The Corpse And The Crazy

Caesura

'Grey areas are for artists and the visually impaired,' Robert Christopher Hemington said.

He's always loved that name, "Robert Christopher Hemington". Whenever anyone would ask for it, he'd beam and proudly utter every syllable, as if it were a price, rather than a name. He'd puff out his chest, point his chin up, and roll the R. Those moments are the times he feels the proudest. 

'You serious? You genuinely think that's true?' the boy said. The boy had just turned twenty, an age which Robert would love to forget about. He'd been a different man back then.

 They were walking home from a graduation party. Usually, Robert wasn't one for parties, but he wouldn't decline an opportunity to celebrate knowledge.  The boy was a friend of the freshly graduated and had insisted upon walking home together. They both needed to go the same direction, and it was already getting dark out. Maybe he also wanted to make sure that Robert didn't trip and fall, as he was near sixty, and that sounded like old and fragile to the young boy. 

At first, Robert had liked the idea of another mind to converse with this late at night, but once he had opened his mouth, only opinions came out and not the facts that Robert had hoped on. 

'Yes,' Robert said. He started to grow irritated by the boy, as he never held his tongue. Some might say that honesty was a virtue, but Robert would not agree with that. The ability to build skyscrapers and heal the sick were virtues. Honesty was just another obstacle in everyday life. 

'That's unbelievable! You work in a psych-ward, and you still don't believe tha-' The boy couldn't finish the sentence. 

An alarm sounded from the building they just passed. It was so loud that Robert almost thought he'd get ear damage, just from standing here. The blaring alarm came from the psych-ward. 

Robert passes this facility every day when he goes to work in his Fiat 500E, and he never thought much of it. He'd only noticed it because it's a fenced-off building where occasionally, people are wheeled in, sitting in wheelchairs or stretchers. 

But now there were no nurses or patients out in the yard. Or at least, not at first. 

While the two men were frozen in place, shocked by the sudden noise, the front door opened. A man came out, carrying something over his shoulder. He seemed to be in a rush, and only when he came closer, did the two see why. 

The man was kidnapping one of the patients.