The Mind's Deception

Disclaimer: This story contains sensitive contents, proceed with caution.

Her once still body twisted around in the sheets, left to right, and repeat until her figure finally gave up the sleep stature and sat upright in her warm bed. She opened her tear-stained eyes which barely allowed her to take a look around her environment, why was she crying? That was still left to be figured out by her and the continuous pulsating in her head didn’t provide much of a help to her situation. She was in her room, her own little white-walled territory, which oddly smelt of a Clorox washed room. Her emotionless brown orbs searched the room, they searched with no real purpose, no real goal. Her brain clicked to the task she had at hand, which was to arise from this bed and start her task-oriented day.

Before she could continue her day her legs involuntarily, rather routinely, threw themselves from the soft bedding onto the hard cold floors. She walked to her mirror, a mess she was, her hair was everywhere. Her cranky arms lifted to tame her wild hair but did nothing much to aid. The gears in her brain turned to look for her hairbrush, the one her mother gave to her, the last gift that was given to her before her mother took her own life. She remembered it clearly. How she and her sisters had just arrived at their shabby one-bedroom home that was at the edge of the town, nearby the dark forests, from the playground. They all were sweaty and hot from galloping around the playground with the other children from the town. They had walked in unannounced through the creaking doors and headed straight for the kitchen searching for anything, something to fill their bellies and quench their thirsts, but they only found musty and dusty broken down cupboards.

On the search for mother, to aide them in finding food, they found her pacing the living room nervously. She had many things on her mind but her main focus was finding food for her hungry children as there was no food left in the house. Just before the sound of the makeshift dark ember wood chest opening resonated through the room, she began muttering nonsense to herself while her body was shaking. Through this they were sitting on the floor playing with the hems of their torn dresses, not noticing what was happening. She took the heavy-duty ropes from their bounds and unraveled them. How she stepped onto the shaky chair and tied the rope onto the board structure of the ceiling while her sisters watched in horror. They knew what was coming next.

“Mommy no!” they cried.

 She remembered the last words she had told them, “Work hard every day until your last and don’t be like mommy”

 It was as if she was back in that tiny house, watching her mother’s legs kick the chair from her feet and soon after became a limp body swinging from the ceiling, back and forth, back and forth, making a terrible squeaky sound. She remembered them watching their mother’s body turn blue until the neighbors burst through the doors from her sisters’ cries, to the horror, how the paramedics removed the body and dumped her on a gurney and whisked her body away. The memory of her funeral, they saw her being locked in a box and dropped six feet into the dark, gloomy ground, the strong smell of dirt whisking past their nose as her casket was being covered. Even then not a tear had escaped her eyes. However, it was etched into her brain even though she spent most of her mornings trying to push the scene behind her brain and bring forth happy memories of her mother when she would work hard just to provide the necessity for them.

The brush was nowhere to be found. And she gave up; her mother wouldn’t want her to be late for a day’s work just over a stupid brush. She patted it down as best as she could and headed for the door, she hoped the kind lady who was taking care of her and her sisters had made a little breakfast before she could go off to help around the house and complete her hardworking chores. She would work hard, just as her mother's last wishes stated. Before she could take another step on the cold floors, the white door opened and her caretaker emerged all smiles with her breakfast ready for her and dressed in his usual white shirt and pants. Her mouth let out a sweet giggle and clapped her hands. She hadn’t expected such a surprise; it was first since the first time she was placed in his care. How wonderful it was to have breakfast delivered to her room.

“Good morning Miss Pam”

“This is a surprise! Thank you!” She hugged him tightly after he had placed the food on her little table. An egg sandwich. A delicious scrumptious sandwich, with the right amount of her favorite ingredients, had been placed in her sandwich.

“Such a yummy egg sandwich, my favorite, I will eat as much as I can to get my energy for the hard work I’ll do today” He smiled at her warmly, while handing her a glass of water and her painkillers. She thought he knew exactly what she had wanted for the pain that was railing her head. She took it quickly, loving the feeling of the pill’s structure travel down her alimentary canal.

“Are you reading my mind?”

“Not at all Miss Pam”

“How about my sisters, have they gotten theirs as yet?” he looked at her confusingly before shaking his head and forcing a smile, before he twirled and left her to enjoy her breakfast. She brushed it off and gobbled her breakfast in the bites.

She forced the last big piece to go down into her stomach as she walked to her bed; the food seemed to distract her from what she had planned for the day. Today was a busy, busy day; she couldn’t allow the food to make her miss a minute of work. She headed for the door again and glimpsed her tallies sitting comfortably on the wall next to the door. Her faithful reminders of how many good deeds she had done, she had two there and today she planned to add many more tallies before the day was done. She would do what had to be done, for her caretakers and her little sisters to keep the promise she made to her mother.

Yesterday was quite a productive day, unlike any other. She walked her caretaker’s dog for miles and miles upon ending. Mars was his name; she loved taking him for walks as she got to not only add to her good deeds but to clear her mind and relax at the cool breeze and beautiful nature all around her. It was much different from where she had lived with her mother; this place was quite industrial with houses everywhere and concrete roads instead of the familiar dirt tracks. Mars was known to pull along his rope when she walked him, causing him to cut off his air supply for just a millisecond. She tried many times to stop him but he wouldn’t quit it, she tried everything and it couldn’t be helped. On zealous days, when he would run around more than usual she would yank his rope back to stop him from pulling her, sometimes to calm him down a bit, she would pet his white fur and rub his little head. But yesterday Mars was a good boy he hadn’t pulled one bit, he stayed so still the entire time that she had to pull him to walk at least once, it seemed she had managed to train him well, so she gave him a treat and took him back to his kennel. One tick for her.

