1.

     The mental patient transport pulled up to Scranton Mental Asylum on May seventh at 8:01 am. Patient 1543 was in the back, sitting in his wheelchair patiently as ever, looking out the window at the passing country side. His icy blue eyes seemed to shine, as if he was genuinely excited by the transfer from one mental institution to another. As they – the transport – pulled up to Scranton Mental Asylum (simply called “The Asylum” by the locals and the workers) his eyes traveled over the barred windows, which were barred in the first place so patients couldn’t throw themselves out the windows, and the sturdy doors, and he smiled. It was a perfect place for him to do his work.

     The transport pulled around to the back, where all new patients were taken into The Asylum, and parked with the back of the vehicle facing The Asylum. After a few moments, footsteps – coming from the transport as well as The Asylum – were heard and some greetings were given to the unknown people. Patient 1543 was anxious to meet them, anxious to see what secrets their eyes would tell him, and anxious to begin his work.

     Then the back of the transport was opened and pulled down, creating a ramp for his wheelchair to roll down. But of course, because he was “mentally unstable” he wasn’t allowed to operate his wheelchair outside. Only a trained nurse or doctor could do that, because they weren’t technically insane. Yet put under pressure their actions would be similar – exact even – to one who was insane; in short no one is truly sane. They all have things about them that can cause them to act insane or irrational at the never least. Those things Patient 1543 had noticed time and time again. And though his reality was considered to be “delusional” or even a “hallucination” by others, they never saw what he saw, and in truth they didn’t see what he saw because they didn’t want to. He did though; in fact he was amazed by his so called “delusions” and “hallucinations”. He never truly understood them, or the work they gave him to do, which he now had come to call “his work”, but he did it just the same and he always enjoyed it and the different reactions he was able to observe.

     A pretty – to some perhaps – woman in her early thirties, at least that what Patient 1543 guessed her to be, smiled and walked up the ramp; two men in white suits stood at the bottom of the ramp, ready for anything that might occur. Patient 1543 smiled again, this time directing his smile at the pretty woman who was now nearly to the top of the ramp.

     “Hello. My name is Terry Lee; I’m your nurse. You can call me Nurse Lee or Nurse Terry, which ever you prefer.” She said. Her voice was as pretty as her face, yet Patient 1543 didn’t feel sorry that she was going to be involved in his work; after all it was important work.

     “I believe the proper English term would be ‘you may call me’, Nurse Terry.” He said smiling brightly just as before when he first laid his eyes upon her.

     “Right you are. Now let’s get you inside and all situated with your new home at Scranton.” She said still smiling as she walked around to the back of the wheelchair, disengaged the brakes, and wheeled him down the ramp and onto the concrete walk way, which lead to a door that would lead into The Asylum.

2.

     Doctor Harry Mel was in his car – a decent ’67 Camaro which he’d been given by his dad when he turned sixteen years ago – driving to work. But he was running late, not a gross amount but enough for it to be noted by the medical staff manger, Jim Bennence, who was a notorious jerk and overachiever and who loved to file complaints against anyone who was late, even if by a minute.

     Mel was also breaking the speed limit by ten miles an hour, nothing stunningly crazy, which he hoped would make any highway patrols he might run into pass him by, for they watched out primarily for those people who decided to break the speed limit by twenty or even thirty miles per hour – of which there was plenty on a weekly basis.

     After nearly twenty minutes – making him almost ten minutes late with some change – of driving he finally came to Scranton Mental Asylum, which is where he had worked for nearly twelve years. He parked in his reserved spot out in the back – the same spot he’d had for nearly ten years in fact – and once the engine was off, he raced from his Camaro and into the back entrance. His thoughts on different ways to avoid Jim – Jimmy Gone Mad to him and the other workers – but his ideas where crushed when he walked into the first corridor to see Jimmy Gone Mad leaning against his, Mel’s, office door.

     Great. Almost eleven minutes late and now Madman Jimmy is gonna be breathing down my throat for the rest of the day. He thought as he tried to maintain a civil facial expression, not wanting to give Jimmy Gone Mad an excuse to right him up. Heck, maybe Jim would let him go on this one. At that thought Mel laughed internally with a ‘Yeah right!’ attitude.

