“Loss of Function”

Deena Mae Sampson

1st Place Winner, Prose Category

You, my dear, are suffering from schizophrenia. That is to say, you have a psychotic disorder characterized by loss of contact with the environment, by noticeable deterioration in the level of functioning in everyday life, and by disintegration of personality expressed as disorder of feeling (as in hallucinations and delusions) and conduct- also known as dementia praecox. Denial is futile when detailing instances occupying the brain. No matter how you try to rectify this particular situation, the absolute certainty of its existence is irrefutable. Are you listening? No, this can not be written off as another one of your so-called voices. Pathetic attempts at puppy-dog faces and duck mouths will not change the judgment so meticulously laid upon your shoulders. Derangement is yours to endure. As a matter of fact, embrace it! Your diagnosis is complete. Now go live with romantic fervor and throw caution to the wind. You nut.

This is what your parents pay to give you in the course of biweekly encounters from someone whose services you overheard them referring to as "cheap." Frugal psychiatry? The certificates encased by splintered frames are no more than smeared copies! Is that white-out on the second line? You stake your life on the fact that this guy is a well trained con-artist specializing in the misfortune of small-framed girls with parents searching for answers as to why their child is just so different.

Among a slew of parentally sanctioned parasites is a red and yellow 57.5 mg capsule that you call Ezekial Winthorpe. He slides down your throat in a wave of milk, skilled in the trickery of eyelids fluttering shut for sleep. First you must complete a prayer to whom you are taught is your heavenly father, Mr. Jesus Christ. As if one oppressive father weren't enough. Your inquiries regarding this implausible fellow are met with a scornful glare and furrowed brow. You are forbidden to question in reference of anything, especially religion. Upon awakening from induced near coma, a blue and green 150 mg adventure waits patiently in the plastic compartment labeled MORNING. Gustavo the Pirate, most affectionately named, engages you in hours of deep, inner bliss. He shuts the rest of the universe out, and you up. This is the time you spend cast into translation. Naturally, Gustavo the Pirate is a favorite of your parents as well.

You are merely eight years old. Your chin length black hair in the form of what hairstylists refer to as "bob" hangs around your delicate face like all the emotions swallowing your stomach on a daily basis. This is not the age to be discussing your conception of reality with a contemptuous ego maniac. It is the time to spend watching your freckles. You gain fulfillment in playing connect the dots with these ghostly kisses spotting your pale naked skin. Until, of course, the game is interrupted by eruption of their uncharacteristic choreography. Tango? No. Less sharp, more fluid. Swing? No, that isn't it either. The bathroom is of much comfort, garnished with its loving mirror. Your reflection spends hours chronicling stories mother dare not invent. French monkeys with crumb covered moustaches from munching on toast or a magical pogo stick with the power of transportation to any roller coaster in the galaxy. You sit delicately on the cool linoleum laughing, swaying, singing...letting your imagination, um, psychosis overcome you with fluid grace. Your mind is a systematic painter of surreal landscapes. Precious solitude. This is your childhood.

                After years of reviewing the aforementioned, most scholarly (you add with a twisted smile of sarcasm) analysis, you come to the conclusion that you are, as everyone is, a product of society. If you are to be labeled insane, so is the whole of civilization. 'Tis an unbroken connection. To retain and chew on this knowledge is an integral function towards insuring the future of your honest, god fearing children to come.

                Your father wails from his grave, tossing and turning, at the mere thought of your poisonous womb bearing children. What rubbish, he declares to his rotting wife in the adjacent plot. She would reply...had her jaw not fallen off the last time an insult regarding the aptitude of their child was spout. Instead, she huffs clouded air through empty nasal cavities with a mocking snort. You ignore this mindless banter. These two are more lively in their current state of decay, six feet under, than ever made visible in waking life. You are an only child, the consequence brought= upon by their singular mingling of bodily fluid. You are also aptly considered the pollution of life which drive your parents to demise. How exactly you are the cause of a massive pulmonary attack in the left chamber of your father's withered heart, or the abundance of mercury in the well water where your mother bathes and drinks with clockwork frequency, is somewhat debatable.             

