#glospin

“Glospin?”

“Theta. How nice of you to join us.”

“Why’re the lights off, what’re you—”

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you, cousin dear.”

“Glospin, what—oh.”

“Back away, Theta.”

“Glospin, what did you—”

“Ow!”

“Glospin!”

“You’ve stabbed me! You stabbed me!”

“What the hell are you doing? Get up, he—shit.”

“Help! Somebody, help!”

“Stop it!”

“What’s going on?”

“Oh, my god.”

“She stabbed me! She killed him, and she stabbed—”

“I didn’t do this, I just found—”

“Fuck, I can’t feel my fingers—oh, god, I’m faint—”

“Shut up!”

“Get her away from me!”

“Quences, he—”

“It was him—”

“I can’t—”

“I didn’t do this!”

“Stop it!”

“Get her off—fuck!”

“What the hell’ve you done?!”

*

“Hello, Theta.” She glances up at the new man.

“Hello. I like your waistcoat.”

The doctor smooths the wrinkles in it as he sits, placing his notebook on his knee. “Thank you.”

“They won’t let me have a waistcoat,” she says. Her chin is in her hand, elbow propped up on the armrest. It’s an expensive chair—it feels like one, at any rate—and she’s half-afraid her arm will sink into the leather. “Or a suit, for that matter. I’ve asked for one, asked them to bring me one from home, but they keep saying no. Why do you suppose that is?”

“When you say they, are you referring to your family?”

“Lovely weather, isn’t it?” she says, cocking her head in her hand. It’s pouring buckets, and the window panes rattle with every fat droplet.

“I suppose it is,” says the doctor, “if you like the downpour.”

“Rain’s nice,” she says. “Rain’s brilliant.”

He chuckles. “No shortage of that in Cardiff.”

“Love a good rainstorm,” she says. “And there’s always the best puddles afterwards. Mud, too. Love mud. Bad rep.” She frowns. “Too bad.” She glances at him out of the corner of her eye. There’s something written at the top of the page, but she can’t make out what it is. Shorter than a note, longer than the date. “Are you going to tell me that that’s a metaphor?”

“Do you see it as a metaphor?”

She shrugs. “Don’t know. Sounds like something you’re supposed to say.” She drops her arm and rolls her head back, staring up at the ceiling. “Why’s it always got to be a metaphor? Can’t anything just be what it is? Though,” she says, tilting her head from side-to-side, letting it roll across the back of the might-be-be-expensive chair, “I guess things wouldn’t be as interesting, then.” She glances up. The doctor is looking at her, a look of amusement writ across his face. “Sorry, were you talking? Carry on.”

“I didn’t say anything,” he says, still smiling. It’s a bit condescending, that smile, like he’s talking to a child. She wants to smack him.

“You’re supposed to. Maybe. I don’t do this often.”

“These sessions are for us to speak to each other, and for you to help me understand.”

“Understand.”

“You. Your issues.”

“Ah, of course.” She grins. She’s sure it doesn’t reach her eyes. “My issues.”

“You don’t think you have any?”

“Oh, no, I have plenty.”

“Which are?”

“I’m delusional, I suppose,” she says. “Mad? I’m afraid I don’t know the terms. I mauled my cousin, and I’ve been told by various—” she picks at a loose string on the pocket of her jeans, “—irrefutable sources that I stabbed him and killed my great-uncle, too.”

“You don’t believe it.”

“Oh, no.” She smiles pleasantly. “I’m a pacifist, you see.”

“Oh?”

Theta makes a face and leans over the armrest. “Nice courtyard,” she says, peering out the window. “Bit bland, but nice. Cobblestone, very daring, especially in this economy. Are we allowed outside? I think some fresh air would be nice, don’t you? Very good for—” she mimes a deep breath, then twirls her finger beside her head. “You know, clearing the head?” The doctor opens his mouth and she cranes her neck a bit further. “Lovely flowers,” she says. “What are those, daisies? Chrysanthemums? Dianthus caryophyllus?”

“. . . Dandelions.”

All in all, it’s a fantastic waste of time.

*

The thing about time, see, is that it passes. Obviously.

It’s not something she normally has the time (ha) to dwell on. Better things, yeah?

