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Minds Matter Magazine Volume Fly Kira II Lynn Issue I Arts & Media
When I went to the activity room, I
realized I wasn’t the only one empty and
disillusioned. One woman peered through
a crack in the white plaster wall in hopes of
communicating with her long lost brother,
someone from the outside she lost years ago.
At night, I could hear the woman cry as she
rocked herself against the wall, begging to be
let out; the woman became so fixated on that
one spot. The more I watched the woman
the more I began to draw parallels to myself.
I was drawn to the windows, reprieves from
the dank hallways and the smelly bathrooms
no one would bother to clean. I didn’t want
to be reminded of the sticky floors in the dining
hall where they served nothing but cold
lunches and lukewarm suppers. I didn’t want
to be reminded of the cold and hard metal
chairs in my group session. I would rather
look blankly into the world that had forgotten
me than subject myself to the conditions I
found myself in.
“I want to go home,” I choked, poking
the fly with a dry fingertip. The fly stumbled
back.
I wanted to go back to the warmth
of my blankets that would accompany me
well into my sleep-ins. I wanted to go back
to mypancake brunches and the sweet dewy
grass freshly mowed every Sunday. It was
these small snippets of a life past lived that
would accompany me into the night and
make me yearn for a life I was more suited
for. My roommate would look me in the eye,
as though she knew, as though she understood.
I didn’t know that the moment I would
step through the large wooden doors, into
the brightly lit triage room, I would have to
give up so much.
“What home would there be to go back
to?” It inquired between the flutter of its
wings, as it made a move against the window
frame.
“Perhaps there is nothing to go back
to,” I admitted the fly. “The more I stay here,
the more I am truly losing my mind.”
The door swung open. I anxiously
snapped around, fearful it was my roommate.
My roommate was by no means a vicious
person but the woman was rather talkative
and I did not appreciate it, especially when
I was trying to get some rest. My roommate
was lonely and so it was appropriate to entertain
her late night rambles. My roommate
was abandoned by her family long ago; it was
depressing. The more I thought about it, the
more I realized my roommate wasn’t the only
one. No one wanted to drive through the
rusted gates that made an awful crying noise,
like the pitiful screech of a desperate child, as
they opened. No one wanted to be pat down
at the door by a security guard that had little
inclination of what his job truly implied. No
one wanted to be reminded of the people
they left behind.
Photograph by Adley Lobo
Thankfully it wasn’t my chatty roommate
but the floor’s nurse. She was a young
and fresh face in a long line of old and tired
ones. The nurse tried to connect but in an attempt
to connect, she found herself ignoring
the conditions around her. The nurse tuned
out the screams and the slaps, the shit throwing,
the insults. I knew that it would break the
nurse; it very well broke me.
“It’s time for your afternoon medications.”
She handed me the small Dixie cup
filled with water and a clear tray of medication.
“I tried to find you in the activity room.
ou’re not painting today?”
“Not today, Leena. I don’t feel very creative.”
I shoveled the pills into her mouth; the
cup of water had barely enough to slip them
out of my mouth and into my throat.
“Well, that’s fine. No one feels creative
every day.”
“Bless you, Leena but I don’t want to
hear how I’m still like everyone else today. I
don’t feel myself. In fact, I don’t remember
what it was like to be myself.”
The nurse smiled, as was customary.
They learned to validate feelings rather than
correct them; it would only agitate them.
“There’s no worse feeling than not
knowing who you are.”
“No, I think there’s worse.”
“Being alone?” The fly asked.
I pinched the fly by the wings, watching
it squirm against thumb and forefinger.
Never had I been able to grab a fly, no matter
how hard I tried. It was like it had given in to
me long ago. Or maybe it had given in to the
walls.
Photograph by Adley Lobo
“Well, that’s not nice.” The nurse
snapped.
I looked up to find that the nurse had
unlocked the window and pushed it open
slightly. I unleashed the fly by the crack of
the window. The air seemed to revitalize the
small creature and it tumbled off the ledge.
I couldn’t see if it managed to fly out on its
own or not as it fell down the side of the
building, covered in dying shrubbery.
“It’s best to leave it be, where it belongs.
It would be cruel otherwise.” And the
nurse locked the window.
Kira Lynn
1 st Place UTSC Winner
Fiction
Kira Lynn is an undergraduate student at the
University of Toronto Scarborough studying
psychology and human biology. Kira says that
her personal experience with mental illness has
shaped the way they interact with the world
through writing.
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