Byberry Mental Institution

He surrounded himself with a voice keeping up a running commentary of his each and every move. He often found himself preaching to hallucinations of euphoric dreams in which he believed were true, or about to happen. However, there was one thing he didn’t know or care about. This man was confined to a cell for more than twenty-three hours every day. He ate, drank, slept, and bathed in a twelve-by-twelve padded room. No windows, no mirrors, no carpet. The only objects that co-existed with this man for 95.83 percent of his time on earth was the one-hundred-and-twenty watt light bulb that illuminated the room until 8:30 exactly every night, the lilac blue pillows that covered the walls, ceiling and floor, and this mans psychotic dream-reality.

I am the night custodian at the Byberry Mental Institution in Emeryville, Kentucky. I clean, fix, mop, sweep and polish. However, I am also a cook at the local pub called the White Crow, and an on call doctor at the OLNEM clinic. You name it, I do it. People often think that I don’t get much done because they say that I “drift off” too easily. That doesn’t bother me too much because the people that I talk to here are all nutcases who are locked in their room’s day in and day out. Sometimes when I’m walking around, sweeping or whatever, I’ll run into one of the staff members. They always send me to the broom closet. Don’t ask me why, because I don’t know. All they ever talk to me about is screws always getting knocked loose. And I swear to Christ, this old place is damn near fallin’ down in most places.

When I decide to take my lunch break, I’ll often talk to the people who are trapped in their rooms most of the time, and they really don’t seem to mind. The odd thing is that these people who you would think would be the most cramped up and pissy people, are actually some of the calmest persons. Maybe that’s just because they’re pumped up with Wellbutrin and Lithium all day. Or maybe they’re just too wound up in their fantasies or whatever to give a damn.

There is one man who I see every day; he has what most doctors would diagnose as Oppositional Defiant Disorder. He’s the type of guy who absolutely blows up at people for doing the stupidest things.