     “Mel, Mel, Mel. Late by ten minutes and forty-seven seconds. A new personal record in fact.” Jim said with his usual tone that was somewhere between condescending and Flat Out Jerk.

     “Yeah, I know. I slept a few minutes through my alarm.” Mel replied saying a quick lie, while trying to maintain his temper, which Jim Gone Mad just has a way of stirring up rather well.

     “No, several. You slept through your alarm by several minutes to get her almost eleven minutes late.” Jim said, now pushing himself off the wall so he was now standing right in front of Mel. In fact, he was now standing between Mel and Mel’s office door.

     “Jim, I’m not in the mood. So get out of my way and let me go to work.” Mel replied, his temper rising because of Jim’s Flat Out Jerkness.

     Jim didn’t move an inch; in fact he even dared to show a little smile, as if he was amused by all this. And Mel just couldn’t take that – and he suspected that Jim knew that.

     “You’re only keeping me from getting to work. So if you really care about my being on time then get the hell out of my way.” Mel said and pushed – quite literally – Jim out of the way and then entered his office and slammed the door.

     Jim chuckled under his breath, being amused by Mel’s temper and then whistled his regular tune – one everyone in the building was thoroughly annoyed with – as he walked down the corridor.

     Inside his office, Mel was sitting back in his office chair, leaning back, and breathing deeply; trying to get his temper under complete control. Jim always had a way of irritating – even infuriating – Mel like no one else could. And Mel did not appreciate that, especially when he could hardly sleep the previous night, which was the case today.

     It was a thing Mel had. It came and went, but it always paid a visit once a month and no matter how hard he tried or what medicine he took, Mel simply could not sleep. Very few people knew about it; his ex-wife was one, and his older brother was two and that was it. But technically he couldn’t count his brother because he had died almost five months ago, which was two months after it had returned from a year long silence – figuratively speaking. In fact, it was why his ex-wife – someone his brother never liked actually – left him. Apparently, she couldn’t sleep if he couldn’t, and so eventually it grew from there. It got to the point where she ran out of excuses to stay and got to many “reasons” – if you can call them that – to stay, so she left after a tense eleven year marriage, leaving Mel alone with his Camaro.

     Over the years Mel had grown accustomed to going without sleep every few weeks for one day and so it was easier than before. Not easy, but easier. And people like Jim did not help his attitude when going on that one day without sleep. But can anyone honestly blame him for being a bit grouchy or irritable being forty-five and going without sleep the night before no matter what he tried?

     Nope, not really.

After regaining his control of his temper, Mel got on his doctors coat, clipped his pen into the front chest pocket, and then left his office. According to the piece of paper, which was on top of a file that was on his desk he had a new patient. Patient 1543, which in the future would be a few words that he could never forget.

3.

     Mel walked down the corridor on the second floor, which is where all the new patients spend their first few days. The only real difference from the other floors is that the patients on the second floor are watched more closely, hence the practice – or tradition – of keeping the new patients there for a few days and also those thought to be suicidal or just generally unpredictable and unstable. Patients that also suffered from having severe mood swings were also kept on floor two.

     In his twelve years as a psychiatrist, Mel had never personally witness an attempt – successful or otherwise – at suicide of any patient. He normally caught on to that train of thought days, sometimes even weeks, before the person would be set enough in their resolve to actually do it and helped them through it the best he can. Mel never really wondered how those thoughts got into their minds; he always attributed them to a level of the subconscious that knew a grave, and even dangerous, truth: life can, and often is, its own form of hell.

     As Mel walked down the corridor on the second floor he ran into – literally – Terry Lee, or Nurse Lee, who was actually looking for him.

     “Oh I’m sorry Doctor.” She said as she regained her balance. Mel smiled as if to say it’s no problem.

     “No it’s alright. So I got a new patient today, correct? A-” He asked then opened his file on the new patient, which had been sent over by the patient’s previous mental institution. “There’s no name on the file. Just his number, 1543.”

     “Yes you do, and he didn’t tell me his name, and I didn’t ask. I’m sorry Doctor.” Terry said with a self-condensing tone.

