Stripes

By Jason Keene

Today’s my birthday, a nurse informs me; she might be lying. Over seven years, this mental hospital has stolen two thousand hairs and made sanity, for me and my hopefully-real comrades, less likely than a birthday cake. A straightjacket cannot change its stripes, the scribblings of those who have been here much longer will tell me. Not in this place. Each night I find myself listening through padded walls to what’s-that-sounds, and why-am-I-so-sads, and a dozen nurses failing to hang summer on their many cheeks. I couldn’t either, and do you know something? I’ve had quite enough.

Dearest Director, I resign.