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John sleeps little his first night in the ward. The nurse checks up on him every half hour by looking in through the window on his door. She lifts the window flap noisily, and afterward walks to the next room with the unparalleled grace of a bear. When she lets go of the flap, the room goes dark again. A bit of diffuse light still enters from his window. John spends the night staring at the neat row of oxfords in front of his closet and, and every thirty minutes, staring at his nurse.
---
The next morning, before the hour of rising, John takes a pen and carefully writes his name on everything he owns, in the neatest print imaginable.
When he is done he looks down at his un-named pen and wishes he had a second one.
---
John doesn’t like the kids in his class. They are immature, selfish, and have impossibly distracting hair colors. He also doesn’t see the point in their current group activity. In sharing. Why does he want to know about their hopes and wishes? The nurse turns to John and asks him to read what he wrote on his paper.
‘To be able connect.’
The nurse pauses. ‘Ok, to who?’
‘To whom.’
---
The Nurses study John as he eats. He doesn’t eat much; partly because he isn’t hungry, and, partly, because it tastes like something that cannot be processed by the human system. His assertion proves to be correct the next time he visits the bathroom.
The nurses must think he doesn’t eat because of his depression. John can already anticipate the conversation they will have with him. Perhaps they will just tell his psychiatrist; have the doctor raise the issue. He doesn’t care what they think. They probably come from a state school, a nameless suburb. They probably have the pedigree and intellect of a hamster. With an air of superiority, John pushes his food around as he looks to the table at his left. There is a nurse trying to convince a girl to eat. John doesn’t think she will. He placidly feels sorry for the girl and the nurse.
---
‘How is your journal going, John?’
‘Fine.’
‘What did you write in it?’
‘Erm, much, how much I hate myself, what I hate about myself. Uh, that type of thing.’
‘You’re talking more. That’s good. I think your speech is even improving.’ John says nothing to that. Speech is one of the subjects he mentions in his journal. As a rule, he does not like to talk about those subjects. ‘As you know, it’s normal for someone with a psychotic disorder to have these speech impediments, or even mootness. So you mustn’t despair.’ The doctor pauses, ‘I do think your communication skills are recovering at a good rate, but we could move faster.’
What? Communication skills? Why do doctors say things like that? ‘Erm, why?’
‘Don’t you want to communicate with your peers, John?’
‘How would talking help me communicate?’ John tries to make it sound like a joke, but he doesn’t quite make it. The doctor’s expression becomes sad.
‘Have you made friends here?’
‘Yes! Well…erm, no. Not at all.’
‘You should work on it.’ John has nothing to say to that.
---
John is wedged between four teenagers on a couch. The other couches are also filled with pubescent bodies. The telly is playing a romantic comedy and John almost likes it. He is however, more interested in a boy sitting in front of him, cross-legged on the floor. He looks younger than John, and something about him is very intriguing. Perhaps it’s the dark of the room and the flashing colors of the telly reflecting on the boy’s skin, or his endearing gesture that makes him look like he is praying. After a concentrated effort to watch a few more scenes, John nudges the boy with his foot.
‘Pst! What’s your name?’
The boy turns around and takes John’s appearance in. ‘Eton or Brighton?’
‘What?’
‘What school did you come from, Eton or Brighton?’ The boy asks with an air of boredom.
‘Erm, Eton. Have we met before?’ John asks.
‘The name is Sherlock Holmes and I’m on the second floor, room 21B.’ The boy whispers. Looking rather pleased with himself, Sherlock sits back to look at the movie. Wide-eyed, John does as well. He must have missed something important, because the main characters are now kissing. The back ground music is from the top 40 list. It’s a crap film. John spends the rest of the day thinking about kissing anyway.
---
Rain melts the snow outside. John is sitting in the hallway with two nurses. They found a blade outside his window with some bloodied tissues. The cuts on his arms are fresh. They want to know why he keeps hurting himself.
‘There is, like, a voice inside my head that tells me to,’ John explains.
‘What does the voice say?’ A nurse asks.
‘Um, it reminds me of things that make nervous, alone, guilty,’ John says, but the hesitation in his voice makes it sound like a question.
‘Why does that make you want to cut?’ The same nurse asks.
‘I don’t know, to make those feelings stop. To feel better,’ the reply sounds like a question again.
‘Does cutting make it feel better?’ The other nurse asks.
‘Something like that,’ John replies.