She remembered cooking dinner with her caretaker. A warm bowl of chicken’s feet soup was perfect for a day like yesterday, even though she had taken out Mars for an early walk, the days were getting chilly and her caretaker thought a bowl of soup would do them some good. She helped him to cut the potatoes into small bits, making sure that they were small enough for her sisters, handling a knife was harder than she thought but she would do her best. Pam thought it was the most fun she had since year. However when she saw her sisters laughing again just at the action of putting five bowls and five spoons on a table it pained her heart, she really loved her sisters but their laughs reminded her of the fun they had before her mother died. And when she was reminded of that hatred that grew in her heart, it wasn’t until after they were born that her mother’s hardships began, the same hardships that drove her to her death. To not spoil the mood she had to focus on the smell it was fulfilling as the cooked soup’s aroma had filled the room, she was sure anyone passing by could smell the delicious aroma of the soup she had made; she even placed a little surprise in there for them. One more tick for her.

Overall she gained two tallies in total for all her hard work, she was proud of her two tallies but she wanted more and that’s why today was a special day. She loved the look of her well-deserved marks so she removed a pencil from her pajama pockets and brightened her tallies on the wall. She traced them over several times making sure she could see her precious marks of hard work. What more would she do today? Walk Mars, set the table with her sisters, clean the house, and even draw a little gift for their guardian. That would mean four more tallies. This got her riled up. Four more tallies would be added to her two and she would have six tallies, oh how great that would be if she had six tallies of hard work. Mother would be so proud.

Now she had the motivation she needed to continue with today’s tasks, so she went for the door handle and pulled on it. It was stiff, she rattled it a bit longer, and still not a movement was produced, she was locked in. Did he lock her in so she couldn’t do any more work? But she wanted her tallies; she needed them, right now. She didn’t want to let mother down. Four more tallies were on the line. Her fists were then curled into a ball and she brought them down with a heavy force onto the door’s surface. This was done for several minutes until he finally came to her rescue.

“Miss Pam, would you stop banging on the door please?”

“Why would you lock me in? I have lots of work to do”

“You need to stay inside here” he placed her dinner plate around her table.

“But I have work to do, I have to walk Mars and help you cook dinner, what about the other chores? I need my tallies” she went for the unlocked door.

“Miss Pam” he sighed holding her back from the door, “Why do I have to deal with this every time” He sighed once more rubbing his forehead.

 “I have to watch my sisters set the table and frown at them”

“Listen okay” he sat her on the bed.

“You haven’t been outside this room for a long time and if I remember clearly you’ve been here since 1981, you haven’t walked a ‘Mars’ nor cooked dinner with me and you sure haven’t set any tables with the sisters you killed in 15 years”

“Sisters? I killed? What are you talking about, what’s that nonsense?”

 “They told me that you have memory loss, but this often?” he mumbled to himself, “Miss Pam you poisoned your three sisters 15 years ago, because of your mental instability you were placed in an insane asylum”

“I killed them!” he watched as her usual mental breakdown began, he knew it all too well for she did it every night. He stepped out of the room leaving her to deal with the news; it didn’t mean much to him as he would have to do it all over again the next day.

Her legs stumbled to the marks on the wall. Her tallies were nowhere to be seen. Where was she? Who was she? She thought of these as she took a good look around her. The room was white, the bed was white, the door was white, and the sheets were white. Everything was white as the clouds in the sky. Had she never left this room yesterday, had she never walked Mars and cooked with her caretaker? Was that all a memory of what she had done those years ago? She remembered the pencil she had marked the wall with, surely that was real. Unfortunately, when she removed the thing from her pocket it was only a piece of paper. Was she imagining?

She fell to the ground as he locked the door. A waterfall of tears filled her eyes. She remembered the look on their faces as the poison took effect and their systems began to fail. The sounds they made, when they began choking on their own blood. The cries as they called out for their older sister to save them. She had watched them just as she watched their mother die that day. Her hands went into her hair and pulled at the roots she screamed and shouted for the memories to stop. She didn’t want to remember them, not of what she had done. Their faces painted her vision. When she looked left her sisters smiled back and to her right, her mother was chanting, “Work hard”

“No! no! no!” she paced the room while still clawing at her hair and screaming at the faces she saw she saw in her vision. She tried to close her eyes but that didn’t stop them. She was trapped; she was trapped inside her own disgusting actions. She didn’t really do that, did she?

“I would never, never, not them, not my sisters, I didn’t do it, I couldn’t have!”

The shouting and screams caused the rest of the wing to be in a frenzy, they couldn't allow her to be noisy all night and wake the other occupants, so a doctor was summoned to put her to sleep. Her eyes were wide open when a doctor was called in to give her a sedative. After the shot her eyes fell heavy, she tried to keep them open, she didn’t want to dream of them, of what she did, she didn’t want to see their faces. she tried to resist the heaviness, but very soon she succumbed to the need to sleep.

“Good morning Miss Pam”

“This is a surprise thank you!”

“You’re welcome Miss Pam”

“Such a yummy Porridge, my favorite, I will eat as much as I can to get my energy for the hard work I’ll do today” 

Thanks for reading!