252216-E

I have a confession to make, dear reader; I have not been entirely forthcoming with you. Let there be no misunderstanding, I have not lied to you. I have not invented my tales or embellished the details, merely recounted events as they happened. I have, however, withheld certain truths from you. One such truth, and one my family will strenuously deny, is the fact that I have a sister.

The reason my family do not acknowledge her existence is likely because she is not the kind of person you want to admit to knowing, let alone being related to. I imagine you would do the same if she were part of your family.

I have met my sister precisely three times. Each meeting lasted a few, brief minutes, so I cannot say I know a great deal about her. Even then, the things that I do know about her are largely inconsequential – hair and eye colour, height, weight and so on. The only important or relevant thing I know about her is her name – Patient 252216-E.

In order to learn how she came to live in The Hexagon we must first learn of another member of my family; my grandfather, Walter. Walter was a very strict man, but he was also a very kind man. He was the sort of person who would push you to breaking point, but only because he wanted to see you succeed.

Walter was also a very ill man. He had several minor health issues, which were only exacerbated by the fact he was a chain smoker, and had been for most of his life.

Walter’s health and habits eventually caught up with him and, some days after my sisters twelfth birthday, he had a stroke. Although it was only a mild stroke, the doctor was not very optimistic about Walter’s future. He told us in no uncertain terms that my grandfather was on his last legs and that it would be for the best if the old man settled his debts, made his peace and revised his will – That way his earthly business would be concluded and we would have less to worry about when he passed on.

As soon as the doctor made mention of the word ‘will’, the wheels in my sisters’ head began to turn. She devised a stratagem that, while lacking in moral fibre, would yield enormous financial gain.

She reasoned thus: Walter would be revising his will and, since he had lost some of his mental facilities, he would distribute his wealth based on the here and now, rather than things past. Therefore, if my sister spent time with Walter, he would recognise this and give her an exceptionally large pay-off when he eventually passed away.

Initially my sister was content to simply visit Walter before or after school, just to check on how he was doing, but after a while she began to spend whole days with him. These days turned into weeks and, once her truancy had gotten her expelled from school, she devoted all her time to being with Walter, only returning home to pick up new clothes.

The most tragic part of my sister’s reprehensible scheme was not that she was robbing a lonely old man, but that Walter genuinely believed that my sister loved him, cared for him and wanted to spend time with him. If he did know then he certainly did not show it, since he doted on her every bit as much as she doted on him.

Something that brought my grandfather no end of joy was putting my sister to bed. Every night that she spent with him, he would tuck her in, kiss her forehead and sit by her bed, singing to her until she fell asleep. I will grant you this is a fairly unorthodox practice since very few twelve year olds need lullabies to help them sleep, but Walter simply did not care. After all, my sister was doing something for him; she deserved something in return.

Walter’s lullaby of choice was a song called “I’ll get by (as long as I have you).” Rather than try to explain the songs meanings or give my own interpretation of the prose, allow me to recite some of the songs lyrics:

This old world was just as sad a place for me as could be.

I was lonely and blue.

This whole world then changed to paradise for me, suddenly.

Why? Because I met you.

The lyrics continue in the same vein for several verses. I am sure you get the idea what kind of a song it is.

“I’ll get by” held great sentimental value for my grandfather since it had been with him for his entire life. It was the song that inspired him to learn to play the cornet as a child, it was the song that he sang with his company when fighting in the trenches and it was the song he sang to his girlfriend when his girlfriend became his wife. He was more than happy to give the song even more emotional significance by singing it to his precious granddaughter.

But things change, as they do, and Walter’s health eventually got the best of him. He passed away a few months after his stroke. Fairly uncharacteristically for my town, it was not gruesome or prolonged, unwarranted or vengeful. In fact, father always joked that since Walter had lived in this town all his life, served in World War 2 AND spent fifty-seven years married to my grandmother he would probably consider it an insult to die in his sleep.

The funeral came and went without issue and some days later it was time for the will reading. You would be surprised by how many people crawled out of the woodwork to see what they would receive. To give you an idea of just how many people turned up, my grandfather was the third of twelve children and all of his siblings were there, as were their children, their grandchildren and so on.

Even more amazing than the number of people who turned up was the fact that everybody present received something. Even I inherited something and I was barely a few months old at the time.

