I'm going slightly mad on Hospital Wing

Arthur Carey

August 06, 2011 12:34 AM

I'm going slightly mad by Arthur Carey

He wasn't ill, injured, or trying to get out of class (a bit difficult to do, as it was Saturday), so Arthur supposed he really had no business being in the hospital wing, but, after a quick examination of the space to make sure no other students were present, he found himself slipping through the narrowest opening of the door possible, as though hoping to be overlooked, at about fifteen after two anyway. He was going mad, which he supposed was reason enough to want to lie down somewhere quiet for a few moments to collect himself so no one else would see.

The problem, the trick, was breathing. And being red in the face, but there was less he could do about that. Getting his emotions truly in hand was always harder than masking most of the physical manifestations of them. He was keeping his breathing fairly even, but doing it made him feel like he was suffocating, and he kept gasping when that feeling got to be too much.

Calm down, calm down. No one saw. You got away with it. Everything is going to be all right. Just calm down and slow down and think.

The hospital was a gentle space, one he thought of in white and lavender, touches of soft blues. He made himself focus on the details of the room, away from the rush of thoughts in his head, tumbling over each other like rapids, and the thoughts of actual rapids spawned by that comparison, away from the way he could feel his pulse in all his fingertips and a dim red glow and the feeling that his throat was being blocked by something dark, with edges, and the images that brought up of mountains, mist and sky torn by ragged edges and snow, the hollowness beneath mountains, great long stretches of dark and water and grim silence, mines and myths….Just on the blank of the wall, holding his attention on it, refusing to move. If he could perform the exercise long enough, then things in his head would smooth out and become white, a plain of snow with only distant gray trees, the ever-present buzz of thoughts and associations, to mark out its limits, and he would be able to go on with his day.

It was, he thought as the clamor began to reduce itself into something closer to the buzz, one thing to be curious, to want to learn, but he couldn't let it get away from him again. There was something exciting about knowing he was looking at forbidden books, taking in forbidden knowledge, but what if someone had seen him? In five years it might be all right, he might have learned to erase memories, but right now, there would be nothing he could do about it if he were caught reading Muggle history. He'd have to suffer from these little moments of panic whenever he thought of it for years, maybe forever.

It was all Kitty McLevy's fault. Of that, he was absolutely certain. If she just hadn't kept talking that day in Care of Magical Creatures, then…He could usually suppress the desire to learn more if he could at least comprehend, think of something about, the subject which was under discussion on a basic level, or at least suppress that need to go to the library until a more appropriate time when he could deal with it without causing a fuss or delay, but when something completely failed to make sense, he had to find out about it. Then and there. So what was he supposed to do with that, if not indulge it? It would drive him mad if he didn't.

Except, he was already going mad. The only evidence left of sanity was that he'd taken precautions – removing the books to another, very remote part of the library and putting different covers on them and glancing around regularly to make sure no one else was anywhere near him, half-covering the books with his arms in case someone somehow snuck up behind him. He was sure no one had caught him.

He couldn't risk it again, though. The information had been fascinating, especially in that one parallel book he found, and he hadn't had nearly enough time to go through all of it before his paranoia grew too great for him to concentrate and that was bothering him, too, but he could not go back. There was only some much getting around luck he could do, only so much good those precautions could do. If another Aladren came and asked to see what he was reading, he'd be done, and he knew it.

Knew it just as well as he knew that he was inevitably going to go back.

What he didn't know was what that, much less what he was going for, meant. Thinking of that disturbed him even more, though, so he tried not to.

Focus on this room. This room is nice. It's quiet here. Calm. Be like the room. Medicine is safe. No one bothers when there's in bed, but this is nicer than that room. It's too dark there. It's safe here. Nothing is wrong anyway. It's safe out there, too. Be calm. I am the smartest one. None of them would ever know what to look for. It's no more than listening - No! No Grandfather. Grandfather is bad. Think of something nicer....

For a moment, he thought he was getting himself back in hand. Then he heard a small noise and jumped, feeling as though it were nearly out of his skin.

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