‘You don’t have to be lonely; there are boys and girls here going through the same thing.’
‘I can’t talk to them,’ John says, shaking his head.
‘Not one?’
‘Well, possibly one, but he may not want to,’ John replies.
‘You should try,’ the nurse says.
John wants to try; he really, really wants to try.
---
‘Ouch! What did you do that for?’ Sherlock yells, grabbing the assault weapon. The boy was, until recently, calmly reading on the floor inside the common hallway. Now he angrily looks up at John, who is under the doorway to the hall, warmly dressed, and wearing one shoe
‘Can I have my shoe back?’ John demands.
‘What? No! So you can throw it again?’
‘I won’t I promise.’
‘Well, alright. Here you go. Ouch! Oh my goodness!’ The shoe once again hits Sherlock’s face. Nocking his head back; the force makes his curls bounce with enthusiasm. They remind John of a slinky.
‘Can I have my shoe back?’ John asks again, with the most unassuming face he can craft. This is difficult for John to maintain because the expression of pure outrage on Sherlock’s own bruised face is very funny to him.
‘I will throw my book now,’ Sherlock warns, a chemistry textbook held in his hand.
In the ward, all the patients hear what must be two boys, screaming like a couple of banshees.
The rest of the afternoon for the two boys is spent trying to avoid projectiles objects. Sherlock has awful aim, but is an easy target. Far too easy. John does not know why, but, after a while, he runs slower and aims worse on purpose. He does not understand why he wants to let Sherlock win. He just does. When they have to stop for dinner time, Sherlock looks bruised but triumphant. John just looks hungry.
That night, John pastes a gold star in his Journal and decides it is the happiest day of his life.
---
Group therapy is making John increasingly numb to ‘the story’. Every patient has ‘the story’. How they need to do this or that, how they feel about themselves. The story is a group of two or three liners that encompass how the certain patient feels every day. Each story rolls into the next and they are inseparable and same. John imagines he is supposed to take comfort in ‘the story’. He thinks ‘the story’ makes the actual story less.
‘I was really skinny, and then I got fat.’ A girl shows a binder full of pictures of herself. She also has photographs of models and perfume adds in her binder. Photographs of bodies that she would like to have. All the girls do. ‘I don’t want to look this way, I hate seeing the fat.’ She continues. ‘I feel like it’s not worth it, I just want to die. No, I really do. It would fix everything. It’s the only thing that will let me stop.’
‘I have the same issue. Being fat; I’m just worthless. I’m a cow, and it’s not worth living this way. All I want to do is fucking hurt myself.’ Another girl is talking; her Scottish accent is almost indecipherable. She lifts her sleeve to show a bandaged arm. She had to go to a doctor yesterday. She stabbed herself with a pen. None of the teenagers in the room are fat, but that obviously isn’t the issue.
They say girls express themselves more freely than boys. That is why so many more are in the ward. You can’t have a patient if you don’t diagnose them. This fact often gives girls the advantage of early detection. After a while spent inside the ward, the boys seem to express themselves as much as their female counterparts. So John has learned that in the ward both sexes speak freely. They both simplify everything to the point of butchering any ability to empathize. Superlatives. Everything is broken to its simplest form: ‘I want to kill myself.’ ‘I hate myself.’ ‘I’m worthless.’ ‘I’m depressed.’
God! What do any of those words actually mean?
‘Well, you know.’
No, we actually don’t know! Please explain yourself! Uh!
John isn’t those things. He can’t simplify that way, he doesn’t want to. He doesn’t want to give ‘the story’ because he needs to keep his story.
---
‘Can I come in?’ John asks. He is at the foot of Sherlock’s half opened door. Door 21B. Sherlock stands up a bit too quickly from his chair, bumping into his desk and spilling some beakers. The younger boy awkwardly tries to clean the mess up while welcoming John inside.
‘Oh! John, I’m glad you finally came.’ Sherlock says. John wearily enters the room. ‘Yes, so what do you think?’ he asks John. The boy looks very proud of his rather large room, full of science equipment.
‘This is really messy.’ John says, looking down at the bed full of books and clothes.
‘Oh, well,’ Sherlock says, looking clearly embarrassed. John tries to sit down. ‘Let me get this out of your way.’
‘That’s fine,’ John says weakly. It takes all of his will power to withstand the disorder.
‘No, I want to make you comfortable.’ Sherlock makes a small space for John to sit. Sherlock doesn’t make room for himself so he stays standing, playing with a lock of his own hair.