As the reading went on my sisters’ hope began to fade. She was visibly disgusted with every aunt, uncle, niece, nephew, cousin or sibling that got mentioned, since they were taking money and possessions that she thought, no, that she knew she deserved.

In spite of her self-righteous outrage my sister was the last person to get mentioned in the will. An amendment to the will, made just days before Walter passed away, bequeathed unto my sister, “Everything she deserves”.

My sister was furious. Walter had given her a beautiful, heartfelt sentiment and a Zen moment of peace, and everyone else in the room agreed. But heartfelt sentiments have no monetary value and Zen moments of peace cannot be exchanged for shoes or clothes or make-up. She was incensed that, having spent all that time around Walter, he had not given her some huge cash pay-off.

That night, as she lay in bed, my sister was attacked by one of the most cruel and spiteful monsters of all: perspective. She was angry that she had spent all that time with my grandfather and had nothing to show for it, but she also felt ungovernably sad for precisely the same reason.

For all the time she had spent with Walter the only things she knew about him were the most basic, cursory details. She could not remember any of his stories, jokes, games or anything along those lines. The only thing she knew for sure was that Walter’s favourite song was a scratchy gramophone recording of some woman singing, “I’ll get by”.

Given the mixture of anger and remorse that was plaguing her, it is hardly surprising that my sister had trouble getting to sleep that night. As the hours rolled by she realised there was nothing else for it – she began to sing to herself. Her lullaby of choice was, of course, the delightful tune, “I’ll get by (As long as I have you).”

It worked. By the time she was halfway through the first verse she was back in the guest bedroom at Walter’s house. She was warm, comfy and safe in the knowledge that he was sat beside her bed, keeping a watchful eye on he.

My sister was so wrapped up in her own little world of self-denial that she failed to realise she was not the only person who was singing. In fact, it was only when she paused to take a breath that she heard Walter’s voice, singing a beautiful, harmonious accompaniment to her rendition of the song.

The ghostly singing refused to stop; when Walter reached the final line of the last verse, he simply began the song again. And again. And again.

Perhaps understandably, my sister did not take too well to being haunted. Very few people do, really. My sister did better than most, however, since she realised she could dismiss the spectral voice by drowning it out with her own voice.

Thus, from that point on, my sister devoted every waking moment of her life to making as much noise as she possibly could. Of course, my sisters’ melodious malady was cute to begin with, but it quickly became intolerable. Attempts to send her back to school failed when she was termed a disruptive influence, guidance counsellors refused to see her when their methods failed and, eventually, even my parents wanted nothing more to do with her; all because she would not shut up out of fear that she would begin to hear Walter once again.

When conventional methods failed to fix my sister, my parents did the only thing they could and committed her to The Hexagon. I would like to say they had her institutionalised as a means of getting her some help or trying to fix her, but, really, they simply wanted some peace and quiet. Come to think of it, this is probably why I am so softly spoken; I would much rather remain quiet than spend the rest of my life here. But I digress.

My sister remained in The Hexagon until it closed, at which point she was relocated to a facility elsewhere in the country. As far as I know she is still alive and is still singing in order to drown out the musical spirit following her around. Of course, I could be wrong and she may have died some years ago without my knowledge. Frankly, I am not in any particular hurry to find out.

Do not think I am alone in feeling a total lack of interest regarding my sisters’ fate; nobody else in my family cares. In fact, you can ask any other member of my family and they will all tell you the same thing: I am an only child and I always have been. In fact, mother has gone so far as to destroy my sisters’ birth certificates, baby pictures, anything that would give any hint that she ever existed.

But I know better. I know she’s real. I know I’ve seen her. And I know the selfish little wretch got everything she deserved, just like Walter said.

Some of you may wish to hear the song that led to Patient 252216-E’s breakdown. I shall oblige:

Jeremy

The philosopher Nietzsche once said, “A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything”. Clearly the staff in charge of The Hexagon had never heard this quote, since a large portion of the North-North-Easterly wing was used as a magnificent chapel.

For many years the gentleman who ran the chapel was a man named Father Jeremy. Jeremy was a man who could not look more like a priest if he tried; he always wore a wide brimmed hat and a long clerical robe. His eyes were always hidden behind thick, bottle-bottom glasses, and his pale, bony face looked like it had been chiselled into a permanent frown.

Father Jeremy acted like a man of the cloth, too. Specifically, he acted like the stereotypical ‘Angry preacher man’ that you might see on TV. Whenever he preached it was always about hellfire and brimstone, and if you enjoyed something that he thought was wrong then by god he had no qualms with letting you know.

