had struck her and now needed to be cured or at least attempted to be cured.
As time passed by they all learned how fallacious the first impression of a person could be. Tupp.

She did never show any form of resistance towards her therapists, nurses or guards but neither did she let them succeed in their endeavours to help her as she spoke not one word of truth. Everybody knew that. It was obvious; she was the unmatched master of lying who knew to control when others should notice a lie and when they should stay in their little bubble of believe.