‘Well, it took me a while to come here, I got myself yelled at for the better part of an hour by Nurse Dan because I skipped in the hall way. Skipping apparently counts as running, which is a heinous crime to him,’ John says.
‘Hmm, well. He just found out about the divorce, he would be testy,’ Sherlock says casually.
‘Really? Did he say that?’ John asks, surprised a nurse would give out personal details.
‘Didn’t have to, it was written on him.’
‘Where?’
‘I don’t mean literally, I mean that everything about him tells me something. I can see the tiniest and most important clues; make connections, know things about him much faster than I could explain how I know them,’ Sherlock explains.
‘Right…’ John says skeptically. He wonders if this boy might be a pathological liar.
‘Problem?’ Sherlock asks.
‘What you’re saying is a bit farfetched.’ John raises an eye brow for emphasis.
‘I could tell your home town from your accent (which is Bristol by the way), your school by your shoes, and your masturbatory preferences by your palm lines,’ Sherlock says with a hard edge to his voice. ‘Shall I now speak to those preferences?’
‘How?’ John self-consciously hides his palms.
‘No. Boring question.’ John opens his mouth to speak but Sherlock continues. ‘Let’s go back to Dan the nurse. How do I know he is getting divorced? Child’s play, really. He had been cheating on his wife: password protecting his phone, texting someone, a mistress. I know he is not texting his wife because she works full time in a lab, I heard him say that, and that’s not cheating. It’s called paying attention. Anyway, she isn’t going to be texting him, and only a young mistress would make him smile every time he reads them. Also, the small matter of him dying his hair, have you noticed? It’s Darker. He also has new cologne on, probably to mask the smell of a new woman. But you’re thinking: just because he cheats on his wife doesn’t mean that they are getting divorced. No! Of course not, except a new visitor came in today and left pretty quickly. Quickly enough to have served Dan, and, based on the fact that Dan left his office looking rather unhappy with a new manila folder on his desk, I would say he just found out that he is getting divorced,’ Sherlock explains at rapid speed. He is electric and it sets John’s soul on fire.
‘Amazing,’ John says. Sherlock looks confused.
‘Really?’
‘Yes, quite amazing,’ John says, giving out a low whistle at the end.
‘Oh, well…Ah, I don’t know what to say to that,’ Sherlock says. This surprises John because he doesn’t imagine that Sherlock is very often at a loss for words.
‘To what?’ John asks.
‘A complement… What does one normally do when complimented?’
‘Why don’t you explain what you are doing with that microscope on your desk and tell me more gossip,’ John suggests.
Sherlock thinks that is a good idea and answers, ‘Alright.’
---
Ms. Watson and his sister, Harry, sit on John’s bed. John is staring down at his sheets, thinking about how wrinkled they will get. He will have to ask for the iron again. He squirms in his seat and starts to feel a bit lightheaded. Harry is avidly texting her girlfriend. His mother unpacks a bag of what she calls ‘treats’.
‘And here is the deodorant, the crisps you like-‘
‘Did you bring the applications and such for University?’ John interrupts. His mother’s eyes widen.
‘Doctor said it was best if we did not plan for things like that.’ Ms. Watson says very carefully.
‘Why would he say that? I have to go. He knows I need to go.’
‘John,’ Harry complains.
‘What have I worked so hard for? I have slaved away at perfect grades. Did I waste my life?’ John asks.
‘They are not going to take someone mental, John.’ Harry snaps, clearly tired of her brother’s outbursts.
‘Harry! Dear, with a psychotic issue it’s hard to know when you might be well enough to even finish school.’ Ms. Watson explains. She puts a hand on John’s knee for emphasis. He slaps it off. He hates being in the ward. He hates that he is wasting his time. He is not at school. He is not getting into Oxford. The guilt and stress make his bile sour. He will have wasted his life, and it’s all because of his USELESS depression.
‘What is the point of any of this, then?’ John asks. His family pretends to not know what he is talking about. They change the subject to food, shampoo, and useless things, but they know what John means to say.
---
‘Nope.’ John says, as he laces his arm around Sherlock’s elbow, gracelessly pulling him in the opposite direction.
‘But I like art therapy.’ Sherlock complains. He tries to escape John’s grasp with little effect. ‘At least let me walk forward like a normal person.’
