“One more poem.”

“No, let’s go right now.”

I refused. Two hefty guys came up behind me. They each grabbed one of my arms and pushed my head against the book.

“There you are. Read it now?”

Then they lifted me up, clipped some sort of plastic handcuffs on me, keeping my hands behind my back and carried me off to the parking lot.

I don’t understand these people. Four different individuals interviewed me when I went into hospital. The doctor on duty, the psychiatrist, an intern and a nurse. I thought the nurse was the nicest. She asked me what things I liked. I told her reading.

It wasn’t my first visit to a hospital. In fact, I had been quite a few times since a small boy, since they killed mom and dad. Damn it, I’m crying again.

A test, pills, more tests, interviews. They keep telling me the same thing, that “It’s for my own good”, that “I’m going to be alright.”

It seems I’m mad. And judging from the way they look at me when they tell me I’m getting better, I’ll be that way for ever.

The psychiatrist thought I was depressed. Ridiculous, this is my normal state, in fact I feel good. He thought I might try to kill myself. Idiot! He doesn’t realize I wouldn’t. That I’m afraid of death. And worse still, of hell. This life is horrible, but I don’t want to die, I couldn’t stand it.

They decided to certify me. Which means I can hardly do anything without telling them.

I went out through the main door. But I wasn’t escaping. I’d just forgotten I was under supervision. I walked four blocks to the public library.

I was there for several hours. And Baudelaire’s poetry was there with me. Later I found out they had been searching for me like mad. Well, I guess that’s their job.

This story appears in Still…life, Mosaic Press, Canada. Copyright David Mibashan.