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Ophelia/Ophelia Jensen (love_remember) wrote in utr_logs, @ 2008-10-22 18:45:00

Who: Ophelia
What: An Unfortunate Arrival [completed]
When: Over the Past Two weeks
Where: A mental hospital in NYC
Ratings: None.



The joggers had not been convinced that the girl was alive until she stirred as they looked at her. The female jogger knelt beside her and the girl felt a warm hand on her face. People spoke but she did not understand them and she vomited up filthy water. There was a foul stench in the air and she tried to open her eyes but when she did, nothing made any sense. She vomited again, then tilted her head to the side to focus on a plant, and passed out.

She awoke in a strange place, her clothing gone, clad in only a thin outer garment. Her thick hair was still damp and she could still smell the horrid smell from earlier that day. The room was white and cold and strange, so different from Elsinore. She huddled in the strange white bed, under the covers.

People came in and out for several hours, and she did not know what to say to them, and so she was silent. Things looked so different, and where was her brother? Where was Laertes? She did not understand. She remembered herself, of course she did, but they wanted something called 'identification' and they did not seem to understand when she gave them her proper name and asked for her family...or Hamlet.

She did not understand why everyone looked so ridiculous. There were no proper clothes worn by anyone here at all. And shoes that weren't like proper shoes! The women wore silly, spindly shoes that made them look as if they would break something. Ophelia had not worn shoes for some time, since her father...

And it was tremendously noisy here. There were yells and screams and odd honks and she felt tired and distracted.

Couples with grief etched on their faces came to look at her, then turned away, sobbing. Had she done so much wrong that she could never be forgiven? She had been the cause of so much pain. And her dear father...but her brain skittered away from the thought of him.

Perhaps I am not in Denmark any longer. The thought frightened her. Where was she, if not in Denmark? Ophelia shivered. If I be not in Denmark, then where should I be? I only know that there was a great wind and I was in the water, and then I was waking up, on the shore, with people in strange clothing hovering over me.

She began to shake her head. She did not know what to do. Who would care for her? Where would she live? She couldn't be that far away! She'd die if she had no one!

"No," she whimpered. "No."

She threaded her hands in her hair. She felt horrible and dirty and cold. She leapt off the bed all of a sudden and cried, "WHERE IS THE BEAUTEOUS MAJESTY OF DENMARK?" Her feet were bare on the cold floor and she shivered. "The Queen! I wish to see her!"

Ophelia went on crying out until several women took hold of her and there was a pain in her arm and then suddenly, she was much too sleepy to fight anymore.


She awoke hours later, alone. No one came to comfort her, and she felt that she would die. She ached and her lungs ached, and all she wanted was a hug.

Later, when a doctor came in, she was sitting docilely in bed, rubbing at reddened eyes. She looked at him. "Please," she said softly. "Where am I? I want to go home to Denmark, and Elsinore."

"I'm afraid we cannot do that," the doctor said gently. "We must find who you belong to."

"But...I have told you. Queen Gertrude would know me. And my brother, Laertes. Or...if you could find my lord Prince Hamlet..."

"Those are characters. In a play by William Shakespeare. It's very well known."

Ophelia blinked. "But...I am not simply a character. I am real. And I want to go home." Her eyes filled with tears and she looked down at her hands with their ragged nails and bitten cuticles.

"We can send you home if we know who you are," he prodded. He wrote in his notes clearly delusional. disconnected from reality.

"But I've told you," she whispered. "I've told you and told you. But you do not believe me." She began to sob and curled up on her side, crying wretchedly, pulling her long hair down over her face to hide it.

"Miss? Calm down. We need your cooperation..."

"My name is Ophelia!" she screamed in frustration. "Ophelia! Why will you not call me by my name?!"

She was mad. She must be mad, she sounded mad. She could feel herself leaving her wits behind.

There was commotion all around her, and people pushing and pulling her and a prick upon her arm again, and the world went dark.

She awoke again, alone again, and still in the strange white room. They would not let her go. Ophelia lay there, very tired and disoriented and lonely. I shall have to agree or they will never let me out of here. I shall have to be docile and say that I am unable to remember who I am, at least. I must not mention Denmark, or Hamlet.

Ophelia huddled down into the covers and tried to get warm. She wanted a bath and proper clothing. Maybe if she were agreeable, they would allow it.


Several days later, things were slightly better. Sometimes, when they didn't know she could hear them, she could hear the words 'gently insane' and 'amnesia'. They addressed her as "Ophelia" simply because it was the only name she would respond to. She kept quiet and tried to be sweet in what they called 'counseling' because what could she tell them? And if she were meant to be someone else, she couldn't remember who she was supposed to be, anyway. But she was sweet, if sad, and she inspired gentleness in others, as she had done when she was in Denmark.

Today, she was allowed to go into the lounge with the other inmates, who, at least, were all women. Some of them did not respond to her at all, and some were better, though they spoke with a hardness that Ophelia had never known a woman to have. There was a strange talking picture box hanging from the wall, and other boxes that people sat in and pushed other little boxes on a plate with their fingers.

She came to sit down beside one woman who was working. "May I watch you?" she asked politely. The other woman looked at her and nodded silently. So Ophelia watched and saw that the tiny boxes on the rectangular plate had letters and numbers, and when one pushed them, words and numbers appeared on the larger box in front.

Ophelia watched with fascination for a few moments, then said shyly, "Will you teach me how?"

The woman looked at her again, and said softly, "Yes." And she began to teach her how to use the thing she called a 'computer'.

Ophelia was considered, at home, to be soft and sweet and a perfect maiden. She was quick with the needle or a honest compliment, and could be counted upon to be a lovely hostess as the situation required.

However, she was never counted to be particularly intelligent. Nevertheless, she took to the computer and the things one could do upon it quickly. Once she realized it could be a gateway to the outside world, she was very anxious to learn all she could. Her doctors thought that it would be a good way to get her back into the 'real world' and encouraged her.

And so it was that she found a certain forum...