‘Fine.’ They switch arms and John pulls Sherlock quickly toward the office. ‘Don’t say a thing. If I say run do it.’ Sherlock nods. They pass by an empty desk; John surreptitiously grabs a set of keys next to a candy bowl. They walk out the building without problems, and open the small gate on the first try. Sherlock stares at the whole procession like a lost owl.
‘I did not think it would be that easy’ Sherlock whispers.
‘Yea, go fucking figure.’ John unceremoniously lets go of Sherlock and sets out to run; the other boy follows. Once they pass a few streets, Sherlock tries to slow John down by holding on to John’s sleeve tightly. He eventually gets John to stop and turn around to face him. John compulsively notes that the dent of Sherlock’s fingers will scar the weave of the jumper. The hurt look in his eyes will scar something else.
‘John, where are we going?’
‘Right, well. I’m going to off myself, but you can do whatever you like.’
‘What, what do you mean? Sherlock’s voice breaks. John tries not to care.
‘You know, what kids normally do in here. Take some pills; jump off a bridge. I won’t try to be creative.’
Sherlock tries to think of anything to say. Something spectacular that will change everything. Those things grownups say that always fix things. ‘We are skipping art therapy for this?’ He is unsure of the resulting effort; John is as well.
‘How old are you?’
‘14.’
‘You look younger.’
‘I’m taller than you already.’
‘I know.’
Sherlock stares at his own slippers and takes a low shot. ‘If you do it then I’ll do it too. So… please don’t.’
‘Sherlock, you’re not being fair.’ John warns.
‘It’s not fair for you to leave.’
They stand in silence for a long minute, until John turns away from Sherlock to kick a trash can. The movement is violent and it makes such a loud sound. They both watch as it tumbles and roles down a drive way. The can leaves a track on the snow. John sighs and starts walking back to the hospital. Sherlock grabs on to John’s sleeve, following from a step behind. John feels out of control, unsure of everything inside and between. Despite himself, and his selfishness, he can hear the younger boy shiver. John wonders if he should offer to hold Sherlock. Would that seem gay? John doesn’t take the chance. They walk back through the gate, leave the keys on the desk, and enter the art classroom. John labels the escape as: underwhelming.
Later, as John draws another family portrait, he can hear Sherlock crying next to him. John has never seen a boy cry before. It is an unpleasant sound. So, he looks away and pretends not to hear. He colors in his mother’s blue eyes, the gray of his father’s hair, and the rainbow on Harry’s shirt. As an afterthought, he draws Sherlock in too. The classroom grows quiet, outside, a siren can be heard.
---
‘How is your journal going?’
‘Well, Doctor.’
‘What are you writing in it?
‘Erm, poems.’
‘Oh? About what?’
‘Nothing.’
‘It’s very good that you are being creative.’
‘I know.’
‘What are they about, John?’
‘Um, the weather.’
---
A girl with pink hair screams at the other corner of the hall. John and Sherlock watch her from where they are sitting the floor. John knows that Sherlock gets scared when patients scream. Sherlock often seems invincible, with his collar and cheek bones, but he is still a boy, and there are still things that scare him.
‘It’s ok,’ John says.
‘Mhm.’ Sherlock looks like he might be sick. He lays his head down on John’s lap and covers his ears. He moves and accommodates like a cat. The girl still screams, just as her hair is still pink. A pair of hands is not enough to keep out the noise, so John covers Sherlock’s hands. Two nurses are trying to take the girl away. Her comportment is so undignified. John would not let anyone see him that way.
‘Your eyes look like a storm,’ John notes.
‘Do they?’ Sherlock asks absentmindedly.
‘Yea, they do.’ John looks at Sherlock looking at the girl.
---
‘…And so, Harry has been thinking of switching to political science,’ Ms. Watson says. Her voice full of static over the phone. John presses closer. Its early afternoon; the hospital is noisy.
‘Really? My best-mate’s older brother is in politics too.’ John gives the information eagerly. He hadn’t realized how much he wanted to mention Sherlock. Though he should have known; Sherlock is someone who deserves, no, demands to be talked about.
‘You have a friend?’ Ms. Watson asks. Surprise and happiness bubble out of her.
‘Yep. His name is Sherlock Holmes.’
‘That is wonderful.’ John could have won a noble prize and not have made his mother happier.
‘Mom,’ John warns.
‘It really is a great thing.’
‘Don’t make such a big deal about it.’
‘Ok, ok.’