The thing about being shoved into a box is that she fancies she can feel each and every individual second scraping by. It’s grating, the boredom, and she thinks that, if she hadn’t been mad before, she certainly is now.

She’s finished all the books by the second week. She’s exhausted all scenarios of revenge by the third. She’s had two lamps, a chair, and her curtains confiscated by the fourth, and cutlery privileges revoked three days later.

She bursts into hysterical giggles when they come back and search her bedframe and even the pack of cards she hasn’t touched, and gets sedated for her effort.

It’s the first time she’s laughed since Christmas.

*

“Still no Black Sabbath?” asks Manny-with-the-hair.

“Nope.” She grins up at him, strumming a G.

He shakes his head, and his hair flops around his shoulders. It’s a fascinating thing to see from upside-down. “Shameful,” he tuts. “What’s this, then?”

She plucks a D. “Brahms.”

He watches her swallow her medication, and she waves him off with a grin. She spits out the pill the second the door shuts, wrinkling her nose as she wipes her tongue on the back of her sleeve.

She unwinds the axe that night, and cuts through the paint on her window with the tip of the D string. She picks the lock with E and B, and swings to the ground with the help of her bedclothes and G. She leaves the body on her bed with a smiley face drawn in black marker below the bridge.

She doesn’t get far. But that’s not the point.

*

“You’ve escaped twice this past month, Theta.”

“I’ve been caught twice,” she corrects. “On an unrelated note, I’m playing at a pub in Riverside next Thursday, so don’t be too disappointed when I don’t show up for our appointment.”

He gives her an admonishing look. “Theta.”

“You’re right, you’re right,” she sighs. “I lied. It’s on Tuesday. Hey, you should stop by!”

“You haven’t been speaking with any other patients.”

“You’re not going to tell me that I’m antisocial, are you?”

“That’s exactly what I’m telling you, Theta.” He leans forward. “It’s not good, to isolate yourself.”

“It’s not good for me to be locked up,” she counters, “but you still do it anyway.”

He ignores her. “You’ve only got one person on your visitor’s list. Isn’t there anyone else you’d like to add?”

She shrugs. There’s a ragged part of the armrest where she’s been putting her elbow, and she picks at the cracking leather with her nail. “Not that I can think of.”

“The number of people you keep denying says otherwise.” She ignores him. She slides lower in her seat and glances out the window. It’s sunny, ridiculously so, and the light bounces off the window and back into her eyes, making her wince.

She rubs the edge of her jumper between her thumb and forefinger. The wool is worn and growing threadbare. “Don’t wanna see.”

He tilts his head. She sees him ready his pen. “They don’t want to see you? Or you don’t want to see them?”

“Bit socially awkward, me,” she says over him, twisting a loose curl of purple yarn around her finger. “Wouldn’t know what to say. Not much to talk about. I think I’d just—” She waves her hand. “Make a weird noise and drift off. No point in them making the trip for that.”

“That’s just an excuse, Theta, and I think you and I both know it.”

“Excuses are just reasons you don’t like.” She shrugs. “Anyways.”

“Yes?” She shrugs again. He switches tactics. “Tell me about your family.”

She raises an eyebrow. “I thought you were supposed to be subtle.”

“You don’t respond to subtlety,” he says frankly.

“Eh.”

“You don’t get on with them.”

“Gold star!” she proclaims. “That doctorate is well-earned, I see.”

“Your relationships are strained. How did that happen?” Silence. He tries again. “What sets you apart from them, Theta?”

She groans. “My grandfather made his fortune digging up rocks,” she says. “My brother made his carving them into octopi with boobs. My father wasted his on his woes and exotic cheese. Meanwhile, I live in a loony bin and have no money. Happy?”

“Not particularly.”

“Hm. Shame.”

*

She spreads the envelopes out in front of her like a puzzle. The edges and corners slot together, just, and she runs her fingers over the gaps in her mosaic of correspondence. The paper is rough, just enough to bump and drag against her skin, and she runs her fingertips along the scalloped edges of the stamps.

There’s quite a number of them—not as much as she’d thought, but still more than she’d expected. She sees a magazine she doesn’t remember taking out a subscription for, and a handful of letters addressed in a familiar cramped scrawl.

