I got back the second to last part of Diana and I spoke to my editor after blowing my wad on the last round of editing and she says I should get it back soon, whatever that means haha. But yeah so that’s happening, that other thing is probably happening. Compared to how shitty I’ve felt for the last couple of months I feel pretty good, I’m really happy right now and honestly I don’t like it, I wish it would stop haha.

Maybe playing more red dead 2 will make me more miserable. Probably gonna do a review of that because everyone I know says it’s pretty underwhelming and honestly so far I can’t disagree. Like there’s nothing really about it that blows me away honestly. It kinda just feels like another red dead game, it’s not really that special. Definitely falls short so far comparing it to GTAV. I don’t mind the slow pace as long it’s building towards something and it’s immersive like Kingdom come deliverance. I loved the slow beginning of that game. Really need to do another playthrough of that game. I can’t remember the last time I was so immersed in a game.

Anyway, dying need to nap or do some proofreading or something.

Bye!

–

She kept up a dizzying pace through the old building, but I could hardly object to the brevity of the tour since it appeared to be just a series of long hallways looking all alike.

 

“This is the day room”

 

She opened a door that looked no different from any of the rooms we’d seen before. Despite that it had no viewing window and opened onto a large rectangular room with almost greenhouse windows on the walls and in portions of the ceiling.

 

“This is something like a solarium, they used to think the sunshine had medicinal effects, we use it as a common area, they have art supplies and games they can play.” She said directed me to deshevelled pile of soiled board game boxes and art supplies collected in a half closed closet. The room itself was empty but for a series of rounded tables made of a cheap chipboard wood with a few simple plastic chairs dotted around them and a few beanbag chairs. The carpet was a dull cream colour and the ceiling tiles were deeply sodden asbestos tiling with neon lights running in parralles across the ceiling.

 

I looked around the room as it stood empty, littered as it was with papers and crude paintings on the walls. The paintings depicting oddly shaped buildings. Or so it seemed, although obscurest in nature, following no known Euclidian geometry and copying no style I had ever seen before. Despite that they were quite skilfully reproduced as if from memory.

 

“Oh you noticed that”

 

She said spying my eye caught by the odd painting.

 

“We have a number of artists budding or otherwise that come here.”

 

“Oh really?”

 

“Are you a fan of the arts Mr Tilinghast.”

 

“Henry, please, to my friends.”

 

She seemed to scoff and then smile.

 

“I’ve eyes like anyone else” I said attempting something close to aloofness.

 

“The director seems to think artists are more susceptible to madness than ordinary men”

 

“Oh, why’s that?”

 

“It’s nothing he would publish for peer review, but he seems to think your mind has to be half gone already to be an artist in this economy.” She smiled and I stifled a laugh which cooled to a morbidity as I studied the sad truth in that statement.

 

I sighed in agreement and continued to study the room. It was bright which was odd due to the weather being as grey and dim as it was. The room seemed to glow with an eerie effulgence, it had to be something to do with the placing of the room and the windows harnessing the light.

 

“Please take your time to look at some of their work, the room is closed for today.”

 

I took her up on her offer and started to perouse some of the paintings, most of which were marked with the same signature. The scribbling did seem familiar but I couldn’t make out the name. The paintings seemed to correlate with the others, odd cyclopean structures, strangely shaped humanoid creatures. It seemed almost like the interpretation of a childs drawing done by a skilled hand.

 

“Closed?” I said idly not taking my eyes off an etching of a bust done in charcoal. The bust was some strange abstract creature that seemed to have the head of octopus and the body of some kind of reptile with wings with large clawed feet sitting prone on a pedestal.

 

“We had an incident the other day with one of our patients.”

 

“An incident” I aped thoughtlessly losing myself in the strange chimera like creature in the etching. Noticing then that were some very similar drawings done like but in what seemed like a childs hand, and still more in differing styles until it seemed to be something of a contest to draw the eldritch squatting thing.

 

I turned to her and saw she was motioning with her eyes at a patch on the floor. My eyes following her to see a portion of the cream carpet that had been removed in a large square with a box cutter a slight shadow of a brown stain on the exposed wooden boards below it.

 

“We’re having someone come in on Friday to replace it”.

 

“I see”.

 

“I’ll take you to see the director now if you’d like, he should be in his office.”

 

She led me down another hallway indistinguishable from the others we’d just traversed to a door with golden sign with the name Avery Fournier – Director Pink Bird Sanitarium embossed on it.

 

The door itself was a firm red oak with the top panelled cut out to make way for an ornate opaque glass screen. And as the light was shining I could seemingly make out two figures and could catch something of a conversation going on inside.

 

“He must be busy, should we come back later?” I asked.

 

“No he’s expecting you, he might just be recording something, if we enter quietly it shouldn’t be a problem”. She smiled and motioned towards the door holding her clipboard tightly to her chest and pushing her glasses up on her nose as if touching up a careful costume.

 

I clasped the door handle getting a slight jolt of something but not removing my hand. A sudden striking feeling of unease came over as if I was about to open a door to a party of people dancing over my own grave.

 

Opening the door as gingerly and as politely and inobtrusively as possible I entered with my head bowed like a monk seeking safe passage through some savage mongol land. But to my surprise I was greeted by a most affable and rotund looking old gentlemen sat smiling warmly above a great and bushy mustache.

 

The man instantly put me at ease with his effortlessly pleasant manner and way of speaking.

 

“Henry, is that you, take a seat old boy, you must have had quite a journey.” He addressed me queerly as if he were some old friend or an uncle rarely visited but gladly accepting of any such chance encounter.

 

Finding myself caught off guard by his amiable appearance at knowing me, I had but silent stammering in answer.

 

“You must be exhausted, where did you say you were coming from? Boston was it?”

 

“N-new Hampshire actually.” I said tracing my hands feverishly along the back of one of the high wingbacked chairs in front of the man’s small but neat desk.

 

Fournier’s office was little more than broom closet in size, a very humble room for a seemingly very humble and benign figure. But despite the size, the furnishing were old and eloguent, the smell of treated leather and hardwood was thick in such a tight space and nevertheless it gave way to an informal comfiness that was quite unbefitting an office of such stature.

 

“Would you like a toffee?” He asked standing to pass me a large glass bowl of individually wrapped toffees.

 

“Erm no- no thank you” I said smiling.

 

“Hmm” He smiled and sighed before putting the bowl down and unwrapping one for himself and fiendishly popping it into his mouth grazing his bushy white moustache. He smiled again and said “I must admit I’m quite partial to them” He narrowed his eyes and then at once as if he forgot something said “Oh of course, I’m forgetting myself, would you like one Zane?” He said lifting the bowl in the direction of the wingback chair to my right.

–

Check out the rest of the chapter on inkittttt The weeping song