Home For Lost Souls

Danvers State Hospital: Boston, MA October 31, 1954

Rose woke up to screaming. The woman in the bed next to her would not stop yelling for her husband Jim. Rose wished the woman—Betty was her name—would stop. She just wanted to get sleep before the nurses would come and start their rounds. One last minute of sleep would have made today bearable, Rose thought to herself. She squirmed in her bed, legs and arms attached to the bed with leather straps that bit into her skin as the night went on. Rose heard the door knob open with a click and the tapping of heeled shoes on the concrete flooring.

“Hey there Rosie,” said Nurse Judith, “Do you know what day it is, sweetie?” Rose had been here for so long she couldn’t remember what month it was, let alone what day of the week or even the date for that matter. “It’s Halloween! Maybe the other nurses will let all of you have a little movie showing tonight. You know they can’t do anything big for the holiday, might stir up too much trouble in here. That would be a lot more fun than staying in the common rooms and sulking all day, now wouldn’t it,” she said in a voice that sounded falsely sweet to Rose. Judith had never liked her patients; Rose had seen it with her own eyes. The way she would scold and even beat some of them made Rose want to strangle her. But, that would just prove to everyone that she belonged in the asylum—not fit for the outside world.

Nurse Judith undid the straps and Rose stretched out the tightness in her joints. Getting up was one of the hardest parts of the day. Being strapped down for over nine hours made it hard to get readjusted to being upright and moving freely, but that was what you got for being one of the more “excited” patients. They didn’t trust her or the other women in her ward. They were all in there for a reason, most of them because of a violent outbreak at their homes.

The nurse guided Rose and her roommate Betty down the hallway of Ward B towards the dining area, their steps echoing through the stone hallways. She looked through the bars on the doors of the rooms, each with a patient at the window clawing to get out—crying to the nurses and wardens to let them out. Not all of them had to be restrained, only those they thought would try something drastic—apparently that was Rose. As she walked past the cells, she saw women from eighteen to eighty. The men had their own wards on the other side of the facility. She noticed there were other girls who looked like her. All of them young, but dirty and broken. Their faces were empty of expression—their fight lost during their treatments here. I am not going to end up like them, she thought to herself.

Rose went up to the table where her food was waiting for her. She never wanted to eat the grey, slimy mush they called porridge. It was made even more unappetizing when the others joined her. They were the real crazy ones—the ones who really needed to be locked up. They looked at Rose as if she was theirs already—like she belonged to them. “You’ve got it easy,” said one of the girls she sat with, “You’ve only been here for a month. We have been here for a lot longer, honey.” Only a month, Rose thought, it can’t have been only a month. It seems like forever.

“Well?” asked the girl in her nasally, southern voice, “Ain’t you gonna speak? We ain’t heard a peep outta you since you got here. Do you even have a voice? Or did they take that from you with your personality?” All of the girls started laughing at Rose. I shouldn’t even be in here, Rose thought, I don’t want to talk to them because if I do, then I will become just like them.

Just then, one of the older patients, Doris, walked into the room. Everyone fell silent as she shuffled past. Rose heard the whispers of some of the nurses standing guard, “Did you hear? The doctors did that new procedure to get her to calm down. They said it would take the pain from her. She fought them all the way to the surgery room,” said Nurse Martha.

“What was that thing called again? A loboscopy?” said Nurse Judith.

“No. It was a lobotomy. And it seems to have worked. Poor old Doris is as quiet as a church mouse now, isn’t she?” said Nurse Martha.

“Not putting up much of a fight now, for sure,” said Nurse Judith. Both nurses started laughing. Rose couldn’t think straight. Would that happen to her if she wasn’t behaved? she thought. She only had one chance left before she would get locked in the dark room or put into Ward A and kiss her chances to leave the asylum goodbye. Rose had already gotten two strikes against her on the nurses’ records when she first got to the hospital.

It had been a cold evening in September. The leaves were starting to change into their brilliant colors and fall. There had been a storm coming in that night and Rose wanted to get out. She thought that the storm would make for a perfect cover. She had planned to get to the kitchens and find a way out through there. But it was never going to be that simple.

