Not Real

Cyndi Chapman stared anxiously at the road in front of her. It was now noon and she had been driving since four in morning, but she didn't feel at all tired. She was on her way to visit her brother, Isaac. She had not seen her twin brother in a little over five years, since she had graduated high school, and she wondered if he had changed at all. She also worried that he wouldn’t want to see her after all this time. She had good reason to worry about this, for the last time she had seen him he had accused her of betraying him. And he was right, she had betrayed him.

           “No,” Cyndi said out loud to herself. “You did what you had to do. You were right in what you did. Human nature. You do what you must do to survive.

           Even if that meant leaving your brother alone and ruining his life? She could’ve helped Isaac and she had decided to save herself instead. It had seemed like the only way…at the time. He had been her only friend in the world so, had it been worth it? She sighed heavily and decided it was time to stop for a break. She was shocked to realize she was driving right through a town and hadn’t even realized. Her body had been in auto-mode.

           There wasn’t much for an imagination to work with in a town like this. There were a couple houses in rough shape, a small block building for the post office, and…a crumbling shed that had the words “Hats for Sail.” She raised an eyebrow.

           She spotted a small café with a faded sign out in the parking lot. “The Great Place.” Chuckling, she pulled into the gravel driveway. Her car pulled in beside a rusting old Chevy pick-up. The truck and a car so muddy you couldn’t tell if it was red or orange were the only other vehicles there. Cyndi grabbed her bag and headed to the door. As she stepped up to the glass door, a glimpse of her reflection caught her attention. A perfectly polished young blond woman in khakis and a black suit jacket stared at her. A false appearance to hide the mess on the inside. She frowned at herself and then went inside.

           As soon as Cyndi stepped into the restaurant, she stopped dead in her tracks. She blinked her eyes a couple times to make sure it was real. Everything had an eerie purple mist around it. The chairs and tables were tree trunks with vines and leaves sprouting all over them. The floor was steaming, like a misty swamp. Cyndi felt her heart quicken. She looked over at the counter with wide eyes. The lady! She had green skin and-

           “Ma’am!”

           Cyndi flinched and the entire world seemed to flip. Suddenly it was a normal old café. Normal chairs, normal tables, clear air, and the lady behind the counter had normal skin. Quite wrinkled skin with her age, but normal. Cyndi realized she was just standing there staring.

           “Are you okay, Miss?”

           Cyndi straightened up and put on her marketer’s smile. “Yes, I’m all right. Just a plain burger, fries, and Coke for me please. No ketchup.”

           The other two customers observed her. Observed rather conspicuously too. They must have been locals judging by the casual small-town Indiana flannel/vest combos they were wearing. She smiled warily and hurried to a booth farthest from the rest of them. She dug around in her bag for her bottle of pills.

           “Take them whenever you feel it creeping around the corner.” Dr. Turner had such a professional way with words.

           She popped one and swallowed it dry.

           “Please not today,” she whispered to herself. She glanced over her shoulder and noticed one of the flannel-vest guys still staring at her. She gave him a face back and he looked away. Cyndi rolled her eyes and looked out the window until her food arrived.

           Back on the road Cyndi couldn’t shake off the weird encounter she had at the café. Not that it had been a new occurrence. She tried to push it away and focused on her upcoming visit with her brother. She had a couple hours more to go. What would she say to him?

Suddenly the car almost flew off the road. Cyndi gasped and steadied quickly steadied. What did she just see on the side of the road? Had it been…a winged raccoon? Like when she was a kid…

“No! No, I didn’t see it!” She often lied to herself. Maybe she really was they all said. She had tried to convince them all- her parents, the doctors, her friends- she was normal. Nothing weird about her. She did not see things like green-skinned waitresses and winged raccoons on the road. She was not like Isaac, who…

Cyndi looked in the rearview mirror and narrowed her eyes. “I hate you.”

For the rest of the trip, she tried to ignore her thoughts and hallucinations and just drove. Unfortunately, both grew more pressing the closer she got to her brother. Voices started yelling random things in her head. Two voices fought to be the loudest. Not real! Not real! Not real! Let go! Let go! Let go! She desperately tried to shake them away.

“I’m coming Isaac.” She gripped the wheel tighter. “And you are going to help me figure this out.”

Finally, Cyndi pulled off the main highway onto a windy dirt road that led to a big iron fence. She took a deep breath as she read the sign-West Side Psychiatric Institution. The car slowly rolled through the open gate, the tires crunching on the gravel driveway. She felt so strange. The fact that she was seeing her brother for the first time in so long and knowing they had unfinished business only seemed to be causing half the stress. So, what else was bothering her?

She parked close to the door and looked again into the rearview mirror. Her already shaky business-like demeanor had disappeared entirely, and nervousness (chaos?) had taken its place. She took some more deep breaths and took a drink from the bottle of water sitting in the holder. She grimaced; the water was warm. Okay enough procrastinating. She stepped out into the cloudy, humid atmosphere.

