"I've a sweet tooth and a thing for banoffee. And bacon. So... how about having banoffee pie topped with bacon for breakfast today?"

She looked at me sourly. Her eyes were empty, devoid of humour, hate, humility or that hanging feeling of too much alcohol and a late night followed by an early morning for work. I smiled, but it wasn't returned. Unperturbed, I continued as she scooped a dollop of slop into my tray.

"Maybe, if you don't have that, what about banoffee flavoured ba... no forget that. You can't mess with the flavour of bacon. That'd be sacrilege."

She didn't blink, so I had the opportunity to examine her face. It was something I had started to do as a sort of game. Something to break up the day. I had been caught out on more than one occasion, lost in my stare as I took in blocked pores, smooth skin, eyebrows in need of a pluck, dry bogies from a nose that hadn't been cleaned properly. Eyes full of fear. Eyes layered with the haze of sad acceptance. Joyless ones. Joyful ones.

Hers were different. They were empty.

On those times I'd been caught, where the person I was talking to had noticed me staring and had been made to feel uncomfortable, I'd made excuses of trying to remember something I wanted to tell them. I had been listening, and I had, but my attention was diverted to the variances of their features. I didn't want them to be uncomfortable. That wasn't my intention. I didn't want them to see what I was doing, but some had such interesting faces.

I didn't see much of the rest of her at first. Her dead eyes held me. I'd seen plenty that were dull. Plenty that drew you in with hidden depths promised. There were sparks and stars and secrets. Mists and mayhem. Other alliterative aspects. She had none of those. When I looked into her eyes, there was nothing.

The irises were green. A nice, bright green that shone when the merciless overheads hit them at the right angle. But there was nothing else. Reflections of the world outside, such as me, but no reflection of her.

If the eyes were the mirrors of the soul, did this mean she didn't have one?

"Come on, Rev."

Weymorth was behind me in the queue. He was tall and overly skinny, as if he'd one been average height and weight but had been tied to the bumpers of two cars going in different directions. He always spoke quietly, his voice running out of volume by the time it reached his mouth. He was a patient man, who would never speak out or lose his temper. He was one of the only residents not to have had need to pay a visit to Room 101. A model patient.

It was a stark contrast to how he'd been before entering the asylum. Then, he was, loud and brash and intimidating. A domineering man who would instil fear in all who met him. This person grew in intensity as t ok me went by, his ego feeding on the effect he had on others. When it got to the point his mother was too afraid to open the door to him and he broke it down, he realised what was happening to him and committed himself.

The change was remarkable. He was now pleasant. A friend. But, if he asked you to hurry, you did.

"Sorry, Wey," I said. "I was just having a little fun."

"You and bacon," he laughed. It was a dry and rasping and demanded irrigation. "A culinary love affair."

"Well, I'll take love wherever I can get it in here, mate."

"I like you, Sin, but love is pushing it a bit far. I'll let you have your bacon."

"It'd be better if Connors let us have some!"

"Good luck with that!"

Wey and I both laughed. You had to in the asylum. Make jokes of things that weren't funny. Otherwise, there were plenty of reasons, beyond the lack of bacon, to cry. I looked at the server, expecting to see her smiling at out interaction, but she wasn't. She was just staring ahead, not particularly seeming to see either me or Wey. It was unsettling, with her eyes as lifeless as the slop they served us.

Her name was Kathryn. Kat, as she preferred. We didn't know anything about the kitchen staff, or any staff, really, but we were deemed worthy enough to have their names. I think it was meant to fashion a sense of equality between 'us' and 'them'. Names levelled us. The fact we were patients and they were staff was never lost or ignored by either side. As such, there was no such thing as equality for us. We were the ill. The manic. The sorrowful. The sorrowful. Even, the dirty.

Occasionally, there were other decent staff than just Jeremy. Occasionally, they would warm to us and give us a little more. Vincent had three small cats, I forgot the names that were his babies in a childless marriage. Sara liked to watch black and white movies by herself. Genevieve wanted to be a writer and had penned more than two hundred stories and five novels. She had yet to finish even one. So, we were allowed to sneak a peek through the door jamb of a slack handful of orderlies, kitchen workers and cleaners.

Kat, apart from letting us know she hated her full name, told us nothing else and nor did she share any personal knowledge. She wasn't cold, just not warm. I'd never seen her like this though. So... distant. More than that. Barren.

I picked up my tray and moved away, pausing to let Wey catch up with me. We walked over to a space at one of the tables and sat opposite each other. The table would seat eight, but had just four around it when we arrived.

Brian didn't speak or look at anyone or anything. Not even his food. He ate from habit, though not every spoonful hit the mark. It meant his face and clothing could often be splattered with whatever dish was the slop of the day. Eddie was a shadow to Brian. He didn't feel he had any identity, any persona at all, so when Brian was the first to speak to him, or the air before him, Eddie attached himself to Brian's side. He went where Brian went. Ate and evacuated his bowels at the same time. At the same time as Brian, that is, not each other. Sarah was like Genevieve's books. Unfinished. She would begin a sentence but be unable to say the last word. It was a reflection of how she saw herself, being convinced she would die young. At twenty seven, there was a chance that youth she referred to was gone and she'd beaten the impending death. It didn't console her however. She would still die soon. It was a waiting game.