‘Mom, I think I may be like Harry.’ John says cautiously. He immediately regrets it.
‘Political?’ Ms. Watson asks.
‘Never mind, why is she switching majors anyway?
They talk for a bit longer. His mother eventually gets John to talk about Sherlock a bit more. About how much of a genius he is, the things he knows and reads. His mother is very pleased and John is too. They both agree he is making amazing process, that he might be able to leave the ward soon. John would really like to.
---
‘Are you ready?’ Sherlock whispers.
‘Born ready,’ John replies.
They’re in a large, dark, hall. The ceiling lights flicker. Everything has been arranged. John, the mask of innocence, already turned in the package. Now they just have to wait for it to start. Everyone around them dances slowly, Celine Dion hums in the background. Silence. They look at each other. Que. LOUD metal music starts screaming through the loud speakers. All the slow dancers stare with trepidation as Sherlock and John skank in the most offensive manner. Head banging, leg kicking, the works. All the other dancers can do is get out of their way.
They will only have a minute before the Dj corrects his mistake. So they have to skank like never before. In that dark dance floor, for a full minute, they were eternal. 58 seconds, 59, seconds, 60- silence. Back to the Celine Dion.
The boys, panting, find each other.
‘You criminal,’ John laughs.
‘You were alright yourself.’ Sherlock says. They look around as the other teenagers dance, awkwardly at best. Mostly just girls. They all move their parts around with little design or intention. ‘Would you do me the honor?’ Sherlock asks his hand is extended. His collar is pulled up; his night robe is too long; his slippers are cat-shaped. It’s so ridiculous.
John can’t stop laughing; but they are young and impetuous so he answers, ‘Certainly. ’
They slow dance like champions. They twirl each other around; John drops Sherlock when trying to dip him. They dance because there is nothing else to do. They dance because it is wonderful. They learn that night that skanking and waltzing is the best medicine for a couple of lunatics like them.
---
Sherlock plucks his violin as John fills a jar with earth worms. The English rain is cold through their rain coats. Green saplings carpet the ground. Birds accompany Sherlock’s melody.
‘Will this do?’ John asks, crouched on the ground. He is not allowed a spade so he holds a few worms in his muddy hand.
‘Hmm,’ Sherlock hums.
‘Sherlock, are you listening?’ John laughs.
‘Mhm, let me play you a song.’ Sherlock offers. John shakes his head as he fills the jar and screws the lid on.
‘You can play me a song as we walk back.’ He stands up. ‘Do any of you have a napkin?’ John asks the two nurses who are chaperoning them. No sectioned patient is allowed to be outside alone, so the boys have to deal with the audience. This is however a good opportunity. The excursion is a chance for the nurses to monitor their progress and it might mean their section could be taken off.
‘I have a tissue actually,’ a nurse says. He takes a few crumpled tissues out of his pocket and offers them to John. The boy takes them and wipes his hands and then the jar.
‘Come on John,’ Sherlock whines, already walking back. John trots to catch up.
‘I just dug in freezing cold mud to get these for you,’ John says.
‘Thank you?’ Sherlock asks. The words are atrophied with lack of use.
‘Good, I trained you well.’
‘Manners are pointless, I’d rather thank you with a song,’ and so he does.
---
Sherlock head bangs to music as he looks through his microscope. They are in room 21B.
‘Ouch.’
It was the third time he hit the microscope with his head since the album began. John laughs every time. Dancing to music while looking at slides? Only with Sherlock Holmes.
John is on the other side of the desk, ‘practicing’ his surgical skills on a worm. He has an open anatomy book to his left, a stolen scalpel in his hand. He takes each of the hearts out carefully and places them on a slide for Sherlock to study. He has not let Sherlock read any of the poems in his journal, but he hopes Sherlock can read this one. It might be in a language he understands.
‘Here is the next one.’ John hands the slide and Sherlock takes it without looking up from his microscope. When John goes back to his work he notices a letter amongst the magazines and books sprawled over the desk. It has the Eton crest on it. Sherlock notices the direction of John’s gaze.
‘I got accepted; for when I recover that is.’
‘Jesus, Sherlock! You should have told me. I can’t believe we will be in the same school!’
‘Yes, I’m rather happy at the idea.’
‘You should have told me.’
‘I know, I don’t know why I did not.’
‘Seriously.’
‘We should really set up a meeting to challenge our sections.’
‘I could not agree more.’
