Pins and Spiderwebs

Sunlight pours between the clouds scattered in the sky, radiating across the lush greenery, the rolling hills, the many deciduous trees. Summer has set in; many plants that have been dead through winter are animate once more. They press against a quaint, three-story brick building.

The insane hide behind these walls.

Lewis resides on the second floor here. His room is stark white with a small barred window overlooking the shrub-less backyard. One small bed bolted into the white tiled floor serves as furniture. Some days he perches on it, but more often he crouches beneath the window.Three months have passed since Lewis’ admittance. His mind had slipped quite suddenly one morning and, as he flailed on the ground, his shrieks of pins and spider webs could be heard half a mile away. He had been such an independent man; not even his mama and papa could explain what had happened. They rushed him here to the asylum, but I have been his only visitor.

Honestly, I do not believe his parents care that he may die soon.

On Lewis’ saner days, when it was just the two of us in his room, I would listen intently as he explained the pins and spider webs.

“They are always there, Janette, the webs spinning around my veins and heart, the pins stabbing my eyes and head. Even now, they are here, inside of me. I fear I will never be rid of them!”

For almost three months he refused to answer my worried inquiries. Then, one day he said, “Though you may think me insane, know that I would be better again without this ‘medicine’ pulsing through me.”

“But, Lewis,” I began, “you need the medicine. Dr Fiend…”

Footsteps sounded outside the metal door. “Come close, Janette. Quickly.” Voice no more than a whisper, Lewis said, “There is no medicine-- only drugs. Every patient here is an experiment. The doctor…”

“Are you ready for your sedative, Mr. Quint?” Dr. Fiend’s staccato voice boomed as he entered. His lab coat fluttered by his sides, offsetting his graying hair. Suddenly, his grin disconcerted me.

Lewis shuddered much more fervently as I touched his cheek, exited into the hall with weights of dread. Tears collected in my eyes at Lewis’ screams, and I silently begged it to be over soon.

Dr. Fiend escorted me to the front door, and I bid him a warm farewell despite a new revulsion toward him before departing. I was in much need of silence to arrange my thoughts and actions.

It has been almost a week since that last day, and resignation has overtaken me. I stalk into the asylum and command the secretary to summon Dr. Fiend through my wildly raging heart.

The doctor takes me to see Lewis, but I stay for only a few minutes to see his condition, which remains stable. Then, I stride back into the hall. I curtly tell him, “Doctor, I know you are keeping Lewis and others here as experiments.” To his blank look and sputter of an objection, I say, “I know certainly that you are testing illegal drugs on them; they are only insane from the drugs you have given them. When I leave, I am going straight to the authorities. I am only here to collect Lewis and leave.”

Dr. Fiend’s eyes have lost their luster, his mouth a tight line. “Miss Tret. I had hoped it would not come to this, and I am very displeased to see it has. Yes, many of my patients are lab rats. It despairs me to say, though, that Mr. Quint is an unfit specimen. I had hoped that, sooner or later, you would join him here, but it seems I was wrong. My condolences.”

A small needle pricks my arm, sending a blaze quickly to my heart. There is nothing I can say as I collapse.

The slight man faces the setting sun, his hands casually behind his back. Minute caresses of shovels against the cemetery ground sound behind him; they cease, and he hears footsteps approach. Without turning, he asks, “Well?”

“It is done, sir. There will be no traces that anything has gone on. The others will make sure of it.” The worker’s voice is quick and tentative; it wavers slightly and rises at the end.

“What is it, Spalden?” the man asks calmly.

Without hesitation, the worker inquires, “Why did we load them with drugs and bury them. The man and the girl? The girl could have been as useful as her lover. They didn’t have to be buried…alive.”

Dr. Fiend remains where he is, gazing upon the golden sun with a half-crazed smirk. “My dear Spalden. Wouldn’t you have thought it odd if both a man and his lover were certified as insane in roughly the same time period? It was better for them to die inconspicuously.

“As for the drugs,” the doctor continued with a growing smile. “I wanted them to feel the spider webs and pins as vividly as I have.”