Now we're all used to the Suicide Girl website with the chicks with the big tatted thingies and dyed hair and pierced flesh, but this chick is the real deal. And she doesn't even need any of that crappy, inky trendiness to confirm her as such. So for a friend who needed support in her ongoing trials and tribulations with the craziness and unpredictability of life, this sympathetic soul and all around empathetic human being took the drive to the Worcester State Mental Asylum in Worcester, MA to get her daily dose of the psychologically unfit.
It was a sight to be seen, and everything you'd expect from a state run sanitarium.
The long road to the ward was paved with bumpy concrete. The building itself was ike a character in a Stephen King novel-- kind of like in The Shining, how the hotel became it's own entity; a character as recognizable as the actor running around it's confines with axe in hand. It showed signs of age and deterioration.
Various patients were walking around the grounds, (completely supervised of course), observing my red Sante Fe with a strong level of curiosity and distrust. Some were out and about in a fenced in enclosure, safe and secure from the reality of the outside world. Some were playing basketball, tag, and other various games. Some were drawing pictures, making macaroni necklaces, and sitting against the wall with their heads looking up towards the sky trying to forget exactly where they were. Bars clasped windows, red bricks were slowly chipping away, and many "Worcester Mental Health" Rent-a-Cops were patrolling the area, making sure no one escaped through the cracks. This place was an out and hospital where you can smell the sickness permeating the air even before you walk through the doors. It was almost like a prison; signing in, badges, rules upon rules like they're convicts, all to see my suicidal pixie.
As I walked in, I wandered through the halls wondering where to go, and then found a lady seated behind closed glass, looking at me like I had nine heads. She directed me to my destination, so to 6A I went. Lo and behold the moment I was buzzed through the door, there was my friend stepping out of the elevator, lathered in the wear and tear of a three month stay, fresh bandages from recent mutilations wrapped around her arm, but still the same person I've come to know and love.
The visit was comfortable, exciting, sad, and depressing, but what made it great, what really bonded us in our hour together, was our mutual love for music. When I asked her about her IPod she quickly broke it out. With our feet up on the table and our chairs against the walls, we listened to the melancholy lullibies of Conor Oberst and Cat Power, smiles bracing our faces. And in that moment we felt far away from where we were, far away from the troubles of life, far away from that red brick building, with no macaroni necklaces in sight.