Seeking Asylum.

It was all in the way they looked at me. From behind bars, as if those bars could keep them safe. Or keep me safe. as though padded walls and white - brilliant, blazing, god damned white - could prevent my mind from visiting corners in the shadows.

Shadows are everywhere. Everwhere, neverwhere we expect -

They came and stood, twittering like mad birds outside until their voices blended into the surrounding air. Until they were not there.

The hallways were bare, and all the bars were gone. Unless I tried to reach through. Then the bars came back, clamped down, like the angry jaws of some forgotten man eating-beast.

Sirens sounded, then, and men in white - so much fucking white! - came. They held me against the white walls. Shined white light in my eyes. Took notes on white paper clipped to a white clipboard with a white pen and they stake of paleness and death. Mental decay.

"Easy there," one man in white said to me. "Easy," as he took his hands off my throat and the padded floor stopped holding me when the man kneeling on my back got off. And the floor gave me my breath again.

(("You keep that one here much longer," he said, "and things'll go rough."

"What d'you mean?"

"See that?" He pointed. "People like that aren't meant for places like this. Suffocating in open air. Y'hear the raving at nights. Always the same - 'White, white - goddamn white!' I'm telling ya...it'd kill to keep 'em here. ))

I heard voices but they were far off, and the walls had eyes, so the voices were no longer important. Only the eyes - red and blue. Rage and violence.

(("This place isn't natural for someone like that," he said.

"So what? Set them free on the streets? Are you crazy?"

He shook his head. "No. But they're not either."))