your brain is like a vcr. it records everything.


i wake up. there is a ceiling above me. there are walls around me. there is a desk, a bathroom, and another bed across from me. that bed belongs to grace.

the sheets are rumpled and i go back to bed.

i wake up again. this time we are being called for breakfast. i am out of bed now, i am getting changed. grace is not in her bed. i decide to hurry and meet her in the cafeteria before she eats without me. i walk out the door and down the hall and down another hall. now there are voices. voices of girls. i walk into the cafeteria. mildred is standing in a corner watching everyone. she watches me as i walk in and i look for grace. she is not sitting down anywhere. i scan the line of girls waiting for their food. she is not there either.


i push the stop button.

fast forward.


i am kicking the walls. i am tearing the sheets of my bed. i am screaming. my lungs are jumping inside of me but i don't feel it. there are people shouting at me but i don't hear it. there is a teddy bear on my bed that grace made for me. i set in on the desk carefully. then i pull the mattress off my bed. i pound on the windows, the door. they come in, all dressed in white. they have needles. long needles. they have a jacket for me to wear. the kind that crazy people who live in rooms with padded walls wear. my eyes are like video cameras. they are like videocameras recording something into my brain which is the vcr but somehow there is a connection lose. i feel like i am watching myself. i feel like i am on autopilot. there is a glass on top of the desk. i smash it. and then they grab me. they grab me and hold me down onto my bed and stick some needle in me and look over me and i see them saying things but i don't know what. i collapse onto the floor now. i collapse and everything goes gray, and then the gray changes into black.

eject.