A visit with Chronos

They dragged me kicking and screaming through the Emergency Room doors.  My sisters thought they were doing me a favor.  I had been babbling for days, not drinking, eating or sleeping much at all.  As far as they were concerned, I was insane and needed help.  I remember their concerned faces, lips moving slowly in a blurred fashion, as they explained in motherly voices that I needed help and this was the best thing for me.
After four hours of watching the slow movements of the hospital personnel through the corridors compared to the lightening fast movements of the shadow men that had been terrifying me for weeks, the Emergency Room Psychiatrist entered the room.  He asked me a series of ridiculous questions that were supposed to ascertain my state of mind.  Nothing was multiple choices, it was all geared towards a slow moving, low IQ with yes or no answers.  My eyes would dart towards the blurs of the shadow people; listen to their whispered keens and moans.  No one believed me.  I was crazy.  Either that or the world was insane.  Maybe it was both.  The terror of what I was seeing or imagining was what was really getting to me, I think.  Maybe that's what brought me over the brink.  I have no idea.
The superficial nurses with their syrupy controlling smiles wheeled me on the wheelchair into the psychiatric unit just as the sun was breaking over the horizon.  All my possessions were taken from me and I was forced to wear a thin cotton hospital shirt and hospital pants with no underwear.  I looked like a sheet.  The dang clothes parted up the back, allowing other patients to see my bum if I wasn't careful.  Oh yeah, this was good for my mental health.  This was the first of the degradations that was forced upon the occupants of this prison.  We were all being tortured and punished for having thoughts or behaving in ways that were contrary to what society expected.  Civil rights and freedom?  Ha.  Freedom is a privilege, not a human right.
A TV was turned on to a morning show, pouring out the same negativity that most newscasts always do.  The plastic couches and chairs were filled with patients and nurses checking of lists and taking vital signs.  I sat down slowly in the corner, watching the other patients for signs of maniacal objections to the spot I had decided to occupy.  They all seemed to be too drugged up to care.  I wasn't looking forward to that part of my stay.  Being forced to take hallucinogens or downers so that I could shuffle around and drool wasn't my idea of being cured of whatever it was that ailed me.
I watched the TV with brain numbing boredom.  Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed one of the blurs, the shadow people, slow down.  I prepared myself for the terror I had been experiencing at these visions for the past weeks.  This time it wasn't as bad.  Perhaps it was because I had accepted that I was insane, and hallucinations were par for the course.
A tall man dressed in strange dark brown leather, his face almost the same color as his coat sat down next to me.  His piercing blue eyes met mine and he smiled slowly.  He slowly put out his hand and said "OOOOOWwww".  His voice sounded like it was coming down a long tunnel and I felt like I was falling through it.  I focused on the television.  The reporter was speaking normally, no strange tones or vibrations there.  I looked back at the strange looking man with the leathery face and said, "I'm sorry, I don't understand."  He smiled slowly and touched something on his wrist.  Suddenly he was a blur again.  I felt like I was watching a movie that was out of focus, only he was the only thing that was out of focus.