The Quiet Room nosleep

The Quiet Room was an eight-foot by five-foot cell in the basement of a juvenile detention center in Texas. My cell sat at the end of a narrow hallway. The bare walls were painted white. The floor and ceiling were white as well. A steel door with a small window was also solid white. On the floor rested a solid white mattress. It was in this room that I spent the spring and summer of 1997.

Six months.

According to numerous studies, some of the scarier effects of solitary confinement can take hold in a little under a few days. These symptoms include delusions, hallucinations, insomnia, paranoia, uncontrollable rage, and distortions of time or perception to name a few. So as I proceed with this story, I must inform you that my recollection is incredible at best.

The why and the how of my placement in this facility are irrelevant. It was one of many facilities in the mid-90's that existed to house out-of-control youth. I was originally placed on a maximum-security wing and in a cell that could almost pass for a dorm room if not for the steel door.

I stayed in that room for the better part of a year. That all changed when my roommate decided that I was cute and felt it necessary to make an unwelcome advance. I put him in the infirmary and I was given an extended stay in the quiet room. I was fifteen.

It took three large men to forcibly move me to the quiet room. I was stripped naked, put into a paper gown, and thrown into the room. I spent the first hour screaming and kicking the door. I punched the glass window until my fist was bloody. I screamed until my voice was hoarse. In my mind then and now, I had done nothing wrong.

This changed nothing. I eventually fell into a fitful sleep on the cold mattress. Without a pillow or blanket, the sixty-eight degree temperature felt like a refrigerator. I woke up shivering several times. By the time breakfast was served, I had already lost any concept of time.

Breakfast was finger food. Small slices of sandwiches and a styrofoam cup of juice. This was my every meal. There was no variation. I'd receive three meals a day and twice a day I'd be led to a small restroom in the hallway to use the toilet or shower. I moved through the first few days under the expectation I'd eventually be let out. I put on my best behavior and hoped I'd be allowed back in the general population. This didn't happen.

Somewhere around week two, I asked the guard who was leading me to the restroom when I could expect to go back to my unit. He laughed and said, "Didn't they tell you?" I shot back, "No?" He pushed me into the restroom and said, "You got ninety days for roughing up your roommate kid. You got another month for all that hollerin' you did when we tossed you in."

I punched him square in the jaw. I'd like to say it had anything resembling an effect on him, but I was a fifteen year old kid and he was a thirty-year-old ex-marine. He beat me up one side and down the other before tossing me back in the quiet room.

Doug never let me live that down. Each time he'd lead me from the quiet room to the restroom he'd tease me about my punch. If Doug didn't work that day, I'd get Stuart. Stuart was pushing sixty, but I knew better to try and push past him. He had been one of the guys to drag me down there. For the next however many days it was either Stuart or Doug. I began to recognize the days by who tended to me.

Somewhere along the way, I started talking to myself. That isn't terribly uncommon. At first I voiced both sides of the conversation, but eventually the silence was unlocked by the sound of a voice not entirely different that mine. My conversation partner may have been in my head, but as time went on I began to picture them with a face and with their own voice. By the time I had been in that room for a month, I could get lost in conversation with her. By the end of two months I had forgotten that she wasn't real.

Her name was Amanda. She was fifteen and like me she was in isolation. Sometimes she'd talk to me from the other side of the wall and sometimes she'd sneak into my cell. Like me, she had fucked up parents that found her more suitable as a scapegoat than a child. She had also punched a teacher and caught a charge. I valued our conversations. I hated when Doug or Stuart would show up and chase her away.

Eventually, Amanda started talking about escape. I laughed at the idea. Even still she'd say, "It's easy. You're in here all day anyway. Just do pushups and shit. Eventually you'll be able to fight your way out." I laughed, but I took her advice. Each day when the guards were gone, Amanda would run me through pushups, sit-ups, jogging in place, and punching the mattress.

