Your thoughts feel like the static television mounted to the white-washed wall in your father's room. It sounds like worn-out sandpaper is scraping against each other inside of your mind. Your dad can see the pain in your hollowed-out eyes, so he spends his time trying to distract you. He blames himself, no matter how often you tell him it’s not his fault.

He sets his coffee down on the side table and moves next to you on the burgundy chair. He sheepishly asks, “I wrote my first script today for work, do you want to see it?” He always shows you his work, and you always have to pretend you like it. You just hope this time would be different and maybe he will keep his job for longer than a month.

You spend some time thinking of how to respond; it’s hard for you to put your feelings into words. He knows that. He knows you better than anyone. Yet, he will still try to force joy upon you by telling you to “just lighten up.”

      He’s always sure to remind you that “It’s all in your head anyway.”

A few seconds pass by and you try your best to sound enthusiastic and reply, “Yeah Dad...yo-u don’t even have to ask.” You regret saying yes before you even said it. He picks up the wrinkled papers off his bed and organizes them. There are five pages–which seems awfully short for a script–but you try not to judge until you finish reading it. He passes it to you with a slight smile, like the smile a parent would give to their preschooler after they finished their coloring inside the lines. 

The top of the page had a layout for the script:

Setting: England, 1983

Characters: a 23 year old man and a 20 year old woman 

Theme: They fall in love-only to discover love isn’t real.

Before continuing, you set the paper down and roll your eyes. It’s about him and Mom, like every other story he’s written. You haven’t really felt upset about anything in a long time, yet for some reason this time you can’t pretend that it doesn’t hurt. Before he can say anything, you get up, walk out of the room, and shut the door behind you. He doesn’t come after you this time. I guess he’s finally accepted that you’re an adult. 

Your room is just a few feet across the hall, which just doesn’t feel far enough. The apartment is more cramped than the dense Los Angeles traffic. You check the time–it’s 5:46 pm. The California sun is beginning to set as it strikes your face like dripping paint. Your stomach grumbles and you realize it’s probably best that you get out of the house today, since you've spent most of your day watching TV.

You don’t have class on Mondays. You always tell yourself you’re going to study, but you often end up doing nothing until Dad gets home. You pick up the keys next to the door and yell to Dad's room asking if he wants something from In-N-Out. He doesn’t answer. He must’ve gone to take a shower while giving you some time to “calm down.”

You walk out of the door and through the hallway to the creaky old elevator. You’re always worried it’ll break since it screeches every time the door opens. You get to the lobby and wonder why you brought the car keys, considering you never even got your license. You realized you might as well walk there since it’s only 10 minutes away. 

After ordering your small fries and double cheeseburger, you take your time walking home. You want to spend as much time outside as possible because you rarely get to take in your surroundings without your thoughts drifting. You enjoy watching people, it’s always fascinating to see how others act, from a ragged man holding a sign asking for money, to a valley girl complaining about her most recent manicure. You wish you could be one of them. You wish you either had a reason for your pain, or the ability to think on the surface.

The clouds are starting to fade and the sun sets as you’re approaching the apartment. You decide to walk up the stairs, the sound of the elevator has just gotten old. You open the door to the apartment and lightly say, “Hey Dad, I’m back...sorry about earlier. I stopped to grab you some fri-,” you stop yourself. Where is he? Around this time he’s normally working on his script on the couch. You knock on the door, and he still has yet to come out. Is the shower is no longer running? 

You start to feel a little numb, your heart beats faster than usual, and you wonder what’s made you so uneasy. You decide to just open the door, and say “So, Dad, what are you…”

You walk over to the bathroom, and as you push open the door, something is blocking you from opening it. You look down at your feet, and see another pair of feet next to yours. It’s Dad. He’s unconscious. Laying on the floor. You-you can’t even find the ability to speak-call someone-or do anything. You sit next to him, attempting to wipe the tears from your face. You can’t process what is beneath you - on the floor next to his body is a scattered pill bottle. You reach down and check his heartbeat, he wasn’t breathing. It was all your fault...you set him over the edge.

The sound of the phone ringing interrupts the tears blocking your vision. You stare at it for a while and decide to pick it up. It’s Mom. This is her first time calling in nearly a month. As you struggle to answer it, she calmly says, “Hi honey, I’m not sure if this is a good time but..”