‘Good. Yes, excellent,’ Sherlock says.
‘I don’t mind the mess anymore you know,’ John adds, gesturing with his hands at the room.
‘Well, I’m sure you haven’t noticed but I have tried learning to tidy up. In case we might be roommates at Eton,’ Sherlock says shyly.
‘Don’t bother, I think I like the mess.’ John’s smile is broad.
---
‘I haven’t cut in months, I’m doing well in group activities, I’m happy! I know I’m safe to go back home,’ John says. He is at the head of a long desk. To his sides are all his therapists, doctors, nurses. All of them are here to decide if he can go home.
‘You are being kept here for psychotic depression, is that correct?’ A nurse asks as she types a transcript.
‘Yes,’ John replies.
‘Could you read these two clippings for us?’ A doctor hands him the pieces of paper. He reads the headline.
‘Eight year old finds clue in a pool incident.’ John looks up. ‘Why is this relevant?’ he asks cheerfully.
‘Read the description,’ the doctor suggests. John looks down, reads that the eight year old boy was… Sherlock? He reads the date; the article is already six years old.
‘I know Sherlock is keen on detective work, I’m surprised he started that early, but what does this have to do with me?’ John asks, lightly.
‘Read the next clipping fully.’
‘Ok, Sherlock wins National Youth Science Competition. This was… a month ago.’ John doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t dare make connections.
‘Do you know where this is going John?’ The doctor asks. It seems obvious to the staff, like John should know by now. John just can’t.
‘I did not know Sherlock had left the hospital. –And won a contest at that!’ John replies.
‘John, the staff is very sorry to have let you down this way. We have misdiagnosed you. You had misleading symptoms, such as your compulsion for order, and there were things we failed to notice. But you do not have psychotic depression, you have Szitsofreinia,’ the doctor explains.
‘Ok, why does that matter?’ John asks.
‘Because you have not been receiving the attention and medication you need,’ a nurse replies.
‘Why are we talking about Sherlock, what does he have to do with this?’ John asks.
All of the staff looks at each other. Waiting, for someone else to try explaining the thing that cannot be understood. ‘Sherlock Holmes is a real person; you must have read about him, met him at some point. However, your friend is not. No one by that name is a patient here. The staff has monitored you as you spent countless hours talking to the air, to your hallucinations. We are very concerned, and even more so now that you are asking to be taken off your section.’ The staff waits for John’s reaction. They wait, and wait, and then he laughs.
‘Nope. This is a joke. I’ve even seen his brother! Sherlock is a real person. The newspaper proves it!’ John says. He seems convinced.
‘Ok, John, we are going to show you something that may really bother you,’ A nurses says. She gives her computer a few clicks and turns it around. It’s a video of the ward dance. John is smiling, radiant, and happy. He is dancing with the air and laughing with no one. He is entirely alone with no inkling of it. It is very sad. ‘Should I show you more?’ the nurse asks.
‘Yea,’ John replies. He doesn’t believe it, his heart knows what they are saying is true but he doesn’t believe it.
The nurse brings up a folder of photographs on her laptop. In all of them, John is animatedly interacting with no one. Eating with no one, throwing slippers at no one, drawing with no one. This should be convincing but John just still can’t make it there.
‘I want to see the video again.’ He says. He feels his shell breaking. Watching the video, of that moment, such a great moment, being spent with no one; it is breaking him. ‘No,’ he breathes. ‘Ok, I still want to go home,’ John declares after a moment. He blinks rapidly and plays with his fingers. The dry air from the heater makes his eye’s itch.
‘John, did you not understand what we said?’ A doctor asks.
‘I did, but I don’t want anything to change. I’m not a danger to myself; I want to go home.’ John replies.
‘That is not possible, we have to adjust your medication until your hallucinations are under control,’ the doctor explains.
‘No, no, I don’t… NO!’ John yells, as he slams his fist on the table. The laptops and coffee’s all shake. He rips up the newspapers, gets out of his chair and impotently throws it against the wall. There isn’t anything else to break so he just screams, and screams, and screams. The video still plays on the laptop.
---
Four male nurses walk John into the ‘acute section.’ He will spend however many days the staff sees fit in a corridor with two rooms. One with a 24 hour nurse, another, for himself. He fleetingly worries that he won’t be able to see Sherlock, but the worry is laughably pointless. So he laughs. He laughs the whole way there to not cry.
