Tears flowed like a river out of her red, puffy eyes. The droplets of salt rolled down her flushed cheeks and dripped silently onto the carpeted floor. Sobs filled the room and the words, “please come back to me,” escaped thin quivering lips and echoed off bare, unforgiving walls. Strong arms wrapped tightly around the frail frame of a woman standing in an open doorway, preventing her from chasing after her beloved. “Come back!” she pleaded again, “please.” She stopped for a brief moment to catch her breath, and despite choking on tears, she weakly cried out again. In a hoarse voice, she whispered “please... come back to me…” then sank breathlessly to the floor, slipping through the grasp of the arms around her.

The steady arms and strong, gentle hands lift the fragile body of the woman up from the floor. A deep and raspy voice breaks the silence, “come along now Ms. Jenson, let's get you up to your room.” Stepping cautiously up the creaky staircase, the enormous man dressed in all white, carries the woman through the doorway. He steps off the carpet and onto the hard wooden floor and into the confined sanctuary of room 230.  

If you were an observer looking in, you would see a beautiful scene unfolding on the second floor of the Pinewood Asylum. Golden rays of evening sunlight shone through the barred window, shedding light on the delicate frame of a woman dressed in flowing white fabrics. The clothing of the woman lightly swishes from the man’s movement and mingles with the colors around her. Her tiny body is draped almost lifelessly in the man’s arms. Except for a slight rise and fall of her chest, one might assume she was dead. She is held by a giant, and the contrast is odd, yet perfect. The man lowers Ms. Jenson onto the bed, he pulls the white blanket up over her shoulders, then caresses her pale forehead and exits the room, closing the door behind him. There he stays, all night, behind the door and unseen from the inside.

The room itself is strange, all four walls are completely devoid of any colors, textures, holes, or bumps. The walls lack the indication that a living person inhabits the space. There is a bed in the corner of the room, it is clothed in all white, the walls are white too, and the curtains, and the ceiling. The floor is wooden, it is the only thing in the room that isn’t white. The floor is brown, and not much of an improvement to the lifeless white.  It’s not an alive place, it is simply a room with four perfect walls, a smooth ceiling, a window with metal bars, and a single ominous door that doesn’t lock from the inside.

In a way, the whole hospital is like this, empty of all its humanism and liveliness. Beds are always made, mealtimes never deviate even a minute from their allotted times, the floors are never left unswept, and the patients are never alone. Too clean and white, too many rules and regulations, too many bodies with not enough life, and too many people with too much, or worse, not enough in their heads.

Strict schedules were always in place at Pinewood. Shortly after sunrise, a cheerful bell awakens the people, signaling breakfast. The cheer once brought by the bell is now exchanged with the monotony of the march downstairs to the dining hall. After breakfast, each patient must adhere to one’s own schedule, consisting of counseling, visiting doctors, and group activities. These limited events were the only possibilities given to patients, and boredom seemed to rule above all. The noon meal was not much different than breakfast, the same dreaded bell signaled its time, and the march began again. Afternoons were for free time, which most patients spent in the common room, or outside if they had earned special privileges. The bell would ring once more each day, indicating the time of the evening meal. Immediately after supper was time for bed.

The woman, Ms. Jenson, often sat up all night, on those pure white sheets, never disturbing their perfection. Although never truly alone, she was in fact, alone with her thoughts, no one could get into her head. Those thoughts in her mind - she hoarded them, kept them to herself, and let them build upon one another like Lego blocks until they were unsolvable mazes of chaos. Complex and creative these thoughts and ideas were, but locked behind her skull, this ray of genius never saw the world.

During Ms. Jenson’s time at Pinewood, only one other soul wanted to understand her mind, and it wasn’t her doctors or counselors. The giant behind the door who cared for the woman, often conversed with her in the still hours of the morning. Dull exchanges they appeared to be, for the woman didn’t express herself clearly, except for the fact that she wanted “him” to come back. The conversations between the two usually consisted of the man trying to persuade Ms. Jenson to tell him who she wanted to come back to her.

“Please, tell him to come back to me.” She would plead with the man. “Tell him to come back.” These haunting words were the only words that Ms. Jenson spoke during her entire 4 years at Pinewood.

The man, a security guard employed at the hospital, never stopped trying to get the truth out of her. “Who?” he would ask repeatedly, “who do you want to come back to you?” An answer was never given to the man, but one night, the conversation changed.

“I couldn’t forgive him,” Ms. Jenson sobbed, “he tried to convince me he was telling the truth, but no matter how much I wanted to believe him, I couldn’t. I’ve tried for so many years to forgive him or even to forget about him altogether, but I just don’t know…” her sobs cut off her words mid-sentence, she took a deep breath, then continued. “But I just don’t know how to let it go.” She paused again, her eyes widened, realization setting in. “I suppose that’s why I’m here then, isn’t it?” she asked, already knowing the answer. After a moment, one last tear rolled down her cheek, and she whispered, “I don’t know how to let him go.“

.          .          .          .          .          .

At the Pinewood Asylum, a giant of a man walks up a set of stairs to start his shift. The bell has already been rung, and the man opens room 230. When the man sees Ms. Jenson, tears fill his eyes, but it’s already too late. The man looks around the room and notices something on the bed. A leaf of paper sits on the messed-up sheets and blankets of Ms. Evelyn Jenson. In a pure white room with only one window, the note, in messy handwriting reads…

My hands have been tied for too long and the very rope binding my hands now binds my life. Living in this prison is no life at all. I have come to the realization that my beloved has left this earth for a reason. No amount of pleading will bring him back, I hear him calling and I must go. Although I never learned the name of my savior, I thank you, man in white, for this truth you have given. Without your words, I wouldn’t have known that life extends beyond room 230.