                You experience adolescence restlessly. Less medication through the adaptation of a life cloaked in disguise. Any original thought, any inkling of creativity is kept far from the scrutinizing eyes of family members. The library is your bearer of surrogate love. Expelling upon you vast amounts of illuminating thought. Her tangerine carpet cushions your feet while corridors of books wink as you stroll by, palpating their spines in search of your next great discovery. Music, art, history, astronomy, philosophy. Subsequent to such absorptions, a realization that mankind is littered with what you amusingly refer to as dippydoos, ingrains itself into logic. You begin the pursuit to compile concrete facts determining where the true nourishment of schizophrenic tendencies metabolizes. Your data is collected recklessly into a myriad of notebooks. Mother with tight lips and chilled hands, father whose Adam's apple bounces in his throat generating a voice of puny waves. The bus driver with enlarged pores...dilating as if preparing to turn his body inside-out. Sometimes they whistle tunes like "Dixie." The crow who surveys you from the willow tree with tilted head, your image shining in its vacant eye. Yourself.

                Friendships are commonplace. Effortless in establishment yet too vapid for sustenance. Disappointed by Lain's inability to think for herself or take initiative. Disgusted by Ethan's quest for what is concealed beneath your skirt. Crucified by Candace, a once amiable neighbor who utilizes the insight she obtains from attending dinners with your family. She preys on insecurities, belittles you with caustic vision. Your inner monologue suggests that you are surrounded by people who are inherently evil, and yes, they are out to get you. You prefer to associate with the assemblage of characters in your mind. They materialize less frequently, flourishing within the duration of sleep cycles. You trust these phantoms of mystic quality. The topic of sporadic haiku.

Calamity melts

Discreetly voiced evidence

Silence in compound

                You enter adulthood conscientiously, remaining docile and charming with childlike motivation. A constant referee in the struggle between creativity and deconstruction persistent with your thought pattern. In attendance of a modestly arranged art gallery you become engulfed by a painting you identify as the absolute depiction of your inner beings. The contradiction of shape, the loss of tangible form. Comfort in distress. You shake hands with the artist and do not let go.

                Committed to love and family but not the conformity of marriage. You rationalize this sentiment by ascertaining that religious and legal merits have no sanctity to you. Weddings are outdated rituals meant to define your status in societal affairs. Secretly you profess a numbing belief that the end is as inevitable as the beginning, and that marrying the man you so adore motivates drifting closer to that insufferable end. You sleep nestled gently atop his left side. His cheek sprouted with black hairs rests within the distance between the tip of your nose and the ascending slope into your forehead. Your lily faced children are amused by antics they do not comprehend. They blossom up adoring the way you constantly look behind your back, scanning the empty slab of cement. You have taught them to purposely step on every crack in the path ahead. It's about challenging that crack. If it swallows you into the oblivion of a dark, fiery abyss of hell, so be it. If not, you win! You have yet to lose a battle with the discontinuity of man's invention.     

Quite suddenly, you have aged decades in a matter of seconds. The mirror has never lied before and will not begin today. Your reflection does not shoot back witty comments, nor does it lull you to bed with fantastic stories of bandana clad pirates in the form of tiny medicinal purposes. The world is not a place to be examined microscopically, with ideologies awaiting pursuance. You find no joy in sketching bunnies, reading graphic novels, making impassioned love, or unapologetic remarks discrediting politics and patriotism. Your hair is the transparent color of grey death. Your listless freckles are no more than blotchy age spots settled wearily upon haggard, oversized skin. The relentless echoing of ill-fated predictions from your parents are faint whispers in sweeping memories of a life no longer possessed. You have so quickly lost your most idolized indiscretion. Your bizarre imagination has leapt off without the decency of even a good-bye kiss. You lived life so enraptured with the personification of youth, so desperately fearful of growing old, that it hits you with merciless force. You are doomed now to live without the probing of existence. You are doomed now to die.