Finally, there was JC. Juniper Cavattes Principa. As gloriously exotic as her name was, JC was born in Sheffield to parents whose own parents and grandparents, ad infinitum, had also been born in the City. They'd never left, even to go on holiday. The world didn't exist, to them, unless it featured on a television show. JC had grown up with a completely insular outlook on life until a friend convinced her to go away together. She had no comprehension how vast the world was and struggled to cope. When their plane was postponed, JC panicked, thinking she wouldn't be able to get home. Ever. Her reaction was so drastic, her panic was justified. She never saw her home again.

When we joined them, they acknowledged our presence with a nod, a smile from Brian echoed by Eddie, but then went back to 'enjoying' their slop.

"What's wrong with her?" I asked Wey.

"Who?" he asked, looking round.

"Kathryn. Something's wrong with her."

"Seems fine to me."

Was I imagining it? I didn't think so. No, I knew I was right. I'd always taken notice of eyes. Now it was the whole face, but eyes had been something I was aware of for most of my life you could tell so much from them.

I changed the subject, moving on to how Mucous Mickey was happier than he'd been for a while after his toilet roll had been changed for one with aloe vera in it. It was better than we were usually supplied, and only he'd been issued with it. Rather than being jealous, we were pleased for him. His need was greater than ours.

I didn't forget about Kat for the rest of the day, but she shuffled to the back of my mind. She became a niggling itch I couldn't quite scratch. One that would shift when I tried to focus on it so it didn't come to the fore and make itself a big deal. It wasn't one, really. I didn't know Kat well enough to be overly concerned. She may have been tired. I guessed cooking just the right consistency of slop was a precise process. Doing it for so many would no doubt be tiring.

That night, I dreamt about her.

I was in the queue for lunch. Wey was behind me, followed by a long line of other residents I didn't recognise. Kathryn was serving, the only person on the other side of the counter. I made a joke about bacon and she started smiled. Then started laughing. Then crackling. The laughter became louder and more maniacal until she was practically screaming her mirth in my face.

All the while, she was spooning slop into my tray. Portion after portion after portion. It filled the tray and ran over the sides, splashing into the floor. Luckily it missed my shoes, somehow. I'd glanced down and, when I looked back, Kat's face was an inch or so from mine. I could feel the heat of her breath. The spit that launched with each barking laugh.

But her eyes!

I slipped on the wet floor and stumbled back, falling. I expected to be winded from the impact with the hard tiles floor but, instead, I hit an ever rising of slop, the result of her constant, and still ongoing, dishing up.

As I fell, her hilarity rose a notch and a shelf of wine glasses – not that we were ever served wine – shattered. The fragments flew across the room and I felt some of them bounce off me. One impaled itself just to the side of my left eye, something that Kathryn found even more historical.

The sea of our lunch was rising rapidly and I was flailing about, suddenly forgetting how to swim.

"Kat!" I shouted amid choking on mouthfuls of slop. "Help!"

She stopped laughing but didn't help. She couldn't. She was, calmly, disappearing under the ocean she'd caused. The walls had fallen away. The edges of the room had moved outwards to a horizon I couldn't see. I heard gulls squawk. I heard Wey shout out.

I managed to pump my arms and legs enough to keep me afloat and grabbed for the line my friend had thrown me. He grunted and pulled on the cord... No, not cord. It was...

Bacon?

I was holding on to one end of a very long rashers of bacon!

In dreamland, such things are perfectly normal so, as Wey hauled me in, I remembered how to swim and kicked my legs frog style to help me along.

He was standing on top of the serving counter and I climbed next to him.

"Thank you!"

"It's OK," he said. "I wasn't hungry anyway."

I looked around for Kathryn. For a moment, I though she was gone, but then I saw her. Only the top of her head was visible. I ran towards her, keeping to the counter top. As she went fully under, I reached in and took hold of whatever I could.

Hair.

I pulled her up as hard as I could, but something was fighting against me. An undercurrent. I managed to see just a part of her. Her eyes.

They looked at me and my own eyes were locked with hers. And hers changed. They became... Alive! Full of all the joy and happiness of a five year old and the expected wisdom of a ninety year old.

I gasped.

Her hand came up from under the surface and gripped my wrist. She was trying to help me save her! Except, she wasn't. With a strength I was sure Kathryn had never displayed, she squeezed. I gritted my teeth against the pain but, when I heard and felt a bone crack, I let go.

She was gone.

I was awake. Swearing. Panting. Crying.

It was still dark, so I laid back down and closed my eyes. I had to reopen them as all I could see, instead of the blackness of my inner eyelids, was her looking back at me. The joy in her eyes as she drowned only made me sadder. I stared at the ceiling, blinking only when absolutely necessary, until morning came and the piercing white of the asylum's lights jabbed my pupils. Kathryn didn't serve at breakfast, only lunch and dinner. I had no choice but to wait.

"What's up with you?" asked Wey when he saw me. "You look like you either need a great bit dump or you're getting out. Unless you're getting out through the toilet waste."