Another patient, Eve, saw Rose going to the kitchen and thought she would follow. She wanted to come with her once she figured out what Rose was doing, but she was too loud. Rose, not wanting to talk, tried to cover Eve’s mouth with her small, cold hand, but she jumped away before Rose got the chance. A crash of thunder caused the patients in the dining hall to shriek in terror. Rose had to get away now or she would get caught by the guards. She tried to run, but as she did, Eve called out for the guards. Rose knew she would be punished if she tried to get away, so she didn’t try to run.

As the guards barreled into the kitchen, they forced Rose onto her knees on the cold, concrete flooring. She didn’t have much fight left in her. As she had been given a sedative, she had seen Nurse Judith out of the corner of her eye with a look of disappointment directed at Rose.

The loud crash of a plastic plate slamming against the wall brought Rose back from her memory. A riot started to break out in the dining hall while she was daydreaming and the nurses were ushering the non-active patients into the common room to quiet them down. Out of the corner of her eye, Rose could see four guards wrestling two patients who seemed to have started the commotion to the ground.

She was seated next to Doris who smelled faintly of stale sweat and cabbages, as if she had not been allowed to wash for a few days. Someone was at the piano in the corner of the common room tapping out an unintelligible song. The keys were just slightly out of tune, making the nonsense sound sinister. Doris shifted next to Rose, drawing her attention and stared into Rose’s eyes with a vacant expression. There was no light in her eyes, only the emptiness of someone who had died. She had been changed by this place.

Rose couldn’t take it anymore. She needed to get away from Doris with her empty eyes—to get back to the living. She couldn’t shake the feeling that she was around death. Rose felt her heart start racing and her muscles tensing. She was starting to panic. The air was getting thinner and she could not get in a big enough breath. Her head started to spin and she felt herself falling to the ground. As hands caught her, she started to swing. She couldn’t take people touching her—everything was too close. She had to get out. Rose felt her fist connect with something hard and heard a thud on the ground. Not a second after, she felt a sharp prick in her neck and a liquid was plunged in after. The world started to go dark around the edges. Her head got heavier and she felt herself being dragged out of the common room. As she fell asleep, she heard Nurse Judith tell the guards to put her in solitary.

She woke up in a cold, dark place—solitary confinement. No light could be seen from inside the cell. She could smell stale water in a bin next to her. She felt around on the uneven flooring. There was no bedding around. They don’t want their prisoners to stay in comfort. At least I am not chained up, Rose thought. No way for me to get out anyways.

Rose could hear the dripping of a water leak nearby. The incessant sounds made her skin crawl with irritation. She wished for the silence—for a quiet place to think, but the dripping water made that impossible.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

The sound filled her mind until there was nothing left. She felt around the room to find the source to try to stop it, but it was too high. The water was coming from the ceiling, and with nothing to get her up there, she had to live with it.

Drip.

This was just what she didn’t want to happen. She had to have a good record so she could get out of the hospital, not farther in. But here she was. No communication with the outside world for who knows how long.

Drip.

If the nurses weren’t too busy, they might remember to bring her food and water. She was locked up like a rabid animal with no hope of escape so why shouldn’t she act like one. She got up slowly, her eyes still not able to adjust in the dark. Her head was numb from the sedative they gave her, but she knew what she was going to do.

Drip.

Just like all those who had been in this filthy room before her, she would make herself heard. Rose went up to the door, feeling the cold ridges of the welded metal press into her hands. She balled her hands into fists and started to bang on the heavy metal. This was the most noise she had made since she came to the asylum. She had to drown out the sound of the dripping water.

Her hands started to throb from the constant pounding on the door. Nobody was going to come. Rose curled up in the corner next to the door and started to sob. Hot tears traced tracks down her cheeks as she cried—choking on the breaths she tried to let out. All of the pent up rage and fear came pouring out as she began to let out her screams.

They had won.

She was theirs now.