11:59
Elizabeth Mrozek
Clarion University of Pennsylvania
Clarion University of Pennsylvania
It’s only been three days since I’ve been admitted to Shadycreek Mental Hospital, but it feels like it’s been three months. Even though it’s been a couple days, they’ve blended so well together that I can’t remember how I got here or why I’m even here.
I woke up in my crummy bed at 11:59 at night for what feels like no reason. My roommate is sleeping soundly on the other side of the room. Despite it being my third, almost fourth day at the facility, I’ve managed to go through three roommates. Most patients get discharged after a day or two because the psychologists think they’re fit to go back into society. Good for them, I guess. My psychologist thinks I need to stay for a month or two.
My roommate snores. That’s why I woke up. It’s a loud, sickly, growly snore. It’s really ticking me off. If the door to our room wasn’t wide open and the aide wasn’t sitting at her desk right outside it, I would’ve gone over to her side and shut her up.
I stare at the analog clock that’s hanging above my bed. It still says 11:59. It’s been saying 11:59 since the moment I walked through my new bedroom’s door. Time doesn’t seem to move here.
Everyday starts out the same. Everyone wakes up at 6:00 in the morning. We go down as a group to the dining hall and have breakfast. It’s the same Kellogg’s cereal with two percent milk and no spoons to use. After our breakfast, the nurses come and give us our medications. One at a time, we get in a line in front of the room, and they give us our pills and a paper shot glass of water to down them.
We attend an hour of schooling once everyone’s had their medication. It’s just the teacher giving us a worksheet on a random class subject that middle school teachers would give to their students.
I find it very insulting, but I’m too scared to speak up about it because they hold the “private room” over our heads whenever it comes to anything exploitative. On my first full day, I saw a girl no older than myself get dragged out of the dining hall and placed inside the room. She had several nurses and psychologists monitor her throughout the day, and she wasn’t allowed to return to her room that night. I made a promise to myself not to ever wind up in there.
Once we get our daily learning in, we have “recreation time.” It’s two hours of doing whatever we want as long as we don’t bother the aides. One will stand outside in the courtyard to watch the girls that want to go outside, and another will sit inside to watch the rest. I was usually the one who stayed inside, writing in the journal that one of the aides gave me. Yesterday, though, I felt adventurous and went outside to get fresh air. It was nice to be outside, especially since those two hours are our only opportunity to do so.
Lunch for an hour, school for an hour, dinner for an hour. Then there’s the dreaded “group time.” For an hour or two, we all come together and write in our journals and share it with each other. There is no privacy or opting out; you’d get punished for that, which usually meant that you wouldn’t get dessert for dinner, but in some cases, it can mean you’re sent to the “private room.”
And then we’re sent to our room to sleep. And the cycle repeats. Throughout the day, girls are taken aside to attend therapy with one of the psychologists. That happens sporadically, and not everyone gets called to go to one. That’s the only interesting thing about the day; you never know if you’re going to be the one who gets called.
It’s still 11:59, and my roommate is still snoring like a middle-aged man.
I got up from my bed, carefully and quietly to not alert the aide in the hallway. I crouched and stretched my arm under my bed to grab a light novel I tucked all the way under my bed. I got a good hold of the spine and yanked my hand back as fast as I could.
In my rush, I scraped my wrist on one of the loose springs holding up the mattress. A wave of panic surged through my body, and I gripped the bottom of my shirt tightly as I fought off the urge to scream out for help. I began to shake as a tiny drop of blood rolled down my scratched wrist.
When the panic simmered down, I climbed back onto my bed and waited for my heart to slow. I wiped the tears out of my eyes and shakily opened my book to read, the light from the moon providing just enough light to see the words printed on the pages.
But I can’t concentrate because of my roommate’s excessive snoring. I read one page before calling it quits. It wasn’t worth getting scratched on my wrist. I probably have tetanus now, and the aides are going to wonder how I hurt myself last night. I technically wasn’t even allowed to have books from home with me, so I’ll have to deal with that, too.
It’s 11:59 still, and the moon was shining through the window.
I have a small, wooden nightstand next to my bed, but the only thing I could put there was my journal. I place my book on the nightstand and grab my journal. There’s a broken crayon smushed in between the pages, something I smuggled out of the crayon box when the aide wasn’t looking. It rubbed against the pages when I was carrying the journal back to my room. There are blue lines everywhere on the two pages.
I started writing.
I can’t sleep. My roommate is too loud. She’s not awake or anything. She’s just an incredibly loud snorer.
