The psycho cookie man sat at a table and stared out the window. The noise of the others and the television blaring did not bother him as they usually would. He blocked them out with his new noise-cancelling ear buds he got at the Christmas party. He didn’t know who they had come from so there was no one to thank so he said nothing as usual. He had blended into the yellow calliope wallpaper and disappeared.

The day outside was gray and there was light fog that made the world look mysterious. He studied the manicured grounds and the people walking around out there. Beyond the yard there was the thick forest that buffered the asylum in all directions. Then there was the flat road that led to the gate and to a circular drive where patients would come and go. He remembers the foreboding entry way well. It broke his soul even more when he had arrived.

He looked down at his drab clothing, gray in color and personality. The others mostly ignored him. He was like repellant for some reason. He felt as if he intimidated people. Maybe it was his size, or his tattoos, or the rough face, or the haggard beard. Maybe it was his salty eyes of golden-brown. Or maybe it was the fact that he was deemed crazy by the outside world and was sent there to suffer even more.

Someone brought him a bologna sandwich on a plastic tray. There was also a small carton of milk, a fruit cup, and a cookie wrapped in plastic. He peeled the bread of the sandwich apart and peered inside.

“There’s no ketchup on this. I need ketchup on my bologna sandwiches,” he said, turning his head this way and that way as he followed the movements of the orderly around the half-empty cafeteria.

“Sorry, Karl,” the orderly said. “I’ll be sure to bring you some. But seriously, man, ketchup on a bologna sandwich? Personally, I’d rather eat tree bark.”

“You’re devoid of compassion,” Karl said.

“It’s just ketchup, Karl. Calm your tits.”

He sat on the edge of the bed in a room as drab as his clothes. He looked out the window covered in a cage. How inviting the forest looked, he thought. He didn’t care about the rumors he has heard about the forest. Wild people. Creatures. Traps. A maze. Endless. No escape. Karl looked at his watch and sighed. Time dragged there. Group therapy was coming up. He hated group therapy. His problems were his own, he decided.

“No one else’s business,” he whispered to the walls.

There was a guy who thought he was a cat and when he talked every word was “Meow.” His name was Sylvester.

The therapist leading the group stopped him and said, “How about you do something different today. How about you use real words so we can all understand you?”

“Meow?”

“No. Speak English.”

“Meow, meow?”

“English.”

Sylvester shook his head no and then proceeded to start licking himself.

The therapist sighed and then turned his attention to Karl.

“Karl? Anything you’d like to share today?”

“I want to know about the forest and if everything said about it is true.”

The therapist paused for a moment.

“Well, as far as I know, the forest is just that, a forest. Trees, ground, sky, small animals.”

“I heard it goes on forever,” Karl said.

“No, Karl,” the therapist answered. “It comes to an end and that’s where civilization begins.”

“I would like to go to the civilization.”

“I’m sorry, Karl. That’s just not possible.”

“Then I don’t want to live. Not like this. I feel like a token of a person, not a real person.”

The others in the group nodded their heads in agreement.

“Yes!” the therapist exclaimed. “Now there’s a topic. Why do you feel like tokens and not real people…”

Karl sat in a lawn chair beneath a rare sun. He closed his eyes and listened to the birds of spring. He breathed deeply and caught the scent of flowers in the nearby garden. Something suddenly stirred his mind and his eyes popped open. There at the edge of the forest stood a strange man and he was motioning to Karl to come to him. Karl shot up out of the chair, cocked his head and looked again at the strange man. Yes, yes. He was still there. He was still motioning.

Karl looked around. There were two orderlies out on the grounds, but they were occupied with other patients. He turned to look at the windows of the main building. No one was watching. He took a deep breath, then he took a step forward, and then another step forward. No one noticed so he went even further until he was at the edge of the forest where the strange man had been standing. No one was there. Karl quickly dropped to his knees. He was suddenly hidden. It couldn’t be this easy, he thought. He reached an arm into the forest and there was a mystical energy that made his fingertips tingle. Could it be some kind of invisible electrical fence? he wondered. He went further and the forest took him and soon he was surrounded by a greenish crystalline glow and the scent of natural life.

Karl was in awe as he walked through the woods. It was beautiful and peaceful and void of noise and condensed criminality. There were no screams or crashes of plates or incessant nonsensical talking. He stopped at a small clearing and took a deep breath. He looked up and saw black rosary beads hanging from a branch, silver Jesus dangling at the end. He decided it would be best to remove his asylum clothing and be naked. He stripped and threw the clothes in the brush. He kept on his shoes and socks. The trees laughed. The sky darkened. The rain soon came.

Karl huddled beneath a rock outcropping. He was cold and he shivered. Maybe it was wrong for me to escape, he thought. I’m still suffering. I just want to stop suffering. His mind ached and he began to weep. His tears mingled with the rain. He cowered there beneath the rock, naked, alone and broken.

When Karl awoke there was sunlight filtering down through the treetops. He heard birds. The air was now slightly warmer and when he sat up, he swore he heard traffic on a roadway. He stood up and brushed the mixed groundcover from his naked body. He moved his head in the direction of the sound of cars and began walking that way. It wasn’t long before Karl emerged from the forest and there in front of him was a bustling boulevard. He stood there at the roadside and cars were honking at him over his nakedness. On the other side of the boulevard was a shopping center and there was a Target store, and Karl wanted to go to Target because he wanted to stay on Target in his life from now on. But then again, he was naked and meandering across a busy thoroughfare.

“What are you doing? Put some clothes on,” someone in the parking lot yelled at him.

Karl walked through the doorways of target completely naked. A red suited manager named Rick came up to him immediately.

“Sir. Sir. You can’t come in here like that. You need to turn around and leave.”

“But I need to buy some clothes,” Karl said. “I want some nice, new Target clothes.”

The manager quickly escorted Karl to the men’s room and had him stay in a smelly stall.

“I’ll bring you some clothes. Just stay here, please,” manager Rick said.

Karl pushed a red plastic cart through Target. He was wearing new sweatpants and a T-shirt. The cart was empty because Karl had no money, but he enjoyed just strolling around looking at all the things he couldn’t have. That was his life. Had always been his life. And they dubbed him crazy for it.

A year later, Karl was on a jet plane heading for Oslo, Norway.  Hilga, his girlfriend, was sitting beside him. She liked to have a lot of sex. They were going to live there in the capital city. Karl had gotten a job at the Oslo Public Library as an associate administrator. Hilga was a barista at the coffee shop located inside the same library.

Turns out Karl wasn’t crazy at all, but Amorika thought so. Karl is a genius with a high IQ and a penchant for critical thinking. But no one recognized that in a sea of capitalist pigs. Because Karl was simply another brick in the wall, another piece of machinery in the production and purchase cycle. Of course, he couldn’t be “normal” and loud and annoying. It just wasn’t in him and he was deemed different. His soul had been suffocating. That’s why he did the crazy things he did. Society was unfit for him. But none of that mattered anymore. He was leaving that wretched life and country behind. He was finally going to be a real mannequin.

By

Aaron Echoes August