Madness Read Online Free

driving Uncle Joe
to the crazy place. When they got there, Joe asked Frank to drop him off at the door while Frank went and parked the car. Frank didn't think much of it, and dropped him off.
    Joe went inside, smiled at the nurse, and said, "Hi. I'm Frank Hornbacher. I'm here to drop off Joe. He likes to park the car, so I let him do that. He'll be right in." The nurse nodded knowingly. The real Frank walked in. The nurse took his arm and guided him away, murmuring the way nurses always do, while Frank hollered in protest, insisting that he was Frank, not Joe. Joe, quite pleased with himself, gave Frank a wave and left.

Depression
1981
    Maybe it begins when I am seven. I'm in bed. It's too sunny outside, I can't go out. The blinds are drawn and yet they let in a little light, and the little light pierces my eyes. I turn my face into my pillow. It's cool and safe in my sheets. My father comes in.
    Time to get up, kiddo.
    (Silence.)
    Kiddo.
    (I pull the pillow over my head to block the incessant light.)
    Kiddo, are you getting up?
    No.
    Why not?
    I'm skipping today.
    What's the matter with today?
    I sigh. I despair of ever getting up again. I cannot move. I will not move. Everything is horrible. I want to go to sleep forever.
    I can't go to school,
I say.
    Why not?
    I bang my head on the mattress and let out a shriek. I sigh and flop onto my back and shade my eyes.
    There's an art project.
I burst into tears.
    Oh,
my father says, unsurprised.
Is it complicated?
    It's very complicated,
I wail.
I can't do it. I don't want to do it. So I'm sick.
I wipe my nose and let the tears fall into my ears.
    Okay,
my father says.
    I'm staying home.
    Okay.
    Okay. Okay. Now I will be okay. No crowded classroom, no scissors, no paste, no other kids, no cafeteria lunch, no recess, no wide sky and too much sun.
    The world outside swells and presses in at the walls, trying to reach me, trying to eat me alive. I must stay here in the pocket of my sheets, with my blanket and my book. I will not face the world, with its lights and noise, its confusion, the way I lose myself in its crowds. The way I disappear. I am the invisible girl. I am make-believe. I am not really there.
    I don't come out of my room for days. Days bleed into weeks. I lie in bed in the dark.

Prayer
1983
    On my knees. Praying. Pleading. The basement floor is cold beneath my knees. I come here to hide, to hide my prayers. My mother would mock me. God is merely a weakness for people who need to believe. She wouldn't understand that I am chosen to speak for all the sorrows of the world.
    I'm not crazy. God has called me and I have no choice but to answer, or I will be sent to hell. It all depends on me. And so I pray
myself to sleep, and pray the second I wake, and pray all day, terrified that God will catch me slacking off and punish me severely.
    My knees grow sore and my heart beats a million miles an hour. I panic. I practically pant. My mind spins with the things I am forgetting to pray for, things I have done, there is a light flashing in my brain, like the headlight of a train in the dark, the dark is my mind, which teems with sins, which torment me with their noise. I can hear the sins whisper; are they inside my head or outside my ears? Are they in the basement? Coming from the water heater, the washing machine? God answers at last.
You may get up,
I hear him say. His voice reverberates against the concrete walls.
    Halfway up the stairs, I hear God call me to prayer again. I kneel and pray. He calls me in the kitchen. Calls me in my bedroom. Calls me at school. I raise my hand, hurry into the rest-room, kneel on the floor of the stall, the restroom empty and echoing with my rapid breath, echoing with the shrieking, pounding in my head. I pray in class. I pray in the car, after dinner, all night long—hours after silence has settled around the house, my mouth moves with manic prayers.
    God watches me, sees my every mistake, every sin. God's voice booms in my head, now