My Smile || 4 You

A man lay in bed, eyes open yet lost in a world beyond the room. His hand reached into the air, fingers gently swaying, like touching invisible threads. His lips moved with soft murmurs  words meant for no one, or perhaps, for someone only he could see.

Guards stood on alert behind the reinforced glass of the observation room. Every movement of the patients was monitored closely. The side effects of a powerful medication had sent several of them into temporary hallucinations. But this was expected. This room held patients with vastly different psychiatric conditions,  each with a dark past and a shared silence about a crime that united them.

Near the door was a man diagnosed with schizophrenia,  a severe mental disorder marked by distortions in thinking, perception, emotions, and behaviour. He often whispered to people who weren’t there and sometimes screamed at the ceiling, convinced it was watching him.

At the far end near the window sat a patient with dissociative identity disorder, previously known as multiple personality disorder. Speech patterns shifted unpredictably, and handwriting changed with each new “self” that emerged. That patient had once signed a legal statement in three different names all.

In the centre of the room was a patient with mood disorder, possibly bipolar disorder. One moment, was euphoric, speaking rapidly about hope and dreams; the next, collapsed into tears, curling into the self, overcome by despair.

They had committed a crime together, or so the law claimed. The evidence was unclear, their memories fractured. Some experts believed they were victims of psychological manipulation, pawns in a larger scheme. But in the eyes of the court, they were guilty.

Family and close friends were forbidden from visiting. Their identities were protected yet buried under the weight of legal judgment and public opinion.

A guard stepped closer to the glowing monitor, eyes narrowed.
 “Is the dosage correct?” he asked.

The other guard, seated before the monitor, replied calmly, “Yes. He’s just lifting his hand and mumbling. The serum’s doing its job.”

Behind the screen, the hallucinating man continued his gentle motion, as though reaching for something long-lost or never real to begin with.

The lights flickered briefly. Outside the thick glass, nothing but silence and the rhythmic pulse of the security system.