Helping the Crazy Kids

Dear diary, today I begin my internship at the Stone Pines Asylum, the children’s wing. I will be helping Dr. Frost with art classes for those poor little souls. My boyfriend says I will be “helping the crazy kids.” Haha, very funny, Scott, but it’s not polite to call people crazy, especially little children. I hope I can do some good.

Dear diary, I had my first class with the little ones (oldest were 11) today and they are so sweet, but also so scary. We did finger painting and their art was not dark or bloody, you know, like in the moves. It was just so… weird. Some of these kids are so far from reality they would not see it if there was a lighthouse on the shore, guiding them through the mist. It’s hard to put into words, you would have to see the color, the form… I bet a lot of adult artists would like to have this depth of perception.

Dear diary, I worked with the adolescents today. Dr. Frost brought a bunch of cheap old-school cameras that he probably had lying around the store room since the 90s, and we went around the grounds taking photos. It was nice, with the leaves turning yellow, orange, and red, and the sky being a deep vivid grey. And the kids were just great.

Dear diary, this little girl, Melinda, tells me the part of the brain responsible for dreaming is sick and Dr. Frost has to give her painful shots. She says the dreams sometimes make her believe things that are not there, but she knows there is also truth in them, and she wants to discover it. Dr. Frost tells me she has really bad night terrors and suffers from sleep deprivation which gives her hallucinations during the day. She is already immune to sedatives. She is 9 years old, by the way.

Dear diary, the kids keep telling me Dr. Frost gives them painful shots. The little ones tell me. The teens go quiet when I ask about that. And one of them got really angry. Marcus, Melinda’s brother. Wow, two kids in the same family are sick, so sad.

Dear diary, Dr. Frost is not happy with me asking all those questions and stirring up all this trouble. He says the kids don’t need anyone to feed their delusions. He tries to explain things gently, but I can see him clenching his fists.

Dear diary, Melinda and Marcus lost their parents, and that is why they are here. It was a violent death, that’s all I know. A car crash?

Dear diary, Dr. Frost says I should no longer come over. He says I make the kids too excited. He says I fuel their psychoses. My internship ended abruptly, but I did not want to leave Melinda and Marcus, so I came back to visit. I was denied access. They say it was Dr. Frost’s orders.

Dear diary, I snuck back into the asylum. There was a door in my dorm room that I didn’t see before which led to a series of tunnels and into the children’s wing. Talk about lucky! But it was horrible! I saw the kids tied to their beds, screaming for help, and Dr. Frost in the hallway with a giant syringe. I barely made it out alive.

Dear diary, it’s summertime! I’m packing up to go back home! Yay! It’s going to be all swimming and tire swings and telling ghost stories in the tent in our backyard, just like the old days. Home sweet home, here I come. Just as soon as I can get out of here!

Love,

M.

Posted by: Paweł Kowaluk