     “No, you didn’t make any mistakes. It’s my job to connect with the patient and get his name and such.” Mel replied as they walked down the corridor to where it opened up into a larger room that the patients on the second floor spent a lot of their time, usually sitting around attempting to read, or work on different therapy ideas that their psychiatrist recommends. Patient 1543 was sitting in a far corner, watching everyone else with his icy blue eyes, which was the very first thing about him that Mel noticed. The second was how freakishly thin he was. Mel quickly flipped through the medical history file he held and saw that Patient 1543 was set to have a normal diet, yet he still remained a scary one hundred eleven pounds – at least according to the last weight check he had; to Mel, he looked like he’d be lucky to tip the scale at one hundred pounds. Truth be told, the more Mel looked at Patient 1543 from across the room the more Patient 1543 looked like a survivor from a Nazi concentration camp or something similar.

     “That’s him. Patient 1543.” Mel said pointing at him with his eyes. Terry nodded.

     “Yes, that’s him. He seemed so sweet earlier when we spoke. He even corrected my English usage.” She said with a thin smile on her face. “But he looks scary thin Doctor. I mean, if I didn’t know better I’d think he was from a concentration camp or something.”

     “You just read my mind Terry. Make a note to increase his food intake to help him gain some weight back if his weight hasn’t increased in a week.” Mel replied. Terry nodded and pulled out a small notepad she always carried with her and wrote down the note.

     “Done. Alright, ready to introduce ourselves?” She asked once the notepad was put away. Mel didn’t speak but he nodded, took a deep breath, then walked towards Patient 1543, saying hi and briefly talking to some of his other patients as he went. Terry followed him, doing similarly with the patients she took care of.

     Eventually, they reached Patient 1543, who noticed them immediately once they started walking towards him. Once they got closer he smiled at seeing Nurse Terry.

     “Nurse Terry, your back. And I’m assuming you’re my psychiatrist.” He said turning to Mel.

     Mel smiled and nodded. Then Patient 1543 strained his eyes at Mel, as if he was trying to read something in very fine print. Then he stopped and looked into Mel’s eyes. Mel suddenly felt that Patient 1543 wasn’t looking at him but rather into him, as if the saying ‘The eyes are the window into the soul’ was really true, in a very literal sense.

     “Doctor Harry Mel. You’re recently divorced, twelve years of experience at this facility, and your forty-five years old. You started going after your medical degree when you were twenty, just after you finished getting your AA degree. When you were thirty you received your medical degree and then got three years of additional training to become a psychiatrist.” Patient 1543 said speaking not too slow or too fast, and keeping his eyes locked on Mel’s the entire time. “And you also battle reoccurring insomnia. It comes and goes every now and then.”

Now as a psychiatrist, Mel had worked with several patients that were natural born trouble makers, and so he developed a very good poker face, which at this time was really handy. Mel, keeping a straight face, turned to Terry and mouthed if she told him that. Terry, who did not have a good poker face, shook her head. A loud and clear No. Mel then turned back to Patient 1543.

“How did you know that?” Mel asked as he pulled a chair up and sat in front of Patient 1543. Terry did the same, although she sat just a bit farther away from him, Patient 1543.

     “Your name tag gives your full name. You have a tan line on your left ring finger. As for the rest, I have my ways.” Patient 1543 said still smiling. The smile was beginning to give Mel the creeps. Especially when the person who is wearing it somehow knows practically everything about you, even things that only one living person knows about.

     “Alright. What are your ways then? And what’s your name? I don’t want to be rude and call you Patient 1543, because your medical file doesn’t give a name.” Mel replied. Despite his being freaked out, his curiosity was burning.

     “I don’t know my name. I don’t remember anything about who I am. My previous psychiatrist called it psychogenic amnesia. And you’ll see soon enough my ways.” Still smiling, but then redirects his gaze towards Terry and looks at her the same way he did at Mel. “You’re Nurse Terry Ann Lee. You’re thirty-six, married for almost ten years, and you have two children. You miscarried in your first year of marriage, something you haven’t told anyone. In fact, only you, your husband, and your doctor know about it.”

     Terry looked shocked, terrified even. And Patient 1543 only smiled the more. Mel stood up, towering over the thin man in the wheel chair who somehow knew things about both of them that until recently had been secrets which never few people knew about, let alone a complete stranger.