They ask him if he wants a book, or anything before they lock him in. He says ‘no’ to everything. They leave him in the room, sitting on a bare mattress. There, John waits for Sherlock the entire night. He doesn’t move, or let himself sob. He lays himself down and waits like one waits for a plane, or a doctor: uncomfortable and anxious.
When he wakes, for a few seconds he thinks everything is as it was, until he remembers. It’s like inhaling poison instead of air. He looks around expectantly for Sherlock. Aren’t I supposed to be mad? Where is my make-shift friend? He gets up and walks out of his room to knock on the nurse’s door. Stops himself when he looks through the corridor’s glass door; Sherlock is on the other side, looking at him. John, his eyes full of something close to hope; presses near to the window.
‘Sherlock?’
Sherlock mimes that he can’t hear him. John sighs, disappointed.
‘I can’t even dream you up right, ‘John says to himself.
He can read Sherlock mouthing ‘what?’ John shrugs and presses his face to the window; closes his eyes. He is so disappointed. He wishes he could reach his friend. He wishes he could know that what the doctor’s say is true. His entire soul is so heavy; he can’t move, or break. He just aches.
He feels knocking on the glass; opens his eyes. Sherlock writes with a bar of orange lipstick, carefully and backwards, ‘I don’t want to keep disappointing you.’ The words take John to the edge. Sherlock is already past that edge; crying. John wants to get there too but something stops him. That part that still doesn’t believe any of it. It’s pitiful because Sherlock isn’t real yet he has a firmer grip on their reality.
John just stares at his friend, hands pressed to the glass, until the nurse comes and takes him to breakfast.
---
Mrs. Watson calls that morning. John picks up the phone but doesn’t say anything. She eventually hangs up on her son, thinking the line is dead.
---
The next night John is in-between sleep and reality, his repose is pleasantly warm. He feels fingers, gentle on his waist; some more, warm against his palm. Something like wind presses to his cheek.
‘Wake up,’ Sherlock says softly. The room is thickly blanketed in darkness.
‘Sherlock?’ John asks surprised, he smiles for a moment.
‘Yes.’ John feels fingers move through his hair, eyelashes fan against his temple, hears the light click of Sherlock’s wrist watch.
‘Is it true?’ John asks. Please say no.
‘Yes. I’m sorry John, but yes,’ Sherlock replies. John’s breathing pauses, he reaches out into the dark, bumps into body parts he can’t identify, and holds on.
‘I don’t believe it. We spent hours together, you have a family.’ John begs, his voice breaking at the end.
‘Stop this. Your circumstances are real and this is happening. So don’t dare do what you are trying to do to me. It isn’t fair to anyone,’ Sherlock pleads. His hold tightens and then relaxes. ‘How much time do we have left?’
‘Left?’ John asks weekly.
‘Until the anti-psychotic medication gets rid of me,’ Sherlock explains.
‘Jesus, don’t put it that way. I don’t know. I would never take it,’ John replies.
‘If you do?’ Sherlock asks.
‘Then it would work right away,’ John says.
‘You will let me know when you do decide to take them.’ Sherlock asks, trying, and failing to control the note of desperation.
‘Yes, of course,’ John promises. They stay still in the dark, just breathing and touching. ‘I’m sorry Sherlock.’
‘What for?’
‘I regret not holding you the time you cried in class.’
‘Don’t, what a trifle. I hardly remember that,’ Sherlock says gently. His tears are so warm and wet eyelashes blink over John’s chest. John holds his friend because he wants to. He holds him because he will not regret this night. This, right now, it is hallowed.
---
He writes it in his journal, he embosses it on the wall, he sears it into his heart and watches it burn.
He isn’t real. He isn’t real. He isn’t real. He isn’t real.
It’s turned into a lullaby. It changed into a prayer. It has lost all its meaning and John doesn’t know what to make of the words. It’s like the Kafka story he read; something about a machine. It writes letters on a body with blades, through the repetition the body understands what the words mean. Then the body dies.
John’s soul understands and it is weighted by the meaning.
---
He tears everything he owns apart, and he would rip the constellations if he could only reach. The fucking sock index, his color gradated closet. He throws the clothing off the hangers, shuffles them about on the floor to boot. He smashes his CD collection into bits. Un-alphabetizes his book collection. Pours coffee on it all and lets the mug fall. He breaks everything and then builds a monument for what he used to know.
