“Spirits from the dead,” I mumbled with exasperation.
I looked over at Dr. Ontarian to see if she understood what I said. The words madesense in my head. Did they sound right? Did I say them in the right sequence? Dr.Ontarian turned around and looked at the blank computer screen.
“Well, maybe it’s your mind’s way of trying to separate what’s real and not real.Sometimes the categories are not very distinctive and they overlap,” she said.
She was blocking the screen; I rubbernecked around her to read the letters. Therewas a knot in my throat; it hurt when I swallowed. I read the words out loud.
“They put thoughts into my head, evil and wicked thoughts into my head.”
Dr. Ontarian paused and adjusted her glasses before she continued.
“When people experience something that is very traumatic, their brains can’t processit well. So the brain buries much of the thoughts into the subconscious part of the mind.Unfortunately in your case, bad things happened to you at a young age, a time when yourbrain is just absorbing information and not really processing it.” She paused and lookedat me to see if I was following her.
I lowered my eyes. I couldn’t look at her. “I am fucked up in the head,” I said,feeling hopeless.
“No, it’s nobody’s fault that you have schizophrenia, but if you put effort into agetting better, we can help you live a relatively normal life,” she said.
I didn’t answer her. Instead, I focused on the fake plant again. It was my friend, theonly friend that I had aside from the elderly woman.
“She’s real, my soul remembers her,” I said. “You mean the elderly woman?” sheasked.
I shook my head. “She’s here to help me heal my pain,” I said. “I can help you healtoo, Nelly; why don’t you give me a try?” she asked.
I focused on the blank computer screen and held my breath. I read the letteringsilently this time. I looked over at Dr. Ontarian, who was staring at me, waiting for ananswer.
“They’re the shadows. The spirits of the dead,” I finally said.
We were both silent for the rest of the session.
My brother and I spent most of the day searching for loose change. We lookedbehind park benches, beneath ditches, and even in the neighborhood garbage bin. Weworked diligently to gather rusted coins, and torn dollar bills to take down to theconvenience store to buy food. Once we were there, we stuffed our carts with mini-sizebags of cookies, potato chips and cheap cans of orange soda. We were five cents short,but the store clerk felt sorry for us and let us slide.
My brother and I had a great deal of idle time. We mostly spent it sleeping in alleys.It was not long before we began to miss the comforts of school. We longed for socialinteraction, but we wanted the food the most. Our stomachs growled from pangs ofhunger, and we became reminiscent of the days when we received school lunches, forfree! We craved sloppy Joes, steak fries, oven pizza and hamburgers. The images becameso strong that we began seeing mirages of food everywhere. We had been out of schoolfor a full three days and had become totally out of touch with the reality.
We did not have a radio, television or even a newspaper to keep us informed. Theonly thing that we had was our distorted imaginations. Our fight with sanity urged us toimagine happiness, so we pretended to gorge ourselves with food. At times we wouldbecome so high by the imaginary smell that we would trick ourselves into believing thatwe were full. And to think, that I used to be so boggled down with shame to present myfree lunch card in the school cafeteria. I would have endured two Sudani wars and oneShiite bombing just to have one. No! I couldn’t live like this. It was just too unbearable. Iwas beginning to think that staying in a children’s home with a bunch of people whohated us wasn’t half as bad as being homeless and freezing our asses off in the middle ofthe winter.
“Don’t worry,” Ali reassured me, “we’re going to find somewhere warm.”
I puffed. I was pissed off. Not at Ali, but at the world. What the fuck that I ever do toanybody? How was it even possible for kids to suffer like this? There ought to be a lawthat caps the level of bullshit that one person can put up with. No one wonder my momwas crazy.
She was older and had a stocked shelf of a whole bunch of years of misery. The onlyway to deal with it would be to go crazy.
No wonder she drank, hit the pipe, talked to herself, and gave ten dollar blowjobs inback alleys. I missed her. I never felt so alone and unwanted before in my entire life. Iwould do anything to go back to our daddy’s house. I would endure all the stares and theawkward reminders that we weren’t wanted. Just so we could all be together again. Therewas an empty coke bottle on the sidewalk. I kicked it hard, hoping that there was a littlebit of liquid inside of it. Hell! Desperate times calls for desperate measures. Ali looked atme. He could tell that I was getting agitated.
“Stay here,” he said before running down a street corner. I pulled the strings on mycoat to tighten my hoodie, and tucked my hands deep inside my pockets. I had to go tothe bathroom. How was that even possible? I hadn’t