"No," I replied. "Nothing like that. Nothing at all. I'm fine."

"Don't give me that. I know you're not on something, except for Connors happy pills, so what's going on?"

I told hm my concerns. Kathryn's dead eyes. My dream about her finding happiness in death. He tried to say it was my imagination, but I could see he wasn't convinced by that.

"I know you can spin a story better than most, Sin, but you don't invent stuff like this. It isn't you."

"No," I said. "It's not. I'm telling you, there's something wrong with her."

"Do you think we should tell someone?"

"Maybe Jeremy. I'll speak to him later."

"Let me know, OK?"

I nodded, then we both froze.

"Let you know what?"

It was a voice we didn't often hear in the corridors of the asylum, and was even rarer in the recreational room. It was a voice we only heard if we were in trouble or it was time for our sessions. Neither was preferable.

"Nothing, Dr. Connors," said Wey. "We were just chatting."

"About what?" he asked, moving in close. For a small man, he was very intimidating, something obvious from the tremor in Wey's voice.

"Erm... W... What's for lunch. The m... menu."

"Ah, discussing what culinary delights we have in store for you, eh?"

We both nodded, relieved.

"Well, I can tell you. It's the same delicious meal you usually get. You know, I deliberately make it so you can't really tell what's in it to save people complaining they don't like it."

We stayed silent, rather than admitting no one liked it. I was sure, and sure Wey thought the same, Connors knew that to be the case. He proved our belief:

"Of course, if nobody enjoys it, you won't want to steal anyone else's, so you'll just tolerate your own. Clever, don't you think?"

It was a question I never knew how to answer. Yes, I don't think. No, I don't think. Again, we didn't answer.

"Well," said Connors. "I must be on my way. You carry on with your gossiping. I'm pleased you weren't speaking about dear Kathryn behind her back, because that would be rude."

We were both shocked at that. He'd heard us! But, we weren't being rude. We were concerned.

"We were just worried about her, Doctor," I said.

"There's no need to be, Sin, but thank you for caring. I like that about you."

I doubted he actually liked anything about any of us, but I kept that opinion to myself.

"Kathryn is under my care. She had a little mishap, that's all. I like to make sure all my patients and staff are happy, so I've taken her under my wing. She'll be fine. In fact, I have a session with her in just a few minutes. Please excuse me."

So, there was something wrong! I was right, though it was a hollow victory. What Connors called a 'little mishap' could be anything. His condescending tone hid all manner of truths. I needed to find out what it was. When he was gone, I went to find Jeremy.

Jeremy, however, had chosen that day to take a holiday. How inconsiderate? I'd have to wait until the morning to find out anything, but at least I could see Kat at lunch time.

Noon took its time arriving, as if it had to visit every other time zone, stopping to have a cuppa and a piece of cake at each, before remembering it had to deal with us. I was first in the queue at the closed canteen doors, impatiently moving from side to side, before the bell went for lunch. When the doors opened, I rushed in.

"Eager for today's delights, I see Sin."

Connors! What was he doing here? And, as I surveyed the room, where was Kat?

"Looking for something?" Connors asked. "Or someone?"

I shook my head and looked directly at him. His eyes had the glint of something secret. His expression was smug, with a slight smile dancing on his lips to the tune of a funeral dirge.

"No," I said. "I was just wondering if this place would ever get a fresh coat of paint."

"Now Sin. Don't lie to me. You've never concerned yourself with the hospital's décor."

Fine, I thought.

"Fine," I said. "I wanted to see how Kathryn was."

"I told you, you don't need to worry about her. I've helped her. She won't be feeling sad anymore."

"What was wrong with her?" Wey asked from next to me. I hadn't seen him arrive.

"I told you, both of you, do not worry about her. Don't ask about her and don't think about her!"

He took a step forward and my heart started thudding. My fingers felt suddenly cold, as if all the blood had retreated to my innards in case it was in danger of being spilled.

We both nodded without saying anything. He didn't need us to. His advance and tone were enough.

Connors smiled, turned and left. Wey and I took a tray and the food served to us by Nabeela, who stood in Kat's place and whose eyes were intelligent though bored. We ate it in silence.

Kathryn never appeared in the kitchen again. I asked Jeremy, and he said he didn't know anything. I wasn't sure I believed him. When I asked the other staff, they answered:

"Kat who?"

She was gone. How and to where, I never knew.

But her dead eyes haunt me still.

I'd like to thanks Nablai for the great starter for this post. She hit the mark with it, as I'm a lover of banoffee pie and bacon. This story is a perfect example of starting with one thing and seeing where it goes, and it going somewhere completely different. I do so enjoy writing these!

In my head, Kathryn had lost her young child and been so devastated, she didn't think she had anything left to live for. Believing Connors to be a decent man who would help her with his psychiatric expertise, she went to see him, her boss.

In my head, Connors tried one of the strange techniques he like to invent - and has used extensively on Sin - and she died.

What do you think?

If you have a random sentence you'd like to give me for a starter, let me know. I'll create a new chapter beginning with it, featuring your name and dedicate it to you!