I wasn’t sure what to write. This has been happening a lot lately. It wasn’t like I was having writer’s block. I just wasn’t motivated to write or draw anything in it. At first, I was excited to jot down my feelings in something private. I wrote over ten pages on my first day in the hospital. But maybe that’s why I stopped being motivated; the aides and psychologists looked through them every night before ushering us off to bed.
Nothing could be private here. Bedrooms had to have doors open, you had to shower with the bathroom door open, you couldn’t even have bandages to cover your scratches, cuts, bruises, or bitemarks. I was exposed to the other girls and workers at all times, and they were exposed to me at all times. What was the point in writing in a personal journal when nothing could be personal?
I hate this place! I found myself writing. I didn’t even mean to write it down. But I kept on writing. I hate my roommate! I hate my room! I hate the aides! I hate the medications! I hate the hospital! I just want to go home!
I’ll definitely get in trouble if I write any more. But I kept writing.
I feel like the walls are closing in. The air is suffocating. I’m tired of eating without utensils. I’m tired of showering with the door open. I’m tired of not having my own room. I’m tired of being monitored every day. I just want to go home!
I forced myself to stop writing. I threw the crayon on my bed. It blended in with my sheets, so now there’s no way I can continue to write now. No more incriminating evidence of my disobedience. I’ll probably have to throw this page away at some point.
I ran my fingers over the waxy words. This was exactly how I feel, though. I know the other girls feel this way, too. Normally I’m not so reserved and careful about what I say or do, so why am I so afraid?
The face of the girl from my first day flashed in my mind. Her terrified expression, her glossed over eyes with heavy tears rolling down her cheeks, her pale, slim body protesting the workers forcing her into the room.
I shuttered, throwing my book on the bed.
It’s 11:59.
My roommate’s awake.
She’s throwing herself around on the bed. She’s tangled up in her bedsheets, and she’s taking fast, shallow breaths. She started to scream when it became too much for her.
The aide ran in immediately to see what was going on. She turned on the bedroom light. She must’ve not noticed that I was sitting up in my bed because she jumped when she saw me watching the scene.
“Get out!” She told me. “Wait outside. I’ll call you back in when I’ve calmed her down.”
I did what I was told.
Some of the other girls were awake. They were all standing in the main area, chatting in hushed voices. They all seemed confused by what was happening.
I stood by myself near the desk the aide was sitting at. The aide closed the door, probably to give the girl some type of privacy. At least I can give them credit for that; whenever one of the girl’s was having an “episode” as they called it, they took the girls somewhere away from the group to ride it out.
Other aides came in and stormed the room where my roommate was being kept. This was going to be a while.
After what felt like an hour, most of the girls returned to their rooms. I took a seat in one of the chairs and tried to relax as much as I could. The florescent lights made it too hard to take a nap. Eventually, the aides left the room…
…with my roommate following behind.
I felt a rush of anxiety flow through my body when the original aide approached me.
“She’s going to be alright,” she told me. “But she’s going to be transferred somewhere that can better handle her condition.”
“W-What’s her condition?” I asked.
“Turns out she’s prone to seizures,” she said. She rubbed her temples. “She didn’t make us aware of them. We’re not trained to handle that sort of thing here. We need doctors on staff at all times for that. She’s being taken to a different mental institute; one with bigger staff and trained professionals.”
“S-So,” I began to ask. “What’s going to happen to me?”
“You are going to go back to bed,” she answered. “But before you do, I want to talk to you about something I found on your nightstand.”
I shuttered. She’s talking about my book I smuggled in.
Sure enough, she showed me my light novel, gripping it tightly in her hands. “How did you get this passed your screening?”
I gulped and began to sweat. “I…I don’t remember…” I told her. “Honest, I don’t.”
She raised her eyebrow at me, then sighed. “I’m going to let you off the hook this one time,” she said sternly. “But if I catch you with more contraband, you’re going to the ‘private room.’ Understand?”
I nodded obediently.
“And I’m going to hold onto this book until you leave the facility. If you want to read it, you can ask me, and I’ll let you have it. But it must be returned to me when you’re done, just like everything else that’s brought in from the outside.”
I nod again.
“Alright, now go back to sleep.” She takes her seat behind the front desk again.
My room is trashed. I didn’t think it could get any worse than the way it was before. The bedsheets that were on her bed are now scattered on the floor and torn at the seams.
I’m not sure how I can go to sleep now. How would anyone go to sleep after that?
I crawl back into my bed, with full intentions on trying to sleep. It felt great to be curled up in my blankets, despite the mattress being rock solid and the blankets not doing much to keep me warm.
It’s 11:59, and I still can’t sleep.