---
‘Take it; it’s going to help you.’ A nurse holds out a paper cup with a blue pill. An untouched glass of water sits in front of John.
‘No,’ John says. He covers his mouth with his hands.
‘Come on.’ The nurse moves the cup closer to the boy’s face.
‘No, I won’t do it.’ He turns his covered face away, starts tapping at the floor with his feet.
‘Please John.’
‘Mhm, no.’
‘We are going to make you take it eventually. Do you want that?’ The nurse asks.
‘No,’ John whines.
They spend twenty minutes like that. They do this every day after dinner. After half an hour, the nurse always let’s John go. So he still has ten minutes of this left.
‘Please, take it,’ the nurse begs. Everyone in the dining hall is looking at them. They all look as bored and irritated as the nurse; this game has been playing out for over a week.
‘No,’ John whines again. He knows he sounds pathetic, but this all is wearing him out and his dignity is far gone. At this point, he aggressively does not give a damn. They don’t understand him, no one does but himself. They don’t give a shit that he will be alone.
‘Come one John, enough of this, take your medicine,’ the nurse commands.
‘No.’ He petulantly taps his feet on the floor until the nurse dismisses him.
---
The days continue to go by like this. Everyone tries to make little of what is happening to him. The littleness of it all makes John struggle, because this is so very significant.
---
‘I took it.’
John walks into his own room. Sherlock is there waiting for him, He does every night.
‘How long ago?’ Sherlock asks, getting up from the bed.
‘Just now, only a minute ago.’
‘You said you would warn me before you took it. You promised,’ Sherlock says. His voice is fast and an octave too high.
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t know I would take it until I did know,’ John explains.
‘God, what have you done, John?’ Sherlock asks. He looks distressed, starts pulling at his hair; hyperventilating. ‘You have to throw it up, swallow baking soda. Something!’ In his hand is a fresh clump of his own inky hair.
‘No Sherlock, ‘John says. He lays a hand on his friend’s arm.
‘I have to take you to the doctor, get it out of you,’ Sherlock says with urgency; his eyes look wild.
‘Don’t make me doubt now that it’s done.’ They are both on the edge; hysterical. But it’s all too late. John doubts, and it makes the bile turn his insides out.
‘If you doubt then stop it,’ Sherlock screams. He looks like a man losing everything. ‘I can’t take how premature this is,’ he explains.
‘Sit down,’ John says gently. He pressed his forehead onto Sherlock’s.
‘No, throw it up. I’ll be ready tomorrow,’ Sherlock pleads.
‘Sherlock, sit, please breath. You can spend our time trying to get me to take it back, and failing, or you can say good bye to me,’ John begs.
‘No,’ Sherlock breathes. He pulls away from John and moves to the bed. He goes into himself. Curls up into a ball and covers his face. John moves to him, struggles to uncurl him. Sherlock eventually allows himself to be held. So John holds and shushes him. He looks down at his friend and his entire body aches and cries I love him. He loves Sherlock and it makes him doubt everything.
‘Sherlock, talk to me, it’s just us.’ It’s just me.
‘What are we not saying?’ Sherlock asks.
Everything. John lowers Sherlock and himself down and kisses him. He pushes out of his mind what is real and what isn’t, because this moment is happening and what they are sharing is real. ‘I don’t want to be alone.’ The words slip out. Sherlock cups John’s face and kisses back shyly. They fall into each other and the comfort is a gift.
‘I want to do this for you. Give my life for you,’ Sherlock says after what seems like hours.
Now, John really regrets.
‘There is nothing sad about this really, no one is dying.’
‘This isn’t right. You were the special one; you were the one that could change the world,’ John says in between kisses.
‘That’s not true,’ Sherlock pauses. ‘You know it is past the point of saying, and what could it mean for me to say anything? So let’s leave it at this.’ Sherlock’s lips are smooth and warm and they are everything. In them John understands. ‘Would you keep your eyes open, and let me know that you still see me? Until you don’t?’
‘Of course.’
They lay on the bed until they are just he. Sherlock doesn’t disappear or vanish, he just runs out until there is no more. Like a pen runs out of ink or a lamp runs out of oil. Only then does John stop chiming ‘I see you.’
---
He shouldn’t but John spends the next day searching.
---
John never sees Sherlock again. He spends his days lulling himself to his favorite poem, repeating the end:
“But this, in which there is no I or you,
So intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand,
So intimate that when I fall asleep it is your eyes
that close."