PEARL

TWO

TRACK 2
BILL (KILLING EVE)
UNLOVED

tw: mentions of self harm

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IDA's surroundings changed drastically in a matter of seconds, because no sooner had the cold and sterile-scented air of the corridor met her roseate cheeks, she was led by a white-clad nurse and a white-tissue-dependent mother into what appeared to be someone's office.

The room was vastly different to the bathroom and blue-eyed boy in it in a number of ways. Firstly, because its array of colours was limited to heavy plum and maroon leather, with no splash of brightness no matter how out of place it would've been. Secondly, because there was nothing contradictory or unexpected about it. The room looked exactly how you would expect an office in an adolescent mental institution to look – dark, gloomy, and authoritative.

The severely-shining gold plaque bearing the head doctor's name was certainly the latter.

"Hello," she smiled tightly, folding her hands neatly on the desk in front of her. Ida noticed that the liver-spotted left was lacking the gold sheen of a wedding ring to match the patronising plaque, and snidely thought to herself that she wasn't surprised, given how high up her own ass the doctor's permed head already seemed to be. "You must be Ada."

"It's Ida," Ida responded, looking down at the two slight bulges that her lighter and cigarettes had put in both socks. "My file is right there."

"Ida," her mother murmured, adjusting her black handbag by her side. She looked very small, right then, with her red coat done all the way up to the top button and complementing the rims of her eyes. She gave Ida and equally small smile, which – alongside everything else – didn't make her feel anything besides bored.

Bored, and pink seashell empty.

"Be polite, please."

"That's quite alright, dear," the doctor smiled, with far too big a dose of sweetness in her tone to be mistaken for genuineness. "She's alright. Now, Ida, welcome to Highgate Institution."

Highgate. Now that was fucking fitting – almost comical, actually, given the literal high metal gates armed with violent spikes that lined the bleak building, whose dull brick was the exact colour of dried blood. Ida remembered how the hospital had looked through the rain-stained passenger window, towering in front of a backdrop of bone-gray, Nathan's-sweater-sky and ripe for a reprisal of American Horror Story's second season. She remembered thinking of how the hospital looked like it hadn't graduated from the goddamn 1950s, back when the mentally ill were stuffed into strait jackets and left to rot in dismal cells without a hint of sunlight.

Ida remembered thinking that all Highgate hospital needed was a kiss of barbed wire and a couple of patients clad in Hannibal Lecter face-masks, strapped to tables and screaming, to complete the horrific, cinematic, fucking cliche of a picture.

"Dear," the doctor repeated, smiling so falsely that Ida wondered if it hurt, "before we get down to business, why don't you pop those lovely pearl earrings on my desk right here?"

She gestured to the small earrings Ida had half-forgotten she was wearing, then irritatingly patted a spot on her desk.

"We can't allow jewellery here, I'm afraid," she informed her, faux-sadly, taking the earrings that Ida handed to her with overdone thanks and setting them down on top of her file. "Too much of a risk. You could harm yourself or others, or others could harm themselves. The possibilities, all horrible, are endless. Don't you agree, dear?"