There’s no snoring now, but I can still feel the presence of my roommate lingering in the air. I know it’s the stress of everything that happened, but it’s suffocating. Why can’t I just go to sleep?
I sit back up on my bed. My journal and crayon are still somewhere on my bed. Maybe if I vent a little in my journal, I’ll feel tired enough to go to sleep? Not even vent, just doodle something.
My hand stumbles around in the dark looking for my journal. I can still see the cut from the bedspring. It stopped bleeding, but it’s starting to clot. The urge to pick at it overwhelmed me.
The brush of the cardboard cover of the journal shocked me back to reality. It was opened, and some of the pages were creased because it fell awkwardly.
It was opened to one of the first few pages of the journal. The words were scribbled messily. The writing was harsh and heavy. Some of it wasn’t legible because of how violently it was written. I could tell it was written with a lot of anger and pain, but I don’t remember writing any of it.
I hate my life! I want to die! No, I don’t want… Wanna hurt… I want to get out of here so I can f… This world is wrong! Why and I the one who’s crazy? I’m not insane! None of… my fault! It’s her fault! I want to get… I want to get out! I want to get out!
I felt a chill. There’s no way I wrote this. Someone must’ve taken my journal by accident and wrote this.
I flipped to the next page.
Someone please save me! I don’t want to go to solitary confinement! I didn’t do anything wrong! I want my mom and dad! I want to go home! I didn’t mean to do it! I didn’t mean to hurt her! It was an accident!
They’re going to take me to the private room! That’s where bad people go! I’m not a bad person! Everything that happened to me wasn’t my fault! I just wanted to defend myself! I’m not actually crazy! I don’t belong here! Please! Just let me go home! I’ll be a good girl! Please let me go! Let me go! Let me go! Let me go! Let me go!
There’s no doubt about it, this is my handwriting. It’s just very sloppy and panicky. But I don’t know why I would’ve written this. I’ve never been sent to the ‘private room.’ The past three days I’ve been well-behaved. There’s no reason I would have to be placed there.
My heart began to race as I flipped through more of the pages; more of the same harsh writing, more of the same manic penmanship, more of the same panicked ramblings about being sent to the "private room."
The last page with the scrambled writing had a date neatly printed in the margins. It was dated March 20th, time 11:59.
I’m sorry for the way I’ve been acting. I know you read our journals when we’re not looking. I’m not stupid like the others. I promise from now on I’ll be good. You’ll never have to put me in solitary confinement again. I’ll be a good girl if that means I can go home and be with my friends and family again. It’s been way too long. I just want to go home.
I’ve been missing out on so much. The world’s been going without me as I’ve been trapped here. So many trends, so many current events, so much school stuff, so much life! I should be a teenager right now, doing teenager things. I should be partying, going shopping, taking trips across the state, and enjoying life. But I can’t do any of that if I’m stuck in here.
I will be good, I promise. I’m sorry for all the trouble I’ve caused. Just please don’t send me back to the private room.
This was the neatest the writing has been. Everything’s perfectly legible. It also seems to be calm and concise. It’s still harsh in some ways, but it is definitely written with purpose and sincerity.
The next page was the first page I remember writing in my journal.
I rubbed my arm, accidentally nicking the clotted blood. I screamed. I’m not sure why. It didn’t hurt, only stung. It wasn’t painful enough to warrant a scream. It has to be bottled up emotions from tonight.
My head was throbbing. It felt like millions of tiny needles were pricking deep into my brain. And I couldn’t stop screaming, no matter what I tried.
The aide from before came into my room and she growled.
“Honestly,” she scoffed. “How many times do you have to act like this? And after I gave you some leniency, too!”
She walked over to me and grabbed my arm forcibly. She dragged me out of my comfortable bed and out of my comfortable room. I tried to wiggle out of her grasp, but to no avail.
“Quit fighting it!” she told me. “I’ll just get reinforcements like the last times! Now be a good girl and come with me! Maybe they’ll shorten your stay on good behavior, but I doubt it!”
A sudden realization hit me, but I block it out the best I could. There were more pressing things to worry about. I tried to fight, but more and more aides crowded me and forced me into solitary confinement.
It was 11:59. And it will always be 11:59.
I woke up in my crummy bed at 11:59 at night for what feels like no reason. My roommate is sleeping soundly on the other side of the room. Despite it being my third, almost fourth day at the facility, I’ve managed to go through three roommates. Most patients get discharged after a day or two because the psychologists think they’re fit to go back into society. Good for them, I guess. My psychologist thinks I need to stay for a month or two.
My roommate snores. That’s why I woke up. It’s a loud, sickly, growly snore. It’s really ticking me off. If the door to our room wasn’t wide open and the aide wasn’t sitting at her desk right outside it, I would’ve gone over to her side and shut her up.