     “I’m going to wheel you to your room. You won’t give me any trouble?” Mel asked, handing Terry the medical file, which had a note scribbled onto it. She took it, read the note discreetly, then stood up and left, placing both chairs back as she went.

     “No of course not Mel. You’re my psychiatrist. You’re only doing your job. I won’t give you any trouble.” He said that creepy smile still there as if he was rather enjoying all of this. The words were comforting to Mel, but that smile didn’t make him feel any better, and neither did that look in his eyes that said he knew something Mel didn’t.

     Mel nodded and walked to behind Patient 1543’s wheel chair and pushed him out of the room where the rest of the patients were doing their thing. He pushed Patient 1543 all the way to his room. A small, clean room with a bed and one decent sized windows with bars on the outside of the window. An audio recorder was in the room as well as an observation camera, both used to observe the behavior of the patient when they thought they were alone. Both were well hidden, in fact they were built into the wall. The only reason Mel knew they were there was because he had been told.

     Mel watched as Patient 1543 wheeled himself towards the window and then just sit there and look out the window. He – Patient 1543 – was whispering something to himself. It wasn’t English, or any other language for that matter. Mel decided to pry a bit.

     “What were you saying?” Mel asked as he took a tentative step towards Patient 1543 who had his back to Mel.

      “Nothing. I’d like to be alone now Doctor Mel.” He said without moving. Mel nodded and left without another word. Once the door was closed, Mel swiftly walked to the stairs, and once he was on the stairs began running. Hoping Terry was in his office, doing as instructed via the discrete note he’d given her.

4.

     When Mel entered his office he saw Terry sitting in his office chair and talking to someone on the phone. Mel walked around to the back of the desk and wrote on his note pad hurriedly.

     Did you get him?

     Terry read the note quickly and nodded her head, and then spoke some more to the person on the phone, thanked them and then hung up. Mel looked at her curiously.

     “Okay. I got him. Patient 1543’s past psychiatrist is one Doctor Dennis McCoy. He’s in his late fifties, and works at Palmerton Mental Hospital. I already have him coming over here for a visit at –“ She stopped speaking, and flipped through her notepad for reference, “At noon, which is almost three hours from now.”

     Mel nodded his approval. “Alright, excellent. Thank you Terry. Now when should 1543 getting his first meal here?” He asked as he leaned against the wall.

     Terry looked up at the clock that hung on the opposite wall so that whoever sat at the desk could easy tell the time. “In about twenty minutes actually.” She said then added: “What are you thinking Mel?”

     “I don’t know. For now I just think it’s best to learn everything we can about him. His name and past would be a damn fine addition to our knowledge.” Mel said as he ran a hand through his medium length dark brown hair.

     “After I give him his first meal, I can see what I can do about digging up some more details about him. Maybe even trace him back to his first mental institution.” Terry replied, not knowing why but she felt that this case was worth giving her all to.

     Mel nodded. “That would be great. I’ll read over all of his medical files that I have and talk to McCoy when he comes here. So meet me back in my office at say one pm?”

     “Sure. That’ll work.” Terry said nodding. Then got up out of Mel’s office chair and walked around the desk going the other way so she didn’t have to squish by Mel. “I’ll give you your desk back” She remarked with a little laugh. Mel laughed as well.

     “Thank you.” He said with a smile and a laugh before sitting back in his office chair and opening 1543’s medical file. Terry left the office silently.

5.

     Nurse Terry rolled the cart of food to Patient 1543’s room slowly. The anticipation of having to look into his icy blue eyes – those beautiful yet haunting icy blue eyes – was killing her emotionally. It was like he sucked you in with his eyes and once he hooked you it was very hard to get unhooked. She didn’t know really how to explain what she felt, but that was close to how it felt when you looked into his eyes, his icy blue eyes.

     She neared his door and her hands began to shake, and her knees knocked together. She didn’t know where this fear came from, where this attraction-repulsion compulsion was coming from, but it was strong; stronger than anything else she’d ever felt in her entire life.

     With shaking hands, Terry opened the door to Patient 1543’s room. And there he was, just as Mel had left him: sitting in his wheelchair, looking out the window and whispering to himself – whispering gibberish.