She relishes the dig of hard edges into her hand as she balls each one of them up and drops them in the bin.

*

“You can’t keep doing this, Theta.”

“I’m insane,” she says with a smile that was all teeth and no warmth. “I can do what I want.”

“You’re not, and you know it.”

Brax looks conspicuously out-of-place, washed-out and sickly, beneath the dingy fluorescent lighting. The maroon of his suit stands out like a sore thumb against the stained yellow of his seat.

Theta nudges a pawn forwards. “Really? I don’t know, everyone else seems pretty insistent on it.”

Brax barely spares the board a glance as he picks up his knight. He taps the base of the plastic piece against each square, and Theta scowls. “It’s this or prison, and—”

“Oh, I’m so sorry.” She scowls, slamming another pawn down. Brax glances down his nose at it, and shifts it closer to the centre of the square. “My sincerest apologies. How selfish of me to forget about your reputation when there’s a murderer walking free.”

He captures her queen and places it on his side of the rickety table, lining it up with her other fallen pieces. She glares at the board for a moment, then moves a piece at random. Brax lets out a long-suffering sigh that makes her want to punch him, and corrects its course. “This is a situation, Theta, and, as usual, you’ve done nothing to help alleviate it.”

“Far be it for your best speeches to be wasted in a hospital sitting room.” She sinks lower into her seat and stretches out her legs. Her scuffed trainers bump against the polished toes of his shoes and he shoots her a look promising nothing short of bloody vengeance before moving them out of the way.

“Petulance won’t help you.”

“Oh, no,” she says monotonously. “My great plan has been foiled.”

“They’ve told me that you’ve been escaping.”

“It’s not that hard, after the first few times,” she says. She kicks the seat of his chair. Thump thump thump. His eye twitches. “You should try it sometime. I’m sure you’d look lovely in a straightjacket.”

“Theta.” She throws her hands into the air.

“I’m going mad, Irving,” she spits, “madder than usual, and this is not my fault! Fuck’s sake, I didn’t kill him!”

“I’d stop shouting, if I were you,” he says drily. There’s a nurse glaring at her from the corner, and she makes sure she sees her stick her tongue out at her before turning back to her brother.

Brax shifts a bishop forwards. Theta stares at it, then reluctantly moves a pawn into the empty space. The sleeves of the stolen jumper are just a bit too long and loose, covering her hands, and the dangling ends knock a piece over. Brax straightens it. “How are the elections?” she asks. He ignores her, and captures the pawn. “Oh, am I not allowed to ask? Or are those over? It’s just so hard to keep track of things in here.”

“Theta.”

She cocks her head. “What about the funeral?” He glowers at her.

“Which one?”

She raises an eyebrow. “Pardon?”

He lets out a hiss of annoyance. “Haven’t you read a single letter?”

She lets out a long, drawn-out sigh. “It’s just so hard, you know?” she says. “To hear about things and know I won’t be able to take part?” She flutters her eyelashes. He looks nauseous. “Solitary confinement’s considered a form of torture, you know.”

“Glospin’s dead.”

She blinks slowly. Then again. When she opens her eyes for the third time, she’s still watching him. She leans forward and captures a rook. His eyes flick down to the board for a fraction of a second, then back again. “My condolences,” she says slowly.

“And mine.” He sounds almost bitter.

“Open casket?” she asks innocently.

She thinks he might have cracked his bishop. “Cremation,” he says with a glare.

“Conservative.” She nods. “Nice. Were there cocktails at the reception?”

He slams his knight into check and stands, straightening his suit. “Koschei Oakdown wants to be put on your visitor’s list,” he says shortly, doing up the buttons of his jacket. “I’ve denied it for you.”

She twists the corner of the jumper. “Thanks.”

“Lovely seeing you. Don’t get well soon. And read the letters, will you?” He slings his coat over his shoulder and then he’s gone, the door slowly swinging shut behind him. Not quite as dramatic as she thinks he was aiming for, but they’re not allowed to have slamming doors.

Her captured pieces are neatly lined up across from her like an army of ghosts, the remaining ones pinpricks across a board dominated by black. Her handful of hostages are scattered across the table, sad and pitiful in comparison.

She grabs her king and hurls it to the ground.