the black king

Note: this is not a story for the squeamish. There's violence, language, and disturbing content. If you don't like those things, then this isn't for you at all. This story definitely falls into my horror stories. It, like a few others, is a story set in an insane asylum. I think you'll like the unique twists.

1991

My blood boils when I think of the white pieces. They've got us all in check, they've got us all pinned, they've got us all one bad move away from agony. They've got me stuck. And they stick me with fluids I can't name. They make me swallow poisons I don't know. I'm out of moves, I'm out of plays. That's how it was before. That's when it was all just a game. Just a damn, stupid game. We played and I was the only one who couldn't see the pieces. But I played. When I spoke, we moved. It was a losing game.

The only way I could win is with a miracle. In games, miracles don't happen. That's what I thought. One day, the white pieces were just gone. Just like that. There were no more.

I woke up thinking it was a normal day. I woke up at the regular time expecting one of the White Pawns to come to my door and lead me off to breakfast. I was hungry that morning. Some bread would have been nice, but not the black, stale scraps they give us. I sat there for two hours thinking that anything would be nice. There came a time where I thought that even stale milk would have been just a little nice. But then the miracle happened.

My door opened. It's not a like a normal door. It's an electronic door. They had to make the switch. See, a two months before the miracle, I learned how to get through the lock on a regular door. I used parts from a pen and managed to trick the lock into thinking I had a key. When they found me roaming at night, they took me to the happy house and beat the shit out of me. We call it the happy house because it's not happy. We want to think it is. We want to think a lot of things. But it's not happy. Nothing is happy.

At first I just sat on my bed. If I get up too soon, then the White Pawn will hammer me with his stupid stick. We call it a stupid stick because it's what hits us if we do stupid stuff. I didn't want that to happen. After the night in the happy house, I was afraid of the stupid sticks. I remember how much they hurt. They slam into you and make you bruise, make you bleed, and then make you scream. I screamed. Nobody heard me. Or maybe they did. Maybe they did and they just didn't care. I don't think I would care either. That's the worst part.

But soon I got up and went to the door. I poked my head out and saw that every door was open and I was the last to go outside. Not everyone is smart enough to be afraid of the stupid sticks. In fact, just about all of us are dumb as fish. Most just swim with the current. I couldn't do that. I can't stand the current, especially when the current destroys me and my mind. Everything was fuzzy before them, but it was dark and fuzzy when I came to this place. That night when I went into the happy house, everything cleared up again. It was still a little dark and still a little hazy, but I could see something. I could see that I had to play, that I had to beat these people at their own game. I'm crazy, but after that night, you'd have to be crazy to pick on me.

Down the hall was a dead end. The other way had the door leading to the other areas of the board. It was a perfect board too. The place was lined with tiles white and green, laid down like a playing board. It helped keep me focused. It helped me remember to think, to stay ahead. One of the important parts to any game is to know the pieces. They let me have a pencil and some paper because why the hell not. I started making a list of who is who. Most of the men and women, the nurses, I called the pawns. They're more important than you might think. I called the “doctors” the rooks, knights, and bishops. The queen was a the head doctor. Lastly, the man in charge was the White King. He was the one who ordered my beating. He's the one I had to kill.

The door to the common areas was wide open like my room. Good thing, I guess, but then again, I don't think I cared. I didn't really feel anything. When they give me the poisons, I stop feeling anything. I guess the poisons from the night before were still having an effect because I didn't even feel angry. After the happy house night, anger is all I ever felt. I'd spend some nights forgetting about it because of the poison. Other nights, they wouldn't give me the poison and there was nothing but anger. It took me a while before I came up with my plan. I focused and soon, even when I wasn't angry, I still had my purpose. I had to kill the White King.

The others, my Black Pawns, looked to me for what to do. I was their leader. When I walked through the door to the common rooms, they followed. They wouldn't do it without me. They have to be led. If I'm not leading them, then the White Pawns are. There were no White Pawns around, so I had them. Becoming their leader was easy. I just had to figure out what they wanted. There was one of them who liked painting, but they wouldn't give him paints. I got a pen and took all the ink out and put it in a pillbox. It was just like paint except it was only black. It made the guy happy and he promised to do whatever I wanted him to do. I did things like this for every single one of the others. Pretty soon, I had a lot of Black Pawns.

I knew where I wanted to go as soon as I was out of the sleeping places. I wanted to go to the kitchen because that's where they keep the knives. I wanted to find a big and sharp one. I wanted to find something better than my old weapons. When we started making our moves, we used whatever we could find. We managed to steal a razor once and used that to slit two the White Pawns' throats. They bled so much that they never got the tiles cleaned. There was another time that we stole a screwdriver and we drove that one through the one of the White Rook's bellies. We twisted up her insides; let her guts see the outside world. Every time we did it, someone different would kill. I never had to kill anyone, I got a Black Pawn to do it. By the time the miracle happened, we had killed fifteen of them.