Perhaps the most infuriating aspect of Jeremy’s personality was that he did not have the common courtesy to keep his pious lunacy confined within The Hexagon’s walls. No, he convinced himself that he could do a much better job of spreading the good word if he took his preaching into the church in the middle of town. And onto our streets. And into our homes.

I did not put much stock in the old man’s ramblings. In fact, I think that is how I have managed to stay comparatively sane while surrounded by lunatics. Mother, however, was behind the father’s teachings one hundred percent, and regularly invited him over for religious guidance.

Given the frequency with which el padre visited our house I was forced to listen to more of his incessant droning than any one person reasonably should. Every time he visited he would remind me over and over again that I was filled with sin and succumbing to terrible vices, and that I had best change my ways lest I end up in the lake of fire.

Jeremy spent most of his time telling the townsfolk just how wicked and sinful they were, both during his sermons and during home visits. Occasionally, though, he would stop trying to run our lives and speak of other religious matters. One of the topics he visited the most was that of angels.

He talked about guardian angels; ethereal beings that watch over certain people or places to make sure good people are kept safe. He also talked about another rank in the celestial army – Assailing angels.

Father Jeremy told us that both kinds of angel exist to keep the world a better place; they merely had a different modus operandi to one another. That is, while guardian angels assisted the good, assailing angels did just the opposite and sought out the wicked, punishing them for their misdeeds. He made it clear that assailing angels were not bad or malicious entities, not at all. You see, while their behaviour would be considered barbaric by human standards, they are angels who only punish people who truly deserve it.

According to the minister, the way it works is like this: Everybody has an angelic counterpart somewhere in the world and every time a person does something bad their angel takes a step closer. Whether you commit a minor sin like taking the last cookie or a major crime like murder, each wrongdoing will bring your enforcer one step closer. Tim would always end his story here and finish with, “And when they catch up to you? Boy, I tell you what!”

I was, and indeed still am, convinced that the “I tell you what” angle was merely the old man’s way of ending a fairy tale without actually ending it. To me it was a religious version of, “But it was all a dream.” I was so convinced that the reverend was spouting nonsense that I attempted to trip him up by asking him to continue his story. Specifically, I asked him what would happen if my assailing angel ever caught up with me.

He told me that my angel would kill me. If I continued staying out past curfew or kept neglecting to tidy my room, my angel would find me and end my life as punishment for my vile, wicked misdeeds.

It would be nice if he had finished his story with my unjust demise and left it at that. But, like many preachers, Jeremy was as much a showman as he was a clergyman and he continued his tale.

He told me that, when my angel caught up with me, she would wrap her hands around my throat and push her thumbs up under my chin. The grip would be gentle at first, so soft I would barely notice it, but with every additional sin I committed the grip would get tighter. If I continued to commit heinous misdeeds then the grip would get so tight that it would crush my throat and I would asphyxiate. And it would serve me right for being such a wicked, sinful little child.

As if things were not bad enough, Jeremy capped the whole story off by saying there was no way to undo the strangling. I could stop doing bad things, of course, but there was nothing I could do to stop my heavenly stalker from putting her hands around my throat and choking the life out of me. I would be a marked sinner the rest of my days and everyone who met me would know it.

Over the years Father Jeremy told this story time and time again. With each retelling, however, my punishment became steadily more severe. The basic principle remained the same, of course, but the way in which it would be executed became more prolonged and more brutal.

I think Tim was trying to scare me, and indeed everyone else, into believing him. Really, though, the scariest part of Tim’s stories was the voice he used to deliver them. He was a smoker, you see. At least, I used to think he was, given that he had a smokers voice; a deep, scratchy voice that was a mere semblance of what he used to sound like.

As the years went on and his stories became more and more farfetched his voice became worse and worse. His once scratchy voice became more strained and painful as he got older. Eventually it sounded like he had to painfully force each word out as it came.

Mercifully, both for his voice and my sanity, Father Jeremy died some years ago when he choked on a fish bone. Ordinarily this would be the end of my tale, but this time we have one additional point of note. When the surgeons came to harvest Father Jeremy’s organs, his lungs were undamaged. In fact, they were in such pristine condition they went to a young man a few states over as soon as they were ready for transportation.

Apparently I was wrong when I said Father Jeremy had a smokers voice; