Oscar and Alphonse

Imagine an old-fashioned Victorian castle. Steep gabled roofs, stained glass windows, and terraces on every floor. On the inside, wallpaper older than your ancestors and velvet covered chairs that greet you when you walk into any room. Now, gut the inside, tear the wallpaper off the walls and replace the soft cozy velvet chairs with sharp plastic chairs that make it so when you sit in them, you're almost certain to rip your clothing. Now walk into the kitchen, put a lock on every cabinet and fill the fridge with bottles and bottles of antidepressants and cough syrup.  Now make your way into the bedrooms, take apart the gorgeous stained wood bed frames and replace them with rows of bunk beds, all spaced evenly apart with a mattress pad that is about as thick as the locks on the toothpaste cabinet in the bathrooms. 

They say it works. The so-called “treatment” does the job. It “cures the abysmal children ''. When the busybody reporter made the journey out to this dim looking compound, he said that this center is the best place to send your deranged child. In every corner, a little robot that controls everything I do here. An eye with vision so wide it could see the entire world, or at least mine. The staff make sure we don’t run away or misbehave even when it’s best for us. I would know. My name is Alphonse, Alphonse White. My parents sent me here when I was six. I am now ten, five months, and twenty one days. Not that I'm counting, I've just got a lot of time.

 I want to be let go from the dark and depressing place I've called home for so long. The walls are covered in handprints and dents from the ones who have died in the treacherous care of unskilled adults treating kids like objects. Pulling us side to side, plunging needles into our arms, whipped if we don’t go fast enough when walking outside even when our fingers are purple and trembling. They shove us into our beds with only a scratchy blanket and an extra uniform lying on a cold concrete floor at exactly eight o’clock every night. Worst of all, the therapy. Hours on end in a dim room with two chairs on opposite ends, in opposite worlds. Confined, I sit in a chair, strapped down and forced to speak. To speak about my past, the present, and how I feel about the future even when the only future I see is living here.

I have tons of friends. I can’t see them, but when the voices in my head become so loud and perspicuous it seems like everything is normal. And I don’t feel alone. On rare occasions my friends leave. I like to say they go on vacation, but then at night, they come back. They have gone on all sorts of adventures from cliff diving in the Maldives to scaling Mount Everest in one day, they are incredibly charming. Well when I say “they” I mean he, Oscar. He’s handsome, forbearing, and lavished. The best part is, I can tell him anything, and he won’t share it with anyone else. He’s loyal.

Oscar and I have a lot in common, we are both ten, we both love to play outside, and we both enjoy blackberries more than any other food. Oscar also lives here with me. I can never quite understand why but he is allowed to go outside. I’m sure it’s favoritism or something along those lines. Oh how I long to go play outside. Mama and Papa used to take me to the park every day and we would play from sunrise until sunset.

Mama and Papa were the best. We had so many enjoyable adventures. Up until I was five, I was a normal kid. They would take me to get ice cream, on a hot summer day, and then to the pool where I would play with my friends who loved me and I loved them, but then just like that, “No Alphonse, you can’t go to play. No Alphonse, not today, Alphonse, no” And that’s when they decided to send me here, Rosewood Psychiatric Recovery Center. Now, five years later, I'm here writing this.

In an instance the intercom screeched on:

“Alphonse White, please report to the administration’s office, immediately.” 

I quickly rose from my chair and stumbled out of the school room trying not to make a fuss of my sudden exit. I opened the creaky wooden door to find Ms. Emerson Jane briskly tapping her toe on the cold rotten floor, her baton in her left hand ready to strike. 

“Alphonse, may I be frank with you”, Ms. Jane asked in a disparaging tone.

 “Yes ma’am of course”

A moment of silence occurred, Mrs. Jane still tapping her toe on the floor staring at my eyes with a glare larger than life itself. The very next second Ms. Emerson Jane’s fingers had interlaced around my scalp and were grasping onto my hair. My skin was stretched back towards my scalp as she pulled me in so close, her nose was touching mine by the skin of one's teeth.

“ Now you listen here Alphonse, you have been here for five years. Five! Do you know how long everyone else lives here? Not nearly as long as you. Everyone here gets adopted. You are the only one who has never had any set of interesting parents, you are the worst child who has ever come through here. Everyone is scared of you, no one here likes you. You need to get better immediately or you will lead an immensely lonely life. On behalf of the department of safety and security, we’ve come to the conclusion that we can no longer house you. Your medicine is much too expensive and you take up space that could be used for someone who is going to be adopted.  We are going to give you two more days here and if you don’t clean yourself up and find yourself a home, it’s off to the electric chair you go. Do you understand?”

“Yes, ma’am I-”

“Speak up,” Ms. Jane said as she interrupted me.

“I said yes ma’am”

That is it.

My life is over.

I can’t escape.

There is no hope.