     As soon as the door opened and the gentle squeak of the cart tires came to his ears the whispering stopped; but not before Terry got an earful of it. She’d never heard anything like it before, and if it was a language, it was a language she’d never heard of before. It sounded more like the jabbering of a madman – which technically 1543 was – than a coherent language.

     “Your food is ready Mr. – “ She began to say but stopped because she didn’t know what came after the Mr.

     Patient 1543 wheeled himself around so he was facing Terry, that same – and probably greatly insane – smile still on his face as if everything was just dandy.

     “Nurse Terry, how nice of you to bring me some food. I was just thinking that I was getting hungry.” He said, and that smile seemed to be glued on to his face. His eyes looked into her own with an air of knowledge that was downright creepy.

     Terry tried her best to smile as she pushed the cart farther into the room, the quiet squeak of the cart’s tires echoed in the mostly empty room.

     “Well we have a set time for eating here. So I’ll be delivering your breakfast every morning at this time. Lunch is served at twelve thirty, and dinner is served at six.” She said as she walked slowly from behind the cart to open the portable table up and then took his food – eggs and bacon with some hash browns – and placed it on the portable table.

     Patient 1543 wheeled up to the table and grasped the utensils. “Plastic.” He simply said then tapped the plate with the tip of his finger “Plastic again.” Terry opened her mouth to speak but he spoke before she could. “No it’s okay. I know why; you guys can’t exactly have me cutting myself with a butter knife or something.”

     Terry nodded just in the slightest. “Yes that’s it.” She said with a frightened smile. Patient 1543 was now looking at her weird – not sexual but just weird – and it made her feel very uncomfortable.

     “Yes I’m sure it is.” He said as he stabbed some of the hash browns with the plastic fork. “I’m sure it is.”

     Terry nodded then walked backwards toward the door, not wanting to turn her back to Patient 1543; but he seemed almost disinterested to her as he ate his food slowly. Yet Terry couldn’t get the way he looked at her out of her mind. She bumped into the door as she walked backwards and with her hand she felt for the doorknob. She found it, but when she tried to turn it she found a horrifying thing: it was locked. Somehow it was locked.

     She turned around, so now her back was to Patient 1543, and desperately began trying to turn the door knob.

     “I’m sure it is.” He said from behind her.

6.

     Mel sat at his desk looking over the medical files for Patient 1543. The odd thing is they don’t start at the beginning of his treatment. The files that Mel received – the same ones he’s looking through – start God only knows how far into Patient 1543’s treatment. According to the files all attempts at IDing him were unsuccessful – fingerprinting, DNA, even therapy that was supposed to help with regaining memory lost in psychogenic amnesia didn’t work. So his identity was a pure road blocked, dead-end. And somehow, Mel didn’t find himself surprised in the slightest.

     Next Mel went to the actual diagnosis of Patient 1543’s mental disorders. The medical files had schizophrenia listed down with delusions of death, hallucinations in where he talks to “The Man”, and illusions where he sees impossible things. All in all, a very disturbed young man with no memory of his past, and no past that was made readily available for Mel to find and study.

     Other than that and medicine prescriptions, the file was pretty vague about his behavior at the past mental facility. There was no “violent mood swings” or anything of the sort. In fact there wasn’t even any behavioral notes, good or bad, which Mel found odd.

     Mel was busy flipping through the medical files, looking for nothing in particular, when a steady knock come from the other side of his office door.

      “Come on in, the door’s unlocked.” Mel said without looking up from the file, assuming it was Terry or one of the other nurses or – God forbid – Jim.

     The door opened silently on its well-oiled hinges. Someone stepped into the office, and then closed the door behind them; still Mel did not look up. He was reading something interesting: it was the dictated discussions of Patient 1543 and his previous psychiatrist, Doctor McCoy. In the conversation, Patient 1543 was talking about his “work” that he must do. And when McCoy asked what his work to do was, Patient 1543 responded with: ‘You’ll see dear doctor. But not here, in another medical facility, but you’ll see just the same’. It sent shivers down Mel’s spine.

     “Excuse me? I’m here to see Doctor Harry Mel.” A foreign male voice suddenly said from in front of Mel’s desk. In his reading of the dictated conversation, Mel had forgotten about the person at the door, who he now knew to be a male simply by the voice.

