My cousin called me and invited me and my parents to dinner. We went to my uncle’s house and they gave us a warm welcome, but I don’t know how it happened that they all stared at me and didn’t say a single word to my parents. We returned home, and the next morning my uncle and cousin came to our house. I heard a sound as if someone was banging bricks on the door. I quickly jumped out of the room and shouted, “Who is it? Which idiot? What’s going on?” I looked around, my cousin, uncle, father, mother, and brother were all sitting and despite such heavy banging on the door, they were drinking tea and eating sugar cubes! I said, “Don’t you hear this noise?” At that moment my mother, crying, went to her room and slammed the door. My father shouted, “Go away and open the door now!” I went and opened the door. Four strong male donkeys lifted me up. I was scared and shouting but no one helped me. While I was struggling, my father and uncle were cracking sunflower seeds. One of those male donkeys hit me hard on the head, and I lost control and could not stand on my feet. They held my hands tightly and dragged me on the stairs, and finally put me into a van which had a phone number written on it and the words “Jason Asylum” in big green letters.
After a while, I regained consciousness and had handcuffs and shackles on. I looked outside through the vehicle window and saw a sign that said “Swimming Strictly Prohibited Here,” although there was no water there and only a dried-up lake was present. I arrived at the asylum and was taken to the doctor’s room. I was very angry because this was not my place, but the doctor kept smirking annoyingly. I poured the glass of water they gave me on his face, stuck out my tongue, made faces, spoke nonsense, and stretched out my hand like a zombie toward him. The doctor smirked again and said, “I wish your madness was only this much, they would have kept you in prison.” I said, “Prison? What are you saying, you crazy man? Prescribe some medicine for yourself.” The doctor said, “If I were you, I would be crazy too, I’d pretend to be insane. You killed your parents and you have schizophrenia.” I was angry and shocked, stood up from the chair, screamed, and shouted, “Unlock my handcuffs!” At that moment, a fat nurse brought a piece of cloth smelling like alcohol near my nose and I passed out.
When I woke up, I saw myself in a small room that smelled of urine and semen—and yes, my old, short roommate smelled like semen too. I talked with him and he said he was not crazy, but pretended to be insane to avoid prison and stay here. I asked why he came here, and apparently, he was a politician with videos leaked by reporters proving he was a pedophile. I stayed with this smelly old man for a few days in the asylum, and my anger and rage had lessened. For this reason, the asylum director came to see me and explained that I killed my parents due to psychological pressure and showed me pictures of their bodies, the murder scene, and evidence proving I killed them. I told him, “The same day you kidnapped me, I saw my parents at home. If you end this nonsense right now, I won’t sue you.” The asylum director said, “After the murder, your mind imagined the murder never happened so you wouldn’t feel guilty.” The police talked to neighbors and found out they said your parents are alive because you always said goodbye to them when leaving. To make sure you are sick, the police informed your uncle and invited you to dinner at his house. Then the police realized you really have an illness and your place is in the asylum instead of prison.
I was speechless; slowly their words became believable. I cried and ran from the asylum hall to my room. I didn’t know what to do—cry, laugh, shout, or stay silent. Whatever I did, the staff would label it as a sign of illness. I lay down on my bed and accepted the bitter truth.
I stayed about six months in the asylum and got used to it; at least it was better than the city environment. There, I had to work ten hours a day just to feed myself. I had no money for entertainment or buying a house. I had an old car that my father had bought to transport passengers. We had a seventy-square-meter apartment on the fifth floor of a dirty building, and in summer, I stayed awake most nights because either the city’s electricity was cut off and it was hot and the air conditioner wouldn’t work, or the neighbors were noisy. The asylum was terrible too, but it was better than living in a middle or poor class in this country.
The wake-up time was seven in the morning, and in the yard, in 44-degree heat or heavy rain or severe cold, it didn’t matter, we had to do morning exercise. At eight, the nurse gave us our pills, and we ate breakfast. There was always a fight during pill time in the hall; all newcomers claimed they were not crazy and caused chaos, and they were right. There was a man with a master’s degree in psychology who told the nurse and his secretary to call him doctor, and everyone knew him as doctor. He talked to himself in loneliness, and his wife and child treated him like a servant.
There was also a nurse who was always drunk at night, with red eyes, messy hair, stained clothes, constantly flattering and seducing that same fake doctor, hoping one day to take his nice car and villa like a parasite.
Even crazier was the asylum director, a leech who steals the asylum’s budget to expand his 500-square-meter house to 900 square meters, forcing us to do our own cooking, cleaning, and so on. Still, we were satisfied here because we were not out there living.
Even crazier than all these were the street zombies scattered everywhere, scavenging and making money from every substance and world event.
Of course, there was an exception: my dirty old roommate who always smelled like semen, a rich politician who really was crazy with the fame and power he gained with money. He could do anything by paying money to the asylum director. One night, the asylum director sent four teenagers under eighteen to our room so he could have sex with them.
One morning, after exercise, I sat at the table for breakfast. The nurse and doctor came and sat with me and said, “We’re sorry for these six months you spent here. It’s time for you to know the truth. We were making a documentary to see if an ordinary person would believe they are crazy or not. That’s why your parents contacted us and agreed. In exchange for sixty thousand dollars, they allowed us to bring you here. And those papers you signed without reading were actually permission to broadcast your image in the documentary.” They apologized a lot and finally said, “You can go home tonight. Only the gate won’t open because the electricity bill is unpaid. You have to climb over the fence and at the end of the dirt road a driver is waiting for you.”
You might think I felt angry, but I was very happy and always knew I wasn’t crazy. I waited for night to come. It was Christmas Eve, and the guards and all staff were celebrating and drinking. The doctor and nurse invited me too, but I really wanted to join them, though I preferred to leave here more. I wanted to hug my parents after going home and take that money and move to a green place deep in the forest and live there. Tears gathered in my eyes from happiness. It was raining. I climbed the fence and ran toward the dirt road. Suddenly, a light zoomed on me from the watchtower. A guard shouted, “Stay there, don’t move!” I ignored and kept going. He shouted again, “Where are you going?” I turned, opened my hands, and shouted, “I’m going home!” At that moment, I heard a gunshot. I looked down; blood was pouring from all over me onto the ground. My head spun and I fell down. My vision blurred and I saw two guards above me. One nervously said, “He got away from me, sorry sir.” The other started talking, and as he spoke, my eyes slowly closed. He laughed and said, “Don’t worry, no one’s after you. Good thing you hit him, that ungrateful bastard killed his parents and a nurse and a doctor.”
That was my end. The end of reality or the end of madness—I don’t know.
