AwAqN

Wake up to my roommate babbling aimlessly to no one in particular about her "dealer." She says she won't be safe once she leaves here - that her dealer will beat the shitt out of her with his computer - the keyboard to be exact. She continues a conversation with her two invisible friends in the echoey bathroom as I shove my head deeper into the practically nonexistent pillow. Apparently, one of her imaginary friends is trying to convince her to smoke while the other is threatening to kill her if she does. I wince and try to continue sleeping, but it's too late - I'm awake in an institution.

I get up and rub the crust out of my eyes; collect the crumpled "sheets" - now a pile of cheap plastic on the floor - from the corner of my bed against the filthy, cold concrete wall. I gather them in a ball in my arms and carry them to the soiled linens basket outside my room.

A disheveled woman with green sweat pants hanging just off the middle of her ass crack walks down the hall ahead of me, unsuccessfully attempting to pull a yellow shirt over her head as if struggling with a monkey crawling all over her back. As she shuffles along in her slip-free hospital socks, her pants creep precariously lower to the ground. Crack kills. I feel like a member of the bag lady chain gang, trailing behind her in my hospital sockies.

A woman's voice comes over the loud speaker announcing plainly, "Code trauma. Code trauma. Code trauma." I can't help but wonder what this means as I see no one rushing in any particular direction, as one might expect at such a grave announcement. It's as if everyone walks around like a zombie here - no wonder they've given up.

The older, snaggle-toothed gentleman who claims to be a scholar from UC Irvine, writing a book on French history and art passes by, warning me of a newly admitted patient who has swine flu. "I'm not kidding," he says, eyes widening.

I ask the nurse if I can be transferred to another room, remembering yesterday when my quiet moment of sitting in bed reading was interrupted by my roommate's shaking and moaning in the bed in front of mine, her legs quivering pale and yellow, peeking out from under the faded green blanket as she masturbated. I crept out from under my covers not five feet away and discreetly left the room, trying to shake the memory from my head.

The only joy I've had here has been in the intermittent "fresh air patio breaks" offered between hours of cringing and wincing at the sounds and smells and sights of God's neglected, forsaken older children. I go outside and shoot hoops for about 15 minutes in the sun, sometimes playing ping pong with the other inmates - as I think of them. Six days has felt like forever, having wild-haired, bugged-eyed people harass me for no particular reason, telling me to "Go back to my own country," even though I was born and raised in America; others trying to convince me they're geniuses; and more yet leaning their leaky, diapered asses on me, shaking hands full of cups of coffee and hospital food.

I had no idea how much I loved my freedom until I was sorely missing it.