Michael Ginsberg (jewsinspace) wrote in spaceodyssey, @ 2016-12-14 21:29:00 |
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Entry tags: | 1969, 1969.09, } cuckoo |
HE WANTS TO DIE WHERE NOBODY CAN SEE HIM
September, 1969
Time—something that work had always made easy to track—has long since ceased to function for Michael. It had effectively become meaningless back in May, but within the past few weeks, it’s gotten even more unclear how or why one day blurs into the next. Pills are put in his hand, food is put in front of him, he sleeps, he wakes up, it’s dark, it’s light. It doesn’t mean anything. Sounds echo emptily or seem muffled. It’s hard to focus. He can’t manage to write or doodle in his journal anymore. Even the prospect of talking to Lee is barely enough to get him to socialize. He wants to die more than ever.
His condition is thanks to a couple of things. A little while back, Lee had caught on to his starvation strategy; she’s far from stupid, and although it must have been disappointing to have to cut herself off from the bonus nutrition, she was adamant that he start feeding himself. He refused, explaining to her once again that he was simply a problem that needed to be solved, an imbalance that needed to be corrected—and to his shock, she went to the orderlies on him. He still doesn’t understand it. Lee can’t stand them, and the rules drive her crazy. Why would she do that to him? Why would she take that away from him, one of the only things left he could control about his life?Only shortly afterward, an exam by one of the doctors from the hospital ended badly when the sanitarium staff was harshly scolded for Michael’s poor condition. His injuries were healing sluggishly—a couple of them not at all—and his overall health was in decline. He’d been somewhat successful in running himself into the ground without the orderlies’ knowledge, but had failed to realize he’d be unable to continue torturing himself once one of the doctors noticed what was happening.
Everyone was very upset. They were angry at him (they didn’t say it in so many words, but they definitely were), and they were angry at Dorothy, which really ground Michael’s gears, because it wasn’t her fault at all. They tried to take her away from him, but he threw such a fit and was so uncooperative with everyone else that they had to put her back. After continuing struggles between the staff and the hospital and Michael himself, Michael was moved to a private room and put on different medications: more powerful, higher doses. They have someone watching him all the time. They barely let him move on his own.
When he was in as much pain as possible—when he could make the decision to be in as much pain as he could figure out how to bring upon himself considering the limiting circumstances—things were somehow almost bearable. There is nothing now. There are no decisions to make. There is no time to pass, no life to live. No death to die. All he can do is linger.