I'd spend my days working out and my nights talking to Amanda as I tried to sleep. The best nights where when she would curl up next to me on the mattress. She was always so cold, but it felt better than sleeping alone. I'd wake each morning and she'd be gone, but before long I could hear her knocking on the other side of the wall.

I can't tell you how long this went on, but I can tell you that eventually I listened to Amanda. Stuart came to lead me to the restroom and I punched him hard in the middle of his chest. It knocked the wind out of him. I followed with a hard punch to his face that all but broke my hand. He went down and I kicked him as I ran down the hall. The door was locked.

I went back to grab his keys but he was already getting back on his feet. He had a radio in his hands and had already said, "CSO to Isolation Ward." The CSO were the closest thing the detention center had to a SWAT team. In less than a minute I had men with riot shields pushing me back into my cell and hitting me with a syringe of Chlorpromazine.

The CPZ shot would knock me out, but what I hated the most about it is that I wouldn't see or hear from Amanda until it wore off almost twelve hours later. However, when she returned she wasn't as kind as I remembered her. The first words out of her mouth were, "God you are such a fuck up."

She may have been my friend in the beginning, but something changed with that shot. I'd wake up in the morning to hear her say, "Looks like I'm gonna die in here. Well, that makes two of us..." Sometimes she'd simply say, "You know the only way out of here is in a bodybag, right?" By this point I had stopped talking to Amanda. The things that came out of her mouth were becoming so fucked up that I'd attack Stuart or Doug just to get a shot and some real sleep.

What followed was an unknown amount of time where I violently attacked anything that moved to ensure that the young woman I shared a cell with wouldn't be able to ridicule me anymore. It makes sense if you don't think about it. However, as much as I needed those shots, they were becoming less frequent and the effects weren't lasting as long as they used to.

My dreams were no longer the safe haven they had once been. Amanda would ridicule me there as much as she did in the quiet room. Eventually, she brought her friend Mike with her. Mike was seventeen and a bit taller than I was. She'd fuck him on the other side of the wall. Her moans and his grunts would keep me awake as I tried to sleep. Each morning she'd come into my cell and say something like, "Oh I'm sorry, did you have a crush on me? Please, like I'd ever let you inside me."

I'd explode into a rage and attack Amanda only for Mike to throw me to the ground and curse at me. Sometimes I'd just go for him and get my ass handed to me. I don't exactly know when it occurred to me, but I eventually turned to the only thing I could think of, prayer.

I'd move through Our Father's and Hail Mary's as Amanda taunted me. I'd say, "Hail Mary full of grace..." and Amanda would say, "I thought you were crazy when you were talking to me..." I'd say, "Our Father who art in heaven..." and Mike would say, "You're just a pathetic faggot talking to thin air..." I spent days begging God to either free me or kill me. I didn't really care which.

Amanda and Mike taunted me through my prayers and stalked me in my dreams. I soon realized there was no point in praying in that direction. Utilizing my very limited understanding of the occult I punched the wall until my knuckles were bleeding and drew a pentagram on the floor in my blood.

I uttered the words, "Satan, if you're down there, I could use some help."

Amanda and Mike disappeared.

The chilled air of the room turned to a comfortable summer heat. The lights flickered for a moment and the pentagram was gone. Doug came shortly after with a styrofoam plate of food and said, "Huh, not talking to yourself today?"

I ate my meal in peace for the first time in weeks. I proceeded to use the restroom, shower and kick Doug square in the balls. I took my beating, received my shot and slept peacefully for the first time in months.

I woke to a man I didn't recognize sitting in the doorway with a folding chair and a clipboard. His employee badge read Dr. Benjamin Lyle. I groggily sat up and he tossed me a granola bar saying, "Have a bite, we have some paperwork to go through."

I sat cross-legged on the mattress and ravenously tore into the granola bar. He spoke with a monotone voice and said, "By my count you've been in here for three months. With all of your recent infractions I suspect you'll be in here for another three months. Even still, they want me to do a full psychiatric evaluation."

