Stephanie Green


Sadie

Dear Diary

I don’t belong here
They brought me in today. My own parents committed me. Threw me in a looney bin.
I wanted to kick and scream and scratch and bite, but I didn’t. I’m not stupid. If I did that, well, how would that look? I can picture it: My so-called parents – elegant mother attempting to hide the bags under her eyes with the latest Nivea Visage cream, my office-worn father, looking resigned and haggard – dragging me up to the front desk, smiling knowingly at the orderly and announcing they were here to commit me. I would be clutching the doorframe so tightly that my fingers bleed, letting out animalian growls, kicking and screeching and clawing at that doorframe. Well, then, how would that have looked?
Well, it would have looked like I was voice-hearing-banjo-toting-pig-fucking-crazy, is how it would’ve looked. So I stood there, calmly, and pretended not to care. And they committed me.
There were all sorts of tests; medicals, a dentist who had a look at my teeth and took my caps away (luckily I snuck spares in my socks, but those things are fucken expensive!) questionnaires with tiny yes/no boxes which you have to fill out in crayon because they won’t give you a pencil in case you stab yourself. Psychiatrists, Psychologists, more people in white jackets with funny letters after their names. Finally, finally I got to go to my cell…oh, excuse my impertinence, my room. It’s white. I hate white. Gives me a headache. I’ll have to wear sunglasses all the time, even when I sleep.
After a disgusting dinner I met my overseeing Doctor: Malcolm Leitch. I don’t like him; he’s weird, just like everyone else in this place. His face is emaciated and he has this huge vein on the side of his neck. It throbs.
I’m so fucking hungry. I need to get out of here as fucken soon as possible and get home to Billy and feed.
     Sadie

Dear Jill

I miss you immeasurably. It’s been nearly a year since you’ve been away. I hope you are faring well, keeping safe, and saving some lives over there. Above all, I hope you will be home soon. The house is so empty without you. Felix misses you immensely, It’s been mighty cold of late, so I’ve had the fire on, and he’s been sleeping there nearly 24/7. I think he’s forgotten I exist.
A new patient was admitted today. A very pretty young thing: dark hair, dark eyes, fair complexion. Emo, I believe the kids call it nowadays. Black clothes, black nail polish, black lipstick. Her parents bought her in. Said they had become concerned with her behaviour over the last few months. Typical teenager stuff really – new school, new set of rebellious friends, loss of interest in hobbies and school, drugs, drinking, angry music. That in itself was not what concerned the parents. The mother stumbled upon the girl’s – Sadie’s - diary, and had discovered that Sadie had become involved in vampirism.
We’ve had some strange cases come through here, some real doozies, but not this, never this. I must admit, I am intrigued.
     Love
     Mal

Dear Diary

I hate this place so much.
Everyone keeps asking me stuff. Am I okey? What’s going on with me? Why am I so blah blah blah? Why do I blah blah blah? They’ve all read my file, obviously. They all know, but they don’t understand.
I’m not fucking crazy. I am the sanest person in this fucken place. I’m only 16, and already my grasp of the world is so much more advanced than theirs. The other patients…man, they’re screwed up. There are four other patients in my ward. There’s this girl – can’t be much past my age – she’s always singing Cindi Lauper songs under her breath, and she eats her hair. I mean, really chows down on it. Gross. And she smells funny, like socks and aftershave
Then there’s Alice. She had some kind of mid-life crisis and stabbed her husband. She seems okay, but I hear her at night crying and she yells and throws furniture at the Doctors, although they probably deserve it. She gets put in solitary a lot. She’s right across the hall from me, and in the room next to her is Murry. He’s schitzo, has multiple personalities. It’s the strangest thing. He looks like a busdriver.
There’s this boy, Alan, in the room next to me. He’s in for suicide or some shit. He’s a hypochondriac; I’ve never seen one for real before. He cleans everything, ALL the time. He looks about my age. He’s obviously heard some rumours about me, cuz every time he sees me he’s always giving me shit, chomping his teeth and talking like a Transylvanian transvestite “I vant to suck your vagina” and pulling my hair and pinching me and just being an ass. I hate him; he’s as bad as Bobby and Gavin at school
I don’t hate him as much as Dr. Leitch though. Fuck, he thinks he knows me oh-so well. All his ink blots and “tell me about your childhood” and “the teenage years are difficult hormonally and emotionally” and “you’re a perfectly rational human being. You must know vampires are mythical” shit. Fuck that, I laughed at him. Human being! Ha, he doesn’t half know! I gave up being human a LONG time ago!
And I ain’t going back
But my god, I’m starving. I shall have to resort to Renfieldesque tendencies. I’ve seen a few flies around…
     Sadie