All along as we moved, I suspected that this was some kind of trick so they could win the game. It happens a lot in games. It's a called a ruse. I did it a lot. I tried to convince the White King that the killing was random, that we weren't playing, just killing. And that there was no we, there just individuals with no organization. But he didn't fall for that for long. He started putting my Black Pawns in the happy house to make them talk. Six of them died from the torture. It just made us madder. But soon enough, one of them cracked. The White King knew everything. He put me in the happy house and had me tortured, but I fought back. After two days of on and off beatings, I figured out I was being stupid. I gave in. Or I acted like I did. But like I said, it was a ruse.

The kitchen door was open. I had never been in there. It was boring and I still didn't care about anything. I told all my Black Pawns behind me to find food though. If the Whites wouldn't give it to them, I would. I'm a good King. As they tore the place up in their angry madness, I found my knife. It was a long knife for cutting meat. It was a bit rusted and bent a little, but it could still cut. It was better for it to be a kind of dull. That way, it would hurt more when I gutted the White King. I looked down at my weapon and saw me, my reflection. I looked different than how I remembered.

Did you know I had hair? They took it.

Did you know I had a beard? They took it.

Did you know I had a house? They took it.

Did you know I had a job, money, a life? They took it.

Did you know I had a family? They- no. I took that part. When I said I've never killed before... I lied.

I went back to the common rooms. Everything was a mess. There were papers and poisons thrown all about the place. My Black Pawns stayed behind. That's where I wanted them. I wanted to do this alone. Before I was in this place, I was a champion. I was the greatest chess player in all of Russia. I won every tournament I competed in. I never lost. And then one day, it was a kid. He was still in the university when he came and took my crown. When my king fell, so did I.

The best of the miracle was finding the White King. He was sitting in front of the window, just looking out the snow-covered hills. Of him I demanded, “Why are you just sitting there? And what the hell is going on?”

“It's all over.”

“What's over?”

“Everything,” the White King scoffed. “The Soviet Union is no more. All of the doctors, all of the nurses, all the people you call pawns, bishops, what have you, none of them came to work. I came in today to empty halls. This place is my life. You, my patients, are everything to me. My wife – she left because I poured so much of myself into running this place. I saw all of you, the worst cases of insanity in all of Russia. You were mine to heal. I love you all.”

“Love? You beat us. You killed us. We hate you.”

“Don't you see? I did it for your own good. I would go to any lengths to fix you, to clear your minds, to make you sane again. Don't you want that?”

“I see clear.”

“No, you don't! I can fix you. I can make you whole again.”

“I don't want to be whole.”

He finally looked me in the eye, “You're so far broken that you can't imagine being fixed. You're afraid of it.”

“I'm not afraid.”

“Then kill me.”

“I want to understand.”

“What is there to understand? You've won. Checkmate.”

“You broke us to fix us?” I asked.

“I never meant to- I never wanted to- I wanted to help you.”

“But you destroyed us,” I squeezed my fist around the knife. “People died because of you.”

“I know.”

“Aren't you going to beg for your life?”

“No,” he whispered as he turned back to the Russian landscape. “I deserve to die. There's a new world coming about and I don't deserve to live in it.”

“No, no you don't.”

“So kill me.”

“I killed too.”

“It's not your fault. You're insane.”

I looked down at my knife and then back to him. “So are you.”

He looked to me and only nodded.

“We both die,” I said as I took the rusted knife and slid it down my wrist. It hurt like all hell, but it felt good. It's as if the hole released my demons along with my blood. I found solace in that it would soon be all over.

“Now me.”

“Yes,” I said weakly as he took the knife and in one stroke, plunged it into his chest. His eyes went wide in pain, but he said nothing. There was nothing to say, even if he could say it. The White King died. Checkmate.

I sat down on the floor as I bled out. I watched as the crimson ruined the gameboard tiles. Life began to fade away. I looked up to see all of my Black Pawns watching me die. They did nothing but stare. In my last seconds, I knew that they were just as glad to be free of me as they were of the White King. With both of us dead, they were no longer Pawns. They were free. Perhaps in their insanity, they could even find happiness. There is no King that could ever give them that.

week three: the monarch

In a place like this, there isn't much to do. It's the morning and the sun has just come up. I'm looking out my window and I see that Spring has come and is full. Nature is busy flourishing. The trees are at their greenest and the flowers have blossomed in every color I know. The grass is growing on the hills and sometimes I'll see a rabbit frolicking in the new-found beauty. I love the Springtime. It's quiet in my room though. They built it so I can't hear much from outside, but if I listen closely, I can hear the birds singing. Their songs are beautiful. I wonder what they sing about. And then beautiful butterfly landed outside my window. I know this kind. It's a Monarch butterfly. It's wings are orange and black, with just a touch of white. It is splendid. I put my hand on the window because I want to touch it. But I can't, because I'm not like the Monarch. I'm not like the Monarch because I'm not free.