You shakily interrupt her, “Mom I swear it’s not my fault–I don’t know what to–dads not breathing–“

After a long pause, Mom tries to gather her words and calmly states, “I’m not sure I know what you mean.” 

How do you explain what happened? Do you even know what happened? Do you call the police? You just start crying uncontrollably. No words can escape from (what it feels like) your duct-taped shut mouth. 

Mom finally asks, “Have you taken your medication today?” You knew this is the first thing she would ask. She always blames everything on your depression; she doesn’t take you seriously anymore.

You can’t take it, “No Mom, Dad's dead. He’s dead and...”

She quickly interrupts you, “I need you to calm down honey, please take a deep breath. Dad has been dead for four years. Nothing is your fault. We’ve gone over this multiple times, I really was hoping therapy would help you understand this. Do you need me to call a nurse or fly over there? I’m really worried about you and I know I haven’t visited in a while...” She keeps going on, yet you can’t hear anything over the ringing noise in your head. You hang up the phone (without saying goodbye to her) and sit down on the burgundy chair.

Your dizziness hightens and you feel like you’re sitting on a merry-go-round, the white-washed walls begin to look fuzzy. As your mind is going in and out of reality, you feel like you’re losing consciousness. You hear a loud, yet muffled voice, whispering in your ears, “Are you okay?”

That’s the last of what you can remember.

You slowly force open your eyes and feel your head pounding with grief. A woman with soft green eyes, similar to mom’s, stands close to you and calmly asks, “Are you able to tell me where you are?”

You try to gather the words from your dried out throat and confidently whisper, “8343 Amigo Ave Apartments.” The woman looks at you rather frustrated, yet maintains her calm mannerisms. It’s odd because you can rarely understand how people feel, yet right now it feels so easy. She continues to ask you questions, most you don’t even have the answer to. 

With her sorrowful looks, she explains “You’ve been in a mental hospital for three years. You have been diagnosed with anterograde amnesia and schizophrenia. This means you are not able to form new memories and have been living in your own version of the same traumatic memories for three months now. We have kept you in solitary until we are able to find you the ”correct” medication and get you in a routine of taking it every day.” 

Not much of what she is saying is processing, each of her words are delayed like she’s talking in nearly slow motion. You have so many questions, yet you doubt she even has the answers to half of what you’re pondering. 

The only words that are able to stumble out of your mouth are..”So..so my dads - aliv-e?”

She looks to the ground with misery and takes a deep breath. She explains that he is not alive, and as she goes into detail your mind drifts. Your mind runs faster than you’re able too comprehend, and you have finally lost the motivation to continue chasing it. Fast paced images of your Dad laying on the floor continue to appear in your mind, the smell of the musty apartment and the blood dripping off your fingers...the blood...dripping...off your fingers–

You begin to question, if you would prefer a clear slate, an effortless sanity...or if you would prefer the truth. You know the truth, yet facing it feels unbearable. Everytime your mind remembers the images of you and your Dad, it feels like a sharp knife is scraping against your skin. 

The pills on the floor were not there, and neither was the hamburger from In-N-Out. It was you with a gun, and Dad crying for his life. You never meant to hurt him–you’re sure he knows that. You want to feel sad, but it’s difficult for you to know what sadness even consists of. You’ve lost all understanding of time and struggle to remember when or how you were sent here. You hear muffled words from the woman with the green eyes, “tried for murder, yet plead insanity.” You are completely speechless. 

“You must take two of these pills each morning,” she says while holding the white-labeled pill bottle. “Your therapist and I will check in with you twice a day to make sure you’re taking your meds and go over your daily activities.”

Stumbling to find words, you ask her how medication is going to “fix” you when you feel past the stage of broken.

She responds, “If you continue to take the medication, you will begin to feel emotions and work through your pain which could result in your release from the hospital in years to come. Unfortunately, there’s not much I can promise you, we can only try to figure it out with time.” 

You spend the rest of the afternoon pondering who you want to be, and who you even are. Dad was right, it’s all in your head. The medication will become your truth, but not the truth you have lived in for the past few years. It may be easier to just pretend to take the pills. Throw them away, so you can just forget. 

It’s a choice you have to make, but not a choice you’re ready to make right now.