Dearest Jill

I still miss you terribly. I wish I didn’t have to start every letter like this but, well, I wish you’d come home. The silence in the house and the ache in my heart are so terribly hard to bear.
Felix broke one of your Dalton plates yesterday. I was dusting them and he jumped up onto the hutch and knocked it off with his tail. It wasn’t the Othello one, thank goodness! It was the little plum bowl, with the picture of Juliet, that I bought you last Christmas. We always wanted to find a Romeo one to match it, remember? I guess we won’t have to worry now
Sadie is proving a very stubborn young lady. I’ve had two sessions with her so far. She talks openly about the vampirism, dismissively, as if talking about the weather. She talks condescendingly, as if I were a child. She demonstrates open animosity to anyone she encounters who is not a “vampire”, her parents, the nurses, the other patients in her ward, and me. She believes she isn’t in need of any medical attention, thinks everybody’s made a mistake in committing her, in treating her.
My early prognosis is bipolar, possibly some mild personality disorder, and a hearty dose of teenage hormones atop that. She’s not merely a blood fetishist; that much is obvious. I’ve prescribed some medication that I think might make her a bit more lucid, so after a few days she may open up in our sessions.
Love
     Mal

Dear Diary

Funny story! Lunch today, in the cafeteria with the other crazies. I wore my teeth, feel naked without them, and I was sitting with the crazies from my ward and they were all fucken on at me, and Alan was giving most of the shit, so I thought, well, fuck ‘em, so I smiled at him, and hissed a little, a’la Hannibal Lector. He was so freaked! Eyes all bulging and his hands went white. A vein stood out by his eye! They all got up and left me alone in an awful hurry! Fuck, it was funny!
     Sadie

Dear Jill

That Sadie! She half scared several patients in the dining hall today. She wore prosthetic fangs on her canines and was smiling at them all. Murry needed tranquilizers to calm him down again. Alan claimed she tried to bite him, insisted on being HIV tested, again. The medication doesn’t seem to be helping his hypochondria at all. Perhaps I should review his prescriptions.
I tried to confront her about it in session this afternoon, but she just laughed about it. She does have a sweet laugh; it reminds me of yours, actually. She accused me of being unable to take a joke, and informed me that her wardmates had “asked for it”, by picking on her, particularly Alan. I asked her if anyone else had bullied her, and she went very quiet, then began talking in gushing tones about Billy, her boyfriend who had “awakened” her – introduced her to vampirism.
I think some experience with bullying may haave influenced Sadie’s decision to become a “vampire”. Perhaps it is a way for her to feel powerful in a situation where she is so obviously powerless. I may be assuming too much, too soon. I need to keep trying
Love and kisses
     Mal

Dear Diary

My parents visited today. They sat on the hospital bed in my room and looked uncomfortable, as they always do when they try and talk to me and not actually say what they mean. I told them how horrible it was here, how I miss my CDs and my real bed and Billy and that I’m dying for a cigarette and how I’d rather be back in school with Gavin and all the freaks, I told them I’d rather that than this place. I told them I hated them for sending me there. I told them about Alan. Mother looked guilty. Father Dearest just looked stony; he’s good at hiding behind that face of his. I guess I learnt that much from him
I didn’t lie either, I do hate them.
I do miss my room. I miss Billy. I miss the taste of blood on my lips
     Sadie

Dear Jill

I had another talk to Sadie’s parents today. A very loving couple, genuinely concerned about their daughter. They mentioned that there had been some trouble at Sadie’s school. Two boys had been bullying her. They’d also physically assaulted her on a few occasions. Her parents had placed her into a different school, but the boys and some of their friends had found her there on lunch break, beaten her badly, and stolen her backpack.
The police had been involved in that incident, and had talked sternly to the boys and their parents, but Sadie had refused to press charges.
Her mother mentioned that the attacks seemed to cease soon after that incident, when Sadie began to hang out with the “emo” or “gothic” crowd. She said that Sadie’s demeanor began to change as well, evolving into the delightful child now residing in this institution.
Interesting, it’s all very interesting. I was correct is guessing that much of Sadie’s conduct was the result of bullying. We have another session tomorrow. Perhaps, in light of this new information, Sadie might reveal more to me. I admit, I now feel more sympathy for this child, difficult as she is
I miss you immensely and wish you would come soon. Please reply soon if you can, as it’s been too long since I last heard from you
Love
Mal (and Felix)

Dear Diary

Fuck! That Fucken Dr. Leitch! He’d been talking to my fucken parents, and they’d told him all about Gavin and Bobby. Fuck! Well, that was that, I figured, so I told him the real reason that they stopped bothering me. I told him how Billy and the rest of our coven had surrounded them after footy practice and showed them what we are and then Billy and Toby and Sean pinned Gavin down and I drank from his neck and how Bobby ran off crying and crashed into a power pole and cracked his skull and had to have surgery. I told him all of that, and I laughed, and he fucken stuck me in a high security ward!
Last time I tell the fucken truth to the fucken wanker.
Fucking high security ward. I should high-security fucken ward his ass. I saw him mailing off another of his letters today. You know what, I asked Alice and she tells me that they’re all addressed to his wife. And she’s dead. Died three years ago. She was a medic with the army. Killed in Timor. That’s what Alice told me. So the quack has been sending her a letter every day since, like she’s still alive. Freakazoid
Fucken high security ward
Sadie

Stephanie Green is an out-of-work archaeologist with a preachment for heavy metal music and doodling on the furniture. Her poems and short stories are so far unpublished but have entertained and confused her family and friends for years.

Stephanie resides in Auckland, New Zealand with a flat full of other out-of-work archaeologists and her fiancé, who has a real job.

 
 
 
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