They put me in my room when they want to and they let me out when they want to. I do what they want and not what I want. Sometimes it seems that they think I don't know the difference, but I do. I know what it means to be free. To be free is to be like the butterfly. The butterfly doesn't have to wait on breakfast time to leave his room in the morning. Someone knocked on my door and then it opened. It was the man in white. He told me to come with him. Yeah, it was breakfast time.

When I walked down to breakfast, I saw other people like me. They were coming out of their rooms too. Just like me, they weren't free either, but not like me, they don't care. I sit down at a table and I eat the eggs and the bacon and the hash browns. It tastes fine, but I don't really care. Then the man in white brings me my pills. They look like candy, but candy is fun. Pills are not fun. I tried to figure out what they do. I worked hard, but after I took them I didn't care about what they were. That's when I figured it out. Just like this place is a prison for my body, the pills are a cage for my mind. They trap me into thinking about what they want me to think about.

I don't want to take them, but the man in white is big and he scares me. So I put them in my mouth and I use my chocolate milk to make them go down my throat. Chocolate milk is my favorite thing they give me. It comes in cartons, I hate the cartons, but it's what's inside that matters. It's like this prison. The prison doesn't matter, it's who is locked up in here. And that's me. I matter, right?

Then they take me to the other tables. The mind-prison works by now. I don't think about freedom, about the ghosts, or about the monsters in my mind. No, they say I think like a normal person. Normal, normal, normal, just like everyone else. I don't want to be like everyone else, but here I am. I'm drawing dogs with crayons, making macaroni pictures, or playing Connect Four with Doris. I always win Connect Four. Doris is more broken than me. She doesn't know her lefts and rights and she can't even talk straight. Sometimes I wonder if I'll ever be like her. I can't be though. I'm just crazy, she's crazy and stupid.

The tricks they pull at this place are pretty good, but they don't fool me. We aren't free, but they want us to think we are. You can see outside, but the windows won't open. Even if you broke them, there are still the bars. Sometimes they tell me lies like how they make us safe. I told them that I don't want to be safe, that I want to be free. All I got was their assurance that I am free, but that's just not right. They're wrong. One day I'll be free like the Monarch and I'll show them what it means to be free.

The best part of the day is when I get to be with Robin. She's my therapist, but I like to think that she's my friend. We talk about things, sometimes happy things, sometimes sad things, sometimes angry things. She's like the birds. Robin is beautiful and she sings nice too. I asked her to sing to me once and she did, but then she wouldn't do it again. That made me sad, but I didn't tell her. She talks to me like I matter. Robin talks to me and makes me feel good. Part of me wants to love her, but another part of me tells me there's something wrong.

When they put me back in my room, I got in bed. I laid there and I thought about things. I thought about the San Diego Padres, I thought about the Queen of England, I thought about Star Trek, and then I thought about the Monarch butterfly. I want to be like the butterfly. That's when I thought of my plan.

When breakfast came and they gave me my pills, I didn't take them. I pretended to but I didn't swallow them. My mind was free, like the Monarch. Instead of drawing dogs with crayons, I drew monsters and shadows. I didn't play Connect Four with Doris, instead I read books. I didn't know how much I liked reading better than Connect Four until my mind was free. I read about a lot things. Everything seemed different, everything was scarier and I didn't feel as safe, but I knew I was free at last.

When it was time to talk to Robin, I told her about how I was feeling. I tried to not tell her about not taking the pills, but she figured it out. That's also when I figured Robin out. She wasn't trying to help me, she was just another part of the prison. She tried to do something I read about called manipulation. She made things seem one way, but they really went a different one. I was betrayed. The men in white came and they made me take my pills and then they put me in bed early to punish me. The sun was still up. It's not right!

When I woke up again, I looked out and I saw the butterfly again. It looked so happy. I felt happy for it because it was not like me. It was free. Everything outside is free and I'm stuck here on a hard bed doing everything I don't want to do. I hate it. I hate it so much. I watched the butterfly some more and then something bad happened. A bird came and the bird saw the Monarch. It flew in and then it ate the Monarch butterfly. I was angry at the bird. The bird took away the Monarch's freedom. I thought about that and I knew that Robin was more like the birds than I thought before. They were pretty and they could sing, but they took freedom from the butterflies like me.

Remember when I said that yesterday I read about things? One thing that I read was about the Monarch butterfly. I learned a lot about them. I learned how they live in North America and migrate every year. I saw lots of cool pictures of them and I think they're my favorite now. But the best thing I learned is that if you take their freedom, you'll regret it. The bird that ate the Monarch is going to die because the Monarch is poisonous.

I am the Monarch. Like the Monarch, I've been eaten. They ate my mind and my freedom so that I'm not what I'm supposed to be. I'm supposed to be flying free, but instead I'm stuck inside this dark place. People always told me that life had a meaning and that we have a purpose. There is something for all of us to do. I know what I'm supposed to do now. I am the Monarch and I have to do what Monarchs do: I have to kill the bird that takes away my freedom.