Page 1 of Teddy Bear

1.

I put my exposed white wrists under the hot water and watch as the white color of the skin and the translucent blue and purple veins underneath turn bright red.

I try to hold on as long as I can, the sensation of horrible, searing, overwhelming heat that steams and overwhelms my senses - this is the closest thing to pain I can feel right now.

I look at the white, ceramic tiles in front of me and focus on one black spot, on a small dot that jumps out of the sterile, faceless, monotonous row. I focus all my attention on that speck of black, abnormal space; the feeling is neither good nor bad, it is just what it is - a horrible, unbearable heat that burns my skin and makes me want to scream.

I put my rather reddened and slightly swollen knuckles and wrists away and then turn off the water on the tap, obviously not satisfied with the result.

I sit on the white hospital bed and hug my knees, covered in white hospital clothes, closer to my chest. I let my bangs fall over my eyes and the brown curls over my shoulders and cheeks and the corners of my face, blurring my vision.

I hear the nurses footsteps in the hallway; I feel the heat spreading from the central heating radiator; somehow it is too warm, suffocating so.

I bite my chapped, dry lip, and the metallic taste of blood fills my mouth. I suck on my lip to better feel the metallic, astringent, and slightly bitter taste in my mouth, the red drop that somehow tingles my senses and whose iron smell makes me alive in this fucking, sterile morgue.

It's almost time for the visit.

I lie on the bed, letting my curls fall on the sterile white sheets and look at the plastic bracelet around my wrist and the white ceiling above my head.

I squint to see if there's any crumb or irregularity in the polished white mass above my head, but I can't find it.

An endless space of impersonal, white, almost cardboard space above my head that narrows my vision and blinds my eyes with its limitation.

I feel like I'm in a box.

I am afraid that I am a match thrown into a small cardboard box with rough, scratchy, brown edges and that, ignited by one sharp movement of someone’s hand, I will soon crack and burn.

I watch the scene, vivid and clear before my eyes - my brown eyebrows and eyelashes completely burned by the terrible, strong burst of fire, and my body turning into fluffy, black powder, and I begin to laugh out loud.

I'm laughing so loud that tears are almost coming out of the corners of my eyes.

✦ 🧸 ✦

I watch as the lights in the long, bluish hallway go out.

I follow Danny's steps as my clumsy clogs squeak on the hospital floor.

I have been wondering for a long time how this is so easy for him.

From the time I came, that is, from the time I was put in here, Danny took full care of me very earnestly and carefully. He was very shaken and determined to do everything in his power to help me.

That's why he decided to try out new methods from his not yet finished specialist studies on me, which could help me to find a solution to the problem in a subtle and cathartic way and forever cut the strings with the "monsters" inside my head.

These new methods included induced hypnosis, which Danny performed on me every evening in a special observation room.

Still, a psychiatrist parading his best friend's daughter around with a smile, right at the end of his shift, taking her to a special kind of psychoanalysis - a carefully induced and guided hypnosis that is only used in special cases like mine - of severe traumatic and deep-seated self-hatred, was a bit of an unusual occurrence.

But who knows, maybe that's a good thing.

Danny is so willing to understand why I hate myself; he'll do anything - even strip me naked.

I hear the lock click as the doc swipes his special pass and the heavy metal door opens, ushering my body inside.

-Here you go, Lizzie, make yourself comfortable.

I enter, feeling at the same time absolutely free and absolutely bound by invisible chains to the white-gray, rubber walls of this strange space.

The door closes behind me. Danny never crosses this magical border - the threshold of this room. After I enter, I remain absolutely alone inside.