“Cali!! Get your pasty a** out of bed and start scrubbing that floor! It looks like someone spent all day rubbing their dirty a** all over it.. Disgusting- Did you hear what I said? Move!”

Cali slowly woke out of her daze, the earth still pulsing with her own heart, colors moving back into their forms.

“sorry”

She muttered. As she began gathering the detergent and ammonia she needed for the floor, she absently started making conversation with herself-

“In my dream there were feathers, lots of feathers fluttering all around and one of them wouldn’t land-”

“I don’t care! Just do your job and shut up; NO one wants to hear your s***. …pathetic schizoid..”

Interrupted the rude someone who locked her in her sleeping cell the night before. He would usually stand over her and watch, but today there was a new shipment of patients he had to antagonize, so, today, he left her to her work instead.

When the receding sound of footsteps were gone, she counted to ten and peered over her shoulder. After deciding that no one was around she began humming. It sounded almost nervous, but mostly just sad and droning. No one else ever sang to her anymore. It was soothing to her. Reminiscent of the days when she lived in a house, with a dog and neighbors, and someone she could come home to, who loved her- Even on her neurotic days. No one was kind to her like he was, or even tolerated her with out him around, and they especially weren’t ever again after he died. When that happened, she didn’t want to go outside ever or talk to anyone.

The landlord came one day due to neglected bills but she didn’t want to let him in. He forced the door open and she began flinging utensils at him out of the kitchen drawer- salad forks, tea spoons, steak knives, and ice cream scoops, he wasn’t deterred by that and when she recognized it she drove a fork through her own hand. The police were called and she was taken away, to a new “home” with new “friends”. There were a few others in the institution that she occasionally interacted with, but not so much that any of the other patients ever learned of why she was there. All they knew of her was that she was quiet, and angelic, but all the doctors f***ed her all the time, and no one ever said boo about it. “Poor, sweet Calypso,” they would echo in hushed voices when she was called out of the rec room.