For the next three hours he sat there and asked me questions only to write my responses on the legal pad or clipboard in his lap. Something about him left me unwilling to push past him. That and I kinda hoped that I'd get another granola bar if I behaved. As he finished up his questions he folded the chair and placed it in the hall. He dropped his pen. As he gathered his belongings into an attache case he'd left just outside the door, I picked up his pen and pulled it in close.

He laughed and said, "You really don't think you'll be able to keep that do you?"

I slowly extended my hand and he pulled it away from me and into his shirt pocket in a fluid motion. As he closed the door he said, "I'll be back in a month, try not to kill yourself, okay?" No sooner than he had closed the door I saw Doug standing in the window with a breakfast tray. He slid it through the flap on the door and said, "Gonna miss ya kid. Just kidding, but I won't be back. This is my last day." I shot back, "Fuck you too Doug."

Doug never came back.

I was left to my own thoughts. I had no one to talk to, but then again I had no desire to try and find Amanda or Mike. I can't say exactly how or why, but that was my last day in the quiet room for a while. I simply got up and walked out. I walked right out of the detention center and called a cab from a payphone.

A short plane ride later and I was back in my hometown. My parents were never home and I started back to school. I made friends. I even found a girlfriend. I had been free for about a month when my girlfriend caught me talking to myself and said, "Who are you talking to hun?"

I shook my head and said, "Oh, never mind." She smiled and kissed me on the forehead. She took me by the hand and we walked to the cafeteria. We shared a slice of pizza as a familiar voice pulled me back to reality.

"How long has he been like this?" Dr. Lyle said on the other side of the door.

A female voice I didn't recognize said, "He's been like this for weeks. He barely eats and he almost never responds as he shuffles to the bathroom."

Dr. Lyle opened the door and said, "Son, can you hear me?"

I looked up and said, "How?"

He looked at me puzzled and replied, "How what?"

I replied, "How did I get back here? I was out?"

He turned to the woman in the hall and said, "The subject is showing distinct signs of delusion and hallucination along with long episodes of catatonia. It is my official opinion that prolonged isolation is causing schizoid episodes."

The woman replied, "He still has two months left on his sentence."

Dr. Lyle said in a considerably angrier tone, "In two months I'm not entirely sure there will be anything left to salvage. Call Rachel and tell her to meet me in my office immediately!"

The woman storm off and Dr. Lyle said, "I'll do what I can son, but please, hold it together."

Dr. Lyle shot down the hall and I was back in the cafeteria. I broke down into tears as my girlfriend tried to comfort me. I caught a ride home from a friend and spent the rest of the day in bed listening to the radio.

The next two months were hell. Depending on the day I'd either wake up in the quiet room or at home in my bed. I spent my days in the cell begging any god that would listen to release me. I spent my days at home begging any god that would listen not to send me back.

Then one day, it ended. I was dragged from the quiet room and tossed back into my old room. I was given a pair of khakis and a t-shirt. For the first few days I enjoyed the blanket and pillow. A guard would sit outside my room in a chair and keep notes. If I approached the door two more guards would appear and say, "One more step and you go back downstairs."

I spent another month in my room, but it was a month of books and past-due classwork. It was month of late-night radio from the guard station. It was a month of real food and actual drinks. It was month where I slowly returned to something that resembled sanity.

I was released a month or two later. I rode a plane home with my mother. Eventually, I made it home. I went back to school. I made friends. I even found a girlfriend. From there, life returned to something that resembled normal.

Still, I'd wake up some nights in a cold sweat after dreaming that I was still in that room. To be honest, that still happens from time to time. However, it's been almost twenty years now and I'm considerably more well-adjusted than I was then.

My issue at this moment is one that has me at my wits end. It's probably nothing. It's just that something has been nagging at me for the last couple of weeks. I got a phone call from a blocked number. The voice on the other end of the line simply said, "I'm here if you need help."

The voice sounded aged, but even still I could have sworn it was Dr. Lyle.

Submitted February 01, 2017 at 04:16PM by xylonex http://ift.tt/2kQo7AR nosleep