Her Silhouette

Her Silhouette

Dear Lucius

Why are you laughing so much? Don't you know you keep me up at night? I don't laugh. It's okay to laugh, but you never stop. But it's okay. I don't sleep much and neither do you. Laughing so much.

I grasp up my head and hair I touch. I pull and it rains, rains like bodies. Such a quiet, quiet cave and white like the slits of irisless eyes that crawl, gush out of bleached skulls. Icy, unfriendly floor. There is no stain on it.

With her with her with her with her

Yesyesyesyesyes

I know the answer. It was me. It was Lucius. It's why Lucius laughs. It's not the laugh. It's why I laugh. Why I laugh is why I laugh and that makes me laugh so I can't sleep. Lucius I can't sleep because you laugh. You can't know the answer.

But the answer is you? Lucius is with her. Lucius was with her.

Tell me!

-U

Dear Lucius

No sleep. Laugh. Laugh all the time.

I saw!I saw!I saw what makes me laugh. I saw again and you laugh again. And I laugh again. And I saw why I laugh and I know why I laugh because I laugh but I don't remember. I don't remember. I don't remember.

Lucius!

Rememberrememberrememberremember

Do you remember?

Stroke, caress the floor like the snowy skin that I licked.

-U

Dear Lucius

A woman! A woman! Her stain! Her beautiful lifeless stain. Laugh! Laugh! You laugh! It was the woman!

She could only see she could only see she could only see!

Hair longlonglonglong and pretty. Touchtouch. I touched it and scratchy, scratchy knots caught under my nails. Her smell. Raw and meaty on my fingers.

She could feel she was cold. She was cold,  cold, cold because she was naked, naked. And I touched. Lips peeked between her legs pink!pink! and crusty and chunky. I touched. A pearl on top and I touchedandtouched and proddedandprdded and it poppedandpopped! and I liked it so much it made me laugh.

Then she fell, fell and she left the stain. The gorgeous, stunning stain! I saw the stain because I snuck. Sneak!sneak!sneak. They did not catch me!

It makes me laugh because it makes me laugh but I don't remember. Lucius!

-U

U,

My laughter has offended you, and for that I apologize. Emerging only to laugh was rude of me. I also express my deepest regret for my tardy response. Your letters arrived, and while I was able to read them, the time to respond to them escaped me. However, I hope to aid you now. I will tell you a story that may help you remember.

There once was a princess who lived in a castle, but she was always trapped in her room. She was unhappy and nothing anyone did for her helped her distress. One day, her guards failed to lock her room. She escaped. However, this was the princess's first time outside of her room. She did not know the maze that was the castle hallways and floors. She wandered higher and higher up the castle chambers.

Meanwhile, the kingdom was distraught over the lost princess. Finally, they accepted her disappearance. The castle resumed natural order. One day, one of the servants of the castle was sent to the highest chamber to clean up. It was there that the servant found the princess, weeks into her death. She had died from hunger and cold. Unable to find her way back to her room, she had fallen to the exhaustion of death.

When they lifted her, her body left a stain on the dirty castle floor. A silhouette of her death. The castle servants tried to clean it, but it refused to disappear. The princess's stain forever remained in the castle, despite the many tries all the castle hands made to remove it.

Her death became a story, a legend, a myth, but there was one who was there with her during her final days, for there was said another stain was found next to hers. A stain of tears. That one, however, evaporated away.

Sincerely yours,  

Lucius

Lucius, I remember. I remember why I laugh.

 ...

      ...

             ...

                   ...

PSYCHOLOGICAL EVALUATION

THE ATHENS LUNATIC ASYLUM

Lucis Nill                                                    

Dates of Evaluation: 1/12/1979 - 1/15/1979          Date of Report: 1/16/1979                  
Case No. 199,89                                                                 Building No. 4                                            
Admission Date: June 18, 1975                                   Evaluator: Frank K. Jones, Ph.D.

Originally administrated for classic Freudian case of hysteria, Lucius has rapidly begun to develop signs of Dissociative Identity Disorder. The most noticeable is his strong insomnia that has persisted for four days now in addition to his current hysterical laughter. Violent mood swings were present during the past four days as well. Lucius cradles the room floor almost as if hugging it. Other times he lays with his back on the floor, motionless, though at times he has been heard saying the word "stain" while in such a position. Suicidal tendencies, which were not originally present, have risen up as of yesterday, the 15th. Lucius is now on suicide watch and was transferred to the suicide ward.

Curious enough, Lucius's symptoms rose the same day when Margaret Schilling –a deaf, mute in our care– was found dead in the upper, unused area of the asylum in ward No. 20. She had escaped last year in early December and, though searched for, was never found until early this year in January by a maintenance employee. However, during the time of her absence Lucius did not exhibit any of the symptoms that have now arisen within him.

Stranger still, when Lucius lays on his room floor, he lays the same way Margaret was found. Her body left an outline on the ward floor where she was found dead. Does Lucius's repetition of the word "stain" have anything to do with this? How would he know such a detail about her death? He has never been reported missing from his room.

Further investigation into Margaret's death as well as further evaluation into Lucius's symptoms must be taken.