The trees were bare for August and the building was a depressing stormy grey. What a miserable place for her poor brother. She held her head up and walked to the door with purpose. Before she went in, however, Cyndi looked back. She took in the towering tree branches and leaf-covered lawn. The wind brushed her cheek. She realized with unease that there was a finality to her observing, as if this were the last she would see of this world.

The heavy wooden door suddenly opened, and someone walked past her without acknowledgement. She snapped out of her daze and went inside. A lady looked up from the reception desk. Cyndi told her who she was and who she was there to see. The lady’s smiling face seemed to freeze for a moment. Cyndi stared back in confusion. After what felt like an hour, the lady looked away and typed something on her computer.

“If you go down that hall, the common area is on your right,” she said in a voice you would use with a second grader. “You will find your brother there.”

Cyndi gave the odd lady a look and started down the hallway. It was surprisingly quiet. Her footsteps sounded so loud on the tile floor. She finally reached the end of the hall and slowed to a tiptoe into the room. There wasn’t much to it. Just a white floor, white walls, tables, and chairs. A TV playing a black and white movie was in one corner with a couple people watching. A lady walked around with a children’s book upside down. And a burly guy with a big beard sat sliding puzzle pieces back and forth across a table. There, in the far corner near a window, a tall young man with blonde hair sat writing in a journal. Isaac.

Suddenly all her feelings of fear and anxiety vanished. She smiled and weaved her way around the room to her brother. She sat down at the table across from him and waited for him to look up. He continued writing in the journal, scribbling words she could barely make out. After what had to have been a full five minutes, Isaac looked up. He frowned.

“What are you doing here?”

Cyndi chuckled. “Good to see you too. It’s been a long time.”

Isaac looked into her eyes for a moment and then sighed. He closed his book and set the pen neatly beside it. He folded his hands and set his elbows on the table. He jumped right into it. “I’ve had time to think about what happened and…I’m not mad.”

Cyndi felt her eyebrows shoot upward. “Really?”

“I mean, it will take a little longer to forgive Mom and Dad. Not that’s hard to put them out of my mind when they only visit once a year.” He leaned back and shrugged. “But I got nothing but time and peace to work it out with myself.” He grinned.

Cyndi smiled back hesitantly. “I…do feel bad, Isaac. I should have stood up for you. But I didn’t want to end up here like…”

“Like me.”

Cyndi sighed and nodded. She also hadn’t forgiven her parents for putting Isaac in here five years ago. They ruined his life. And they would have ruined hers too, if she hadn’t done such a good job at denying the truth.

“It was real. I hope you know that,” Isaac said, breaking her out of her thoughts.

“How do you know?” Cyndi leaned forward and looked him deep in the eye. “What if it really was just our imagination?”

Isaac leaned forward too. “Because.” He glanced around a little nervously. It made Cyndi wonder how well they were treating him here. “I still see it. Don’t you?”

Cyndi held her breath and nodded. “I thought we just really were crazy.”

“I don’t think we are. That place we visited when we were kids is still trying to reach us. We had open minds as kids, but adulthood is closing them up. They keep giving me pills that stops me from going there, but I figured out a way to fake taking them.”

Cyndi gave him a look. “What? Are you insane?”

Isaac smiled wide. Cyndi glanced at the room and chuckled.

Her brother suddenly got serious again. “You take pills they gave you. Don’t you? Let them control your mind and make you a robot. It’s a trap to keep you in the grind of their society. Do they make you feel normal, Cyndi? Are you better now?”

Cyndi winced a bit at his tone. He was using her words. She had repeatedly told her parents back on that fateful day that she was normal, she would take the pills and feel better. Nothing to worry about.

“Without that poison in my system I can leave whenever I want. You can too, Cyndi. If you stop fighting it. You’ve tried to fit in this world, but have you ever really succeeded?”

“I have a great job.” But Cyndi couldn’t kid herself. She hated her job. It was dull. And the people she worked with were dull. And her apartment was dull. Her life here was dull.

“It could be better,” he insisted. “If we go there.”

A staff member in scrubs came into the room. Isaac and Cyndi stopped talking. The man went across the room and grabbed one of the patients watching TV. He led him out of the room. As soon as they were gone Isaac looked back at Cyndi and waited for a response.

Cyndi replayed her life in her mind. The taunting, the fights with her parents, the feeling of being so utterly alone, and the scary hallucinations. Then she remembered that world and realized the visions might have been their otherworld friends trying to “phone call” her.

No. She couldn’t believe she was letting her imagination go wild again. It was being here with her brother. He was making her crazy again. She glanced at her bag where her pills were tucked waiting. She breathed in deep and let out her breath slowly. Then she looked up at Isaac again. She looked into his expectant eyes. The eyes that had always trusted her to lead them to good places. To lead them to a place where they belong.

“How do we get there?”

Isaac smiled wide again. “You just have to let go.”

Cyndi felt a tear roll down her cheek. She let her heart and mind relax. Like at the café, the world seemed to flip. She stared at Isaac with wide eyes as her heart pounded faster. He stared back, still smiling wide. Bright light shone on his face, and he turned and squinted into it.

 Cyndi felt her stomach flip as she turned too and looked out at the growing and colorful horizon of their wonderful world.