Chapter 1 - This Is the First Chapter (Aren't You Happy?)

He didn't know why they called it a hospital. It served no hospitality to him whatsoever.

He sat in his room, on his bed, the blanket pushed away from him, reading one of the books his mother had gave him before his “little stay”. The room was small, contained a bed, a dresser, a sink, and a closet. That was all. The whole room was white, and it seemed to always be full of empty space.

He was in his late twenties. Reasonable age to get married, his mother thought. But his father decided he was incapable of being in the world, so they put him in the “hospital”. He had a drooping mouth; he always appeared to be frowning. There was a seriousness to his face, but he looked young, or at least younger than his late twenties. He had longish dark brown hair, not long like a prince in a fantasy story, just longer than it normally was, because it hadn't been cut for a few months.

There was a knock on his door. His wide brown eyes darted up. “Spencer?” a woman's voice called. It was definitely one of the nurses who'd come to give him a shot. He hoped it was Lela, because she seemed to understand that he was unhappy and didn't like being treated like he was insane.

“Yes? Come in,” he said, putting a bookmark his sister bought for him into his book. He hoped who ever it was heard him. His voice was very quiet sometimes.

It turned out to be Tammy. Spencer hated her. Loathed her. She was plump, with no definite age, and had a huge mole with a few little hairs growing out of it next to her lip. It wasn't pretty. She also wore blindingly red lipstick a lot, and looked to him like a rather obese hooker with bright blue eye-shadow.

She was wearing Daffy Duck scrubs. Spencer didn't like Daffy Duck after a bad experience at a theme park when he was five.

“Hello, Spencer, how are you today?” she asked. She was saying everything very slowly, like he couldn't understand her.

“I'm unhappy, thanks for asking,” he growled. “I'm not three, you know, I can understand what you're saying.” The words “mental institution” crossed his mind. He was living in one. He was wrongfully living in one. Most of the people there were retarded or too crazy to be living on their own, without their parents. They had no parents, usually, or, like Spencer, their parents didn't want them.

“Alright, I'll treat you like a grown-up, then,” she said. She was in the process of checking to see whether his bed-pan was full or not. He couldn't figure out if she honestly thought he needed that. She got the same results every time, it was always empty. He waited until the end of the day and used the staff bathroom because he was annoyed at digusting bathroom he was supposed to use.

He didn't even believe he needed a bed-pan. He could walk and get up just fine, he just normally didn't want to. The dog thought him uncapable of that, even.

He looked through the window next to his bed. The sun was setting slowly over the autumn landscape. If you could call a dirty city much of a landscape. He hated the fences surrounding the perimeter of the institute. He felt held in. Truly, he was. The doctors told the people in the institute that were capable of comprehending words that the fences were there to keep people out of the institute.

Tammy had gone back to the sink, which was for washing hands, brushing teeth, and preparing medicines and shots. There was a container of rubber gloves as well. She stretched some on. It looked like the fingertips of the gloves would tear because of her long, plastic fingernails. They were hot pink and dangerous looking.

“I'm not dirty, you know.” He hadn't looked away from the window; he instead was watching her reflection in it. “You don't have to wear those.”

“I have to wear these. The doctor says that I should, in case I have any bad germs on my hands that I wouldn't want to get on you.”

Oh, please, he thought, You're a nurse, you're always sterile. On the other hand, he mused, she might not be, being herself and all. Spencer chuckled to himself.

She was filling a shot with some kind of medicine to “keep him quiet”. He got three shots a day every other day. The shots were always giving to him right before meals. He didn't understand how the nurses could be so stupid. The shots he received made him sick, and he lost his appetite. He felt like vomiting after he got them.

As she walked back over to him, she said, “It's getting closer to winter every day. That means Santa will be here soon. Maybe he'll come and visit the hospital, and you can tell him what you want for Christmas.” She pushed up his sleeve and began to rub his arm with a cotton ball soakign with rubbing alcohol. It was giving him the shivers.

“I am not three years old. I know Santa Claus doesn't exist, and I don't deserve to be treated like this!” he said angrily. She pushed the needle into his arm. He flinched. It hurt him. His whole arm was sore from so many shots, and each of the nurses that came to him that day had all given him their shot in the same arm.

“If you say that, he won't bring you a present. Instead you'll get a lump of coal! That wouldn't be very nice, would it?”

It'd be better than anything wrapped by you, he thought angrily.

The needle came out of him arm. Tammy began to rub his arm once again. His arm was in such pain. He just wanted to go home, to his little apartment, and see his Chow-Chow, Trigger, read his books, call his sister and ask her if she wanted to do lunch, but instead he was stuck in this god-for-saken asylum, miserably hoping, praying, they'd see he wasn't crazy and that he longed for home, and wanted to get out.

He felt like crying.

Later, in the dining hall, during supper, he sat poking at his mashed potatoes hopelessly. He'd been there for about two months, with one visit from his mother. He had refused to look at his father. He was just a filthy traitor for putting him in this “hospital”.

There was a girl named Sarah next to him. She had gone from institution to institution for her whole life. She had a loud voice, and it sounded like she was five years old. Sarah had blonde hair, with some red tints here and there, that was long and tangled. She had almost white-blue eyes, and she couldn't see very well.

“Hi Spencer, how are you today?” she said in that loud, obnoxious, voice.

“I'm alright, Sarah, thank you for asking.” He wasn't alright, but was afriad Sarah would start crying if he said otherwise.

She began to bounce up and down. “I'm happy for you, Spencer!” There was food all around her mouth. Sarah was incapable. She couldn't button a button, couldn't use the bathroom by herself.

She's a sweetie, he thought.

Sarah considered him her only friend, he figured. Not that there was anyone she wasn't friendly with, but he was more of a best friend to her. She was constantly asking if he wanted to play Candyland with her, or if he would help her build a mudpie.

After supper, he crept back to his room and pressed his face against the window. The blanket was up to his shoulders. It was cold. He had turned on his lamp, and was awaiting a call from his mother. She called him once a week, usually on Thursdays, which was today, unless she didn't get a chance to.

The phone in his room rang. All of the “patients” had a phone in their rooms, but they could only get called by someone. They could never call anyone themselves. He happily answered it.

“Hello, this is Spencer of room number two hundred twenty-three,” he said. It turned out to be his mother, as he predicted.

“Hey, sweetie, how are you?” she said. She had started to treat him different, and he noticed it, too. Her words were slower when she talked to him.

“I'm not happy,” he said, changing the mood drastically.

“Honey, you have to be in the hospital until,” she paused. “Until you get better.”

“You're never going to let me out.”

“Yes we are, once we…”

He hung up. He'd been trying for the last week or so to convince her to let him out. He hated it in the institute. There was no happiness there.

He fell asleep soon after.

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