The real world happens in the yellow. Never like going back there no easy exit once you make the crossing. It starts with a glimpse of straylight on the hall. Brief wisps of light that have no origin. No source you can see and the light is metal gray and where there are gray wisps there are slips to the yellow. Turn a corner where there was no corner before and you’re standing in a long yellow hallway that feels like a tunnel. The air tastes of underground. Distant chemical smell the hairs prick along the back of my neck. The hall impossibly long no vanishing point. No exit signs no faraway stars glowing red. Click the squawk button on your radio hey nurse station this is Jack come back and the buzz of dead air. Don’t wander too far boy this pocket of yellow looks burned. No response not unusual. Pockets of dead space at the Fort are legion. Clouds of fucked up mojo ghost beef false idols swamp voodoo no signal. Shrug and pat yourself down for keys knife cigarettes flashlight. Never carry a phone on the unit anymore. Fuck this bad stretch of yellow I want a smoke.
Blink and I’m on the unit circling the nurse station. The females are just back from dinner. When do we smoke when do we turn the phones on. Twenty-seven psychotic and manic women cooped up and living on top of each other. Nineteen more sleeping pacing keening off screen in their rooms. New male patient comes out of nowhere running for daylight and the ladies go angry bird. The guy they were calling naked dude. Unknown patient no history. Felix O, hispanic male, 25. First psychotic break, selectively mute. Doesn’t respond to english or sorry backwoods southern fried Spanish yet. He has a gown whipping around him so not entirely naked but the ladies will peck out his eyes given half the chance. Drag him sideways fast and hope he doesn’t buck.
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Halfway down the male hall Felix stops complying. Immovable object meets force. Dead eyes. Evander and I are not real to him. Come on brother vamos. Low grunting snuffling noise. Be easy dude come on ser fresco. Most of the male patients are down in the dayroom but a dozen or so are gathering to spectate. Hoot and holler. Blood in the water. Evander and I miscommunicate and the simple goes to shit. Time speeds up and slows down. Dodge a head butt go sideways head first. Juliet says later she heard it all the way up at the station. I’m out for maybe a minute and lost in the yellow.Â
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The yellow hall is deserted in every direction. The bones of the building creak. The faraway groan of the hvac system straining to recycle the air. There are closed off and barren halls on every unit but none of them are so long so dark or so yellow but dismiss that as negative thinking. I choose left and start walking and Felix comes out of a doorway that wasn’t there a minute ago. Muttering la madre que te pario estupido stupido stupido. Hold my breath curious to see if he can see me. His eyes sweep dark unseeing past mine then back. Then stop. Hey que pas are you lost and he echoes me estas perdido.
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Eyeballs flash silver bright and legs twitch like a frog on a plate. Lights come back in black white strobe flick flick flick and I stagger outside don’t fucking touch me to smoke and shake it off but crash into a wall and black out again. Take unscheduled nap in one of the empty seclusion cells. The rubber mat stinks of bleach. Then it’s just me. The arms and legs flapping are mine. The tortured breathing mine. The convulsing body on the floor in the yellow is me and I slide rough out of an apparent seizure on a side hallway beyond the men’s day room. Stare at my watch until the hands and numbers mean something. Ten past two day or night unknown. I’m at the Fort.
This POV isn't Jack Fell, right?