The Love Song

The Silent Sea

For what seemed like ages, I stayed in that room. I began to heal quickly, but even though I was able to walk again, I was not released but sent to a portion of the hospital sectioned off for the mentally unstable. My temporary home was blanketed in white. This color- although normally a comforting soft presence- surrounded my body with pulses of unease. White, the color of innocence, seemed sadistic and impure. Was it because of me? Does my presence pollute the waters that lay before? Do I dare tread through the uncharted?

For the second time in my life, I dared to defy my mind. The door seemed to groan against me as I pushed it open. Did it not want me to leave my new home? My shield has been breached, the barrier destroyed, at what cost? I had stayed confined to that room, that prison (No, my mind was the prison), for far too long. It was time for me to map these seas.

More white, different but the same, was painted to the walls and bled to the marble beneath my feet. How ridiculous I must look, an eel slithering amongst the merfolk. Some stared wide eyed like fish as others let the current take me.

"Hey, El!" I turned abruptly. Ms. Mona Lisa stood at the end of the hallway talking with a Picasso. The man was abstract art like broken pieces put together to make something that made one think, each person seeing something different than the previous and next. His eyes were sunken in like pot holes in a rode, and he had bandages on his wrists. The current brought her to me leaving the Picasso looking our way.

"Hey, you feelin' any better?" She smiled brightly at me. Words fought to escape past my lips, but I managed to only nod.

"I see you've managed to finally leave your room." She hugged a bundle of files to her chest. Before I spoke, my mind fought against me. I cleared my throat,

"Uh, y-yes. I needed to..." My words trailed away from me. Like claws, the air snatched them from me as if it were a crab crawling along the trenches of my silent seas. She smiled again, but there was a hint of awkwardness hidden behind it.

"You're scheduled to see me today. I expect you'll actually come to my office." She handed me a paper,"Ya' know, instead of me coming to your room for our session. Room 107." Unlike the Mona Lisa, she clearly smiled.

"Yes, Miss, I will." I spoke quietly.

"I'm glad to see you out and about, Eliot. You were in a hospital bed for three months. It's good to move around." With much effort, I tried to muster a smile, but I'm sure it looked like no more than a twitch. "You should go eat lunch, talk with the other people here. Make friends." Those two words made me feel nauseous. "See you at two o'clock. Bye, El!" Then she turned with a smile and wave leaving me alone to venture further within these uncharted waters.