I stare at the analog clock that’s hanging above my bed. It still says 11:59. It’s been saying 11:59 since the moment I walked through my new bedroom’s door. Time doesn’t seem to move here.
Everyday starts out the same. Everyone wakes up at 6:00 in the morning. We go down as a group to the dining hall and have breakfast. It’s the same Kellogg’s cereal with two percent milk and no spoons to use. After our breakfast, the nurses come and give us our medications. One at a time, we get in a line in front of the room, and they give us our pills and a paper shot glass of water to down them.
We attend an hour of schooling once everyone’s had their medication. It’s just the teacher giving us a worksheet on a random class subject that middle school teachers would give to their students.
I find it very insulting, but I’m too scared to speak up about it because they hold the “private room” over our heads whenever it comes to anything exploitative. On my first full day, I saw a girl no older than myself get dragged out of the dining hall and placed inside the room. She had several nurses and psychologists monitor her throughout the day, and she wasn’t allowed to return to her room that night. I made a promise to myself not to ever wind up in there.
Once we get our daily learning in, we have “recreation time.” It’s two hours of doing whatever we want as long as we don’t bother the aides. One will stand outside in the courtyard to watch the girls that want to go outside, and another will sit inside to watch the rest. I was usually the one who stayed inside, writing in the journal that one of the aides gave me. Yesterday, though, I felt adventurous and went outside to get fresh air. It was nice to be outside, especially since those two hours are our only opportunity to do so.
Lunch for an hour, school for an hour, dinner for an hour. Then there’s the dreaded “group time.” For an hour or two, we all come together and write in our journals and share it with each other. There is no privacy or opting out; you’d get punished for that, which usually meant that you wouldn’t get dessert for dinner, but in some cases, it can mean you’re sent to the “private room.”
And then we’re sent to our room to sleep. And the cycle repeats. Throughout the day, girls are taken aside to attend therapy with one of the psychologists. That happens sporadically, and not everyone gets called to go to one. That’s the only interesting thing about the day; you never know if you’re going to be the one who gets called.
It’s still 11:59, and my roommate is still snoring like a middle-aged man.
I got up from my bed, carefully and quietly to not alert the aide in the hallway. I crouched and stretched my arm under my bed to grab a light novel I tucked all the way under my bed. I got a good hold of the spine and yanked my hand back as fast as I could.
In my rush, I scraped my wrist on one of the loose springs holding up the mattress. A wave of panic surged through my body, and I gripped the bottom of my shirt tightly as I fought off the urge to scream out for help. I began to shake as a tiny drop of blood rolled down my scratched wrist.
When the panic simmered down, I climbed back onto my bed and waited for my heart to slow. I wiped the tears out of my eyes and shakily opened my book to read, the light from the moon providing just enough light to see the words printed on the pages.
But I can’t concentrate because of my roommate’s excessive snoring. I read one page before calling it quits. It wasn’t worth getting scratched on my wrist. I probably have tetanus now, and the aides are going to wonder how I hurt myself last night. I technically wasn’t even allowed to have books from home with me, so I’ll have to deal with that, too.
It’s 11:59 still, and the moon was shining through the window.
I have a small, wooden nightstand next to my bed, but the only thing I could put there was my journal. I place my book on the nightstand and grab my journal. There’s a broken crayon smushed in between the pages, something I smuggled out of the crayon box when the aide wasn’t looking. It rubbed against the pages when I was carrying the journal back to my room. There are blue lines everywhere on the two pages.
I started writing.
I can’t sleep. My roommate is too loud. She’s not awake or anything. She’s just an incredibly loud snorer.
I wasn’t sure what to write. This has been happening a lot lately. It wasn’t like I was having writer’s block. I just wasn’t motivated to write or draw anything in it. At first, I was excited to jot down my feelings in something private. I wrote over ten pages on my first day in the hospital. But maybe that’s why I stopped being motivated; the aides and psychologists looked through them every night before ushering us off to bed.
Nothing could be private here. Bedrooms had to have doors open, you had to shower with the bathroom door open, you couldn’t even have bandages to cover your scratches, cuts, bruises, or bitemarks. I was exposed to the other girls and workers at all times, and they were exposed to me at all times. What was the point in writing in a personal journal when nothing could be personal?
I hate this place! I found myself writing. I didn’t even mean to write it down. But I kept on writing. I hate my roommate! I hate my room! I hate the aides! I hate the medications! I hate the hospital! I just want to go home!
I’ll definitely get in trouble if I write any more. But I kept writing.