     Mel looked up from the files to see an older gentleman – probably in his late fifties to early sixties – with thinning white hair and thick glasses. Mel rose to his feet slowly; the man was none other than Doctor McCoy.

     “Doctor McCoy, I presume?” Mel said as he outstretched his hand. The man shook it with a moderate grip.

     “Yes, and I take it that you’re Doctor Mel?” McCoy asked. Mel nodded with a smile.

     “Yes, please sit.” Mel said as he himself sat down again in his office chair. McCoy sat down in the chair on the other side of the desk; his eyes had a heavy look to them, as if there was something weighing down on him, crushing him mentally beneath the “weight” of whatever it was.

     “When my secretary told me you called about…him, I came right over.” McCoy explained as he rubbed his hands together slowly, as if he was getting out nervous energy, which Mel thought he was.

     “Yes. I’m trying to find out Patient 1543’s identity – you of all people must know that it’s very important to get on a first-name-basis with patients – and well, I’m being hard pressed to find it. And we both know that calling him Patient 1543 is worse than calling him by his last name, mainly because I’d be subjecting him to a series of numbers.” Mel said, trying to put on his best front of a humanitarian – overly humanitarian – psychiatrist that takes the psychology of their job a bit too far.

     “I don’t know anything about his past, or his identity.” McCoy said a little too quickly for Mel’s taste, but maybe he was telling the truth; but Mel’s gut told him otherwise.

     “Are you sure? Not even a clue or anything? I mean even just a name of a relative would be huge help, or the person who had him committed maybe.” Mel asked, trying to pry further while keeping his temper under control.

     “I don’t know Mel. When I received the case it was from an elderly gentleman nearly ten years ago, and he is now long gone, in fact he died shortly after turning the case over to me. I never tried to look into the past of patient or to identify him. He made it clear to me in uncertain terms that I would never know and that I would do well to keep it that way for myself.” McCoy explained. Mel looked at him astonished.

     “And you actually listened to him?” Mel not so much as asked but was blown away, though not it a good way. “He’s a mental patient, I’m not saying he’ stupid, in fact I think the very opposite, but as practicing psychiatrists we both know that mental patients speak nonsense at times, in some cases quite often. So you took the advice of a mental patient and didn’t try to find information that would normally be considered vital to the treatment of the individual simply because he told you not to?”

     McCoy looked at him as if he had heard this line of argument before – which Mel was sure he had at one time or another – and sighed as he ran a hand through his thinning hair.

     “Mel, you don’t know what you’re dealing with here. If you did you would’ve done exactly what I did: not a damn thing. And do you think I’m proud of it? Hell no! But I’ll tell you that it was the best thing I could’ve done under the circumstances.” He said, his tone becoming exasperated by Mel’s insistent questions; he guy was more stubborn than a mule.

     Mel looked at McCoy with eyes that burned with a short temper. And through gritted teeth Mel said these words: “Then acquaint me with him.”

     McCoy only had to look into his eyes to see that he wasn’t joking. And so, he did. God help him, he acquainted Mel with Patient 1543 and what he believed Patient 1543 was capable of.

7.

     Terry exited Patient 1543 with no memory of what had happened after he whispered ‘I’m sure it is.’ in her ear. She just remembered being afraid – no, terrified – then the next thing she knew she was standing in the corridor outside 1543’s room. No memory of anything, small or great, after he whispered those four words into her ear, as if they were a code that wiped her memory of whatever happened. For a few moments, she thought that she had imagined the entire thing, that she had some sort of mental break down, or a vague of some sort. But after checking the cart for his food she found it wasn’t there. And after peaking into 1543’s room through the peep hole in the door – which took a great deal of courage, almost all she had in fact – she saw that it was on the collapsible table, and that he was eating it with a grin on his face, a knowing grin because at the end of the day he knew what had happened in there, he knew what she didn’t and that above all frightened her the most.

     She wheeled her cart back to the kitchen, which was on the far side of floor two. After returning the cart as she always does, Terry started to head towards Mel’s office to tell him about what had happened, but then one of her patients – an elderly one – had a stroke down the hall; she rushed towards them, all thoughts of Patient 1543 were forgotten along with all thoughts of the actual incident and all thoughts of telling Mel – at least for the time being.