I feel like the walls are closing in. The air is suffocating. I’m tired of eating without utensils. I’m tired of showering with the door open. I’m tired of not having my own room. I’m tired of being monitored every day. I just want to go home!
I forced myself to stop writing. I threw the crayon on my bed. It blended in with my sheets, so now there’s no way I can continue to write now. No more incriminating evidence of my disobedience. I’ll probably have to throw this page away at some point.
I ran my fingers over the waxy words. This was exactly how I feel, though. I know the other girls feel this way, too. Normally I’m not so reserved and careful about what I say or do, so why am I so afraid?
The face of the girl from my first day flashed in my mind. Her terrified expression, her glossed over eyes with heavy tears rolling down her cheeks, her pale, slim body protesting the workers forcing her into the room.
I shuttered, throwing my book on the bed.
It’s 11:59.
My roommate’s awake.
She’s throwing herself around on the bed. She’s tangled up in her bedsheets, and she’s taking fast, shallow breaths. She started to scream when it became too much for her.
The aide ran in immediately to see what was going on. She turned on the bedroom light. She must’ve not noticed that I was sitting up in my bed because she jumped when she saw me watching the scene.
“Get out!” She told me. “Wait outside. I’ll call you back in when I’ve calmed her down.”
I did what I was told.
Some of the other girls were awake. They were all standing in the main area, chatting in hushed voices. They all seemed confused by what was happening.
I stood by myself near the desk the aide was sitting at. The aide closed the door, probably to give the girl some type of privacy. At least I can give them credit for that; whenever one of the girl’s was having an “episode” as they called it, they took the girls somewhere away from the group to ride it out.
Other aides came in and stormed the room where my roommate was being kept. This was going to be a while.
After what felt like an hour, most of the girls returned to their rooms. I took a seat in one of the chairs and tried to relax as much as I could. The florescent lights made it too hard to take a nap. Eventually, the aides left the room…
…with my roommate following behind.
I felt a rush of anxiety flow through my body when the original aide approached me.
“She’s going to be alright,” she told me. “But she’s going to be transferred somewhere that can better handle her condition.”
“W-What’s her condition?” I asked.
“Turns out she’s prone to seizures,” she said. She rubbed her temples. “She didn’t make us aware of them. We’re not trained to handle that sort of thing here. We need doctors on staff at all times for that. She’s being taken to a different mental institute; one with bigger staff and trained professionals.”
“S-So,” I began to ask. “What’s going to happen to me?”
“You are going to go back to bed,” she answered. “But before you do, I want to talk to you about something I found on your nightstand.”
I shuttered. She’s talking about my book I smuggled in.
Sure enough, she showed me my light novel, gripping it tightly in her hands. “How did you get this passed your screening?”
I gulped and began to sweat. “I…I don’t remember…” I told her. “Honest, I don’t.”
She raised her eyebrow at me, then sighed. “I’m going to let you off the hook this one time,” she said sternly. “But if I catch you with more contraband, you’re going to the ‘private room.’ Understand?”
I nodded obediently.
“And I’m going to hold onto this book until you leave the facility. If you want to read it, you can ask me, and I’ll let you have it. But it must be returned to me when you’re done, just like everything else that’s brought in from the outside.”
I nod again.
“Alright, now go back to sleep.” She takes her seat behind the front desk again.
My room is trashed. I didn’t think it could get any worse than the way it was before. The bedsheets that were on her bed are now scattered on the floor and torn at the seams.
I’m not sure how I can go to sleep now. How would anyone go to sleep after that?
I crawl back into my bed, with full intentions on trying to sleep. It felt great to be curled up in my blankets, despite the mattress being rock solid and the blankets not doing much to keep me warm.
It’s 11:59, and I still can’t sleep.
There’s no snoring now, but I can still feel the presence of my roommate lingering in the air. I know it’s the stress of everything that happened, but it’s suffocating. Why can’t I just go to sleep?
I sit back up on my bed. My journal and crayon are still somewhere on my bed. Maybe if I vent a little in my journal, I’ll feel tired enough to go to sleep? Not even vent, just doodle something.
My hand stumbles around in the dark looking for my journal. I can still see the cut from the bedspring. It stopped bleeding, but it’s starting to clot. The urge to pick at it overwhelmed me.
The brush of the cardboard cover of the journal shocked me back to reality. It was opened, and some of the pages were creased because it fell awkwardly.
It was opened to one of the first few pages of the journal. The words were scribbled messily. The writing was harsh and heavy. Some of it wasn’t legible because of how violently it was written. I could tell it was written with a lot of anger and pain, but I don’t remember writing any of it.
I hate my life! I want to die! No, I don’t want… Wanna hurt… I want to get out of here so I can f… This world is wrong! Why and I the one who’s crazy? I’m not insane! None of… my fault! It’s her fault! I want to get… I want to get out! I want to get out!
I felt a chill. There’s no way I wrote this. Someone must’ve taken my journal by accident and wrote this.
I flipped to the next page.
Someone please save me! I don’t want to go to solitary confinement! I didn’t do anything wrong! I want my mom and dad! I want to go home! I didn’t mean to do it! I didn’t mean to hurt her! It was an accident!
They’re going to take me to the private room! That’s where bad people go! I’m not a bad person! Everything that happened to me wasn’t my fault! I just wanted to defend myself! I’m not actually crazy! I don’t belong here! Please! Just let me go home! I’ll be a good girl! Please let me go! Let me go! Let me go! Let me go! Let me go!
There’s no doubt about it, this is my handwriting. It’s just very sloppy and panicky. But I don’t know why I would’ve written this. I’ve never been sent to the ‘private room.’ The past three days I’ve been well-behaved. There’s no reason I would have to be placed there.
My heart began to race as I flipped through more of the pages; more of the same harsh writing, more of the same manic penmanship, more of the same panicked ramblings about being sent to the "private room."
The last page with the scrambled writing had a date neatly printed in the margins. It was dated March 20th, time 11:59.
I’m sorry for the way I’ve been acting. I know you read our journals when we’re not looking. I’m not stupid like the others. I promise from now on I’ll be good. You’ll never have to put me in solitary confinement again. I’ll be a good girl if that means I can go home and be with my friends and family again. It’s been way too long. I just want to go home.
I’ve been missing out on so much. The world’s been going without me as I’ve been trapped here. So many trends, so many current events, so much school stuff, so much life! I should be a teenager right now, doing teenager things. I should be partying, going shopping, taking trips across the state, and enjoying life. But I can’t do any of that if I’m stuck in here.
I will be good, I promise. I’m sorry for all the trouble I’ve caused. Just please don’t send me back to the private room.
This was the neatest the writing has been. Everything’s perfectly legible. It also seems to be calm and concise. It’s still harsh in some ways, but it is definitely written with purpose and sincerity.
The next page was the first page I remember writing in my journal.
I rubbed my arm, accidentally nicking the clotted blood. I screamed. I’m not sure why. It didn’t hurt, only stung. It wasn’t painful enough to warrant a scream. It has to be bottled up emotions from tonight.
My head was throbbing. It felt like millions of tiny needles were pricking deep into my brain. And I couldn’t stop screaming, no matter what I tried.
The aide from before came into my room and she growled.
“Honestly,” she scoffed. “How many times do you have to act like this? And after I gave you some leniency, too!”
She walked over to me and grabbed my arm forcibly. She dragged me out of my comfortable bed and out of my comfortable room. I tried to wiggle out of her grasp, but to no avail.
“Quit fighting it!” she told me. “I’ll just get reinforcements like the last times! Now be a good girl and come with me! Maybe they’ll shorten your stay on good behavior, but I doubt it!”
A sudden realization hit me, but I block it out the best I could. There were more pressing things to worry about. I tried to fight, but more and more aides crowded me and forced me into solitary confinement.
It was 11:59. And it will always be 11:59.
Elizabeth Mrozek is a sophomore college student at Clarion University who loves to write fictional stories of all types of genres. When not writing, she is usually creating artwork on Instagram and preparing for a future career as a high school English teacher.
The Butterflies and the Bee
Dustin Steiger
Edinboro University of Pennsylvania
Edinboro University of Pennsylvania
Once upon a time, in a meadow not too far from here, there lived a spirited young bee named… well, I suppose he didn't have a name. He was just a bee, and he was content with that, buzzing along as he hummed his favorite tunes and melodies. He kept himself busy working in the hive, caring for his queen and cleaning up while the other worker bees would gather nectar and make honey for everyone to eat. Everyone in the hive had their jobs, everyone had their purpose, and, for a time, it was good like that.
However, as time passed, the young bee began to want more from life. He felt that something deep inside of him was wrong, a buried conflict twisting between his heart, mind, and self. Taking some time to clear his head, the young bee flew away from the hive, and it was on this flight that he saw them…butterflies.
The butterflies were lovely, and the young bee immediately felt drawn to their nature and their beauty. He loved the magnificence of their wings, the grace and majesty of their flight, an enchanting kaleidoscope of colors to behold. He was enamored by all of it, for, in his eyes, these lovely creatures were more than just butterflies: they were epiphanies. And, just like that, he came to the conclusion that he knew exactly what he was missing.
So he returned home, and he started to change. First, he made his way towards the local mud puddle and began to roll around in it, getting rid of those annoyingly bright yellow stripes that kept him from being a butterfly. After that, he foraged in the nearby woods for hours, finding the perfect leaves and flowers that he needed to build himself a beautiful set of homemade wings. Once they were gathered, he met with his friend Sally the Spider, who helped him fasten the artificial set over his own in exchange for his weekly ration of honey. Finally, and perhaps most painful of all, he removed his stinger, noting to himself that real butterflies didn't have such nonsense.
With his transformation complete, he made his way over to the other butterflies, who welcomed him with open arms and wings. Together, the group took to the skies, making their way to the field of flowers on the other side of the meadow. Our young bee happily joined them, though the heaviness of his new wings caused him to fall a bit behind. The other butterflies arrived at the field, and our brave little bee arrived a few minutes after. He watched them happily eat from the flowers, and he tried to do the same, though he struggled. You see, our bumbly friend was not used to foraging for food outside of his hive, and he didn't have a long straw-like tongue like the other butterflies to help him drink. Yet he remained optimistic, stretching out his own little tongue as far as he could, desperately hoping and needing to fit in.
The sun began to set, and all the other butterflies flew home. However, our tired bee's wings were far too heavy to make it all the way there. With his tiny little lungs all worn out, he found a small cubby in a nearby tree and tucked himself away for the night, shivering and shaking, helpless and alone. Outside, he could hear the bats calling out into the darkness, and he suddenly missed the "needless" stinger that had kept him safe for all of his life.
With the sun peaking just over the horizon the next morning, our little bee began the second leg of his journey home. He arrived just as the other butterflies were waking up, the sunrise on the verge of collapsing into day. As the others prepped for their morning flight, the young bee sat alone and began to cry.
“Oh, my dear little friend,” said one of the butterflies, approaching as he noticed our bee’s tears.
“Why so sad? Is something wrong? Has something gone bad?”
With a sniffle and a breath, our young bee replied,
“Oh beautiful friend, what can I say?
There’s just something wrong, something missing inside.”
“Well… that is quite perplexing, if I may say.
Perhaps care to tell why you’re feeling this way?”
With another small sniffle, the bee paused and said,
“There are just some bad days with these thoughts in my head.
I thought this would help, that I’d start to feel better,
but I’m still only me, and I’ll be that forever.”
Both paused for a moment, thinking, and the friendly butterfly sat down next to the broken little wanna-bee to provide him with comfort.
“You know,” the butterfly began, “there are some things in life that just can’t be changed…
the way we were born, or the winds and the rains.
I know who you were is not who you think that you are,
But who you wish to become was never that far.
You’ll never be a butterfly, but I think that’s okay.
I remember you as a bee, and I liked you that way…”
“And you don’t like me now, isn’t that right?”
“Why of course not, my friend, we missed you all night.”
At this, the bee raised his head just a little bit higher, and, with a shaky voice, he asked…
“So what do I do?”
The butterfly thought for a moment, then finally said…
“Well, maybe to start, just try to be You.
Some things will change and some things remain,
but you’ll still have your friends, through the joys and the pains.”
The little bee smiled slightly, and the wise butterfly continued.
“Yes, it’s nature to crave what cannot be helped,
but we still must accept the wings we were dealt.
What we can change then is our outlook on life;
we can notice the beauty in the midst of the strife.
We can smile and laugh, we can tell funny jokes!
We can talk about sorrows, we can talk about hopes.
But dear friend, know this, though we might disagree,
we will still always love you:
butterfly, bird, or bee.”
And with that, as the sun’s light finally burst over the treeline in all of its glory, the young bee knew exactly what to do.
It took a lot of time, and he was never really the same. But with some help from his friends, butterfly and bee alike, he was able to take the large and leafy wings off, his old wings slowly recovering their previous strength. He spent his days in the hive, working and laughing with his friends and family, and he would buzz over to hang out with his butterfly friends afterwards.
It wasn’t easy, but with patience and effort, he was able to overcome those feelings of doubt that kept him down, realizing that it didn’t matter what he was but who he was, accepting himself for this and finally recognizing who he was always meant to bee.
The End.
However, as time passed, the young bee began to want more from life. He felt that something deep inside of him was wrong, a buried conflict twisting between his heart, mind, and self. Taking some time to clear his head, the young bee flew away from the hive, and it was on this flight that he saw them…butterflies.
The butterflies were lovely, and the young bee immediately felt drawn to their nature and their beauty. He loved the magnificence of their wings, the grace and majesty of their flight, an enchanting kaleidoscope of colors to behold. He was enamored by all of it, for, in his eyes, these lovely creatures were more than just butterflies: they were epiphanies. And, just like that, he came to the conclusion that he knew exactly what he was missing.
So he returned home, and he started to change. First, he made his way towards the local mud puddle and began to roll around in it, getting rid of those annoyingly bright yellow stripes that kept him from being a butterfly. After that, he foraged in the nearby woods for hours, finding the perfect leaves and flowers that he needed to build himself a beautiful set of homemade wings. Once they were gathered, he met with his friend Sally the Spider, who helped him fasten the artificial set over his own in exchange for his weekly ration of honey. Finally, and perhaps most painful of all, he removed his stinger, noting to himself that real butterflies didn't have such nonsense.
With his transformation complete, he made his way over to the other butterflies, who welcomed him with open arms and wings. Together, the group took to the skies, making their way to the field of flowers on the other side of the meadow. Our young bee happily joined them, though the heaviness of his new wings caused him to fall a bit behind. The other butterflies arrived at the field, and our brave little bee arrived a few minutes after. He watched them happily eat from the flowers, and he tried to do the same, though he struggled. You see, our bumbly friend was not used to foraging for food outside of his hive, and he didn't have a long straw-like tongue like the other butterflies to help him drink. Yet he remained optimistic, stretching out his own little tongue as far as he could, desperately hoping and needing to fit in.
The sun began to set, and all the other butterflies flew home. However, our tired bee's wings were far too heavy to make it all the way there. With his tiny little lungs all worn out, he found a small cubby in a nearby tree and tucked himself away for the night, shivering and shaking, helpless and alone. Outside, he could hear the bats calling out into the darkness, and he suddenly missed the "needless" stinger that had kept him safe for all of his life.
With the sun peaking just over the horizon the next morning, our little bee began the second leg of his journey home. He arrived just as the other butterflies were waking up, the sunrise on the verge of collapsing into day. As the others prepped for their morning flight, the young bee sat alone and began to cry.
“Oh, my dear little friend,” said one of the butterflies, approaching as he noticed our bee’s tears.
“Why so sad? Is something wrong? Has something gone bad?”
With a sniffle and a breath, our young bee replied,
“Oh beautiful friend, what can I say?
There’s just something wrong, something missing inside.”
“Well… that is quite perplexing, if I may say.
Perhaps care to tell why you’re feeling this way?”
With another small sniffle, the bee paused and said,
“There are just some bad days with these thoughts in my head.
I thought this would help, that I’d start to feel better,
but I’m still only me, and I’ll be that forever.”
Both paused for a moment, thinking, and the friendly butterfly sat down next to the broken little wanna-bee to provide him with comfort.
“You know,” the butterfly began, “there are some things in life that just can’t be changed…
the way we were born, or the winds and the rains.
I know who you were is not who you think that you are,
But who you wish to become was never that far.
You’ll never be a butterfly, but I think that’s okay.
I remember you as a bee, and I liked you that way…”
“And you don’t like me now, isn’t that right?”
“Why of course not, my friend, we missed you all night.”
At this, the bee raised his head just a little bit higher, and, with a shaky voice, he asked…
“So what do I do?”
The butterfly thought for a moment, then finally said…
“Well, maybe to start, just try to be You.
Some things will change and some things remain,
but you’ll still have your friends, through the joys and the pains.”
The little bee smiled slightly, and the wise butterfly continued.
“Yes, it’s nature to crave what cannot be helped,
but we still must accept the wings we were dealt.
What we can change then is our outlook on life;
we can notice the beauty in the midst of the strife.
We can smile and laugh, we can tell funny jokes!
We can talk about sorrows, we can talk about hopes.
But dear friend, know this, though we might disagree,
we will still always love you:
butterfly, bird, or bee.”
And with that, as the sun’s light finally burst over the treeline in all of its glory, the young bee knew exactly what to do.
It took a lot of time, and he was never really the same. But with some help from his friends, butterfly and bee alike, he was able to take the large and leafy wings off, his old wings slowly recovering their previous strength. He spent his days in the hive, working and laughing with his friends and family, and he would buzz over to hang out with his butterfly friends afterwards.
It wasn’t easy, but with patience and effort, he was able to overcome those feelings of doubt that kept him down, realizing that it didn’t matter what he was but who he was, accepting himself for this and finally recognizing who he was always meant to bee.
The End.
Dustin Steiger is a Secondary Education major minoring in Creative Writing. He's the founder and president of Edinboro University's Creative Writing Club, and he spends his free time writing music as the pop-punk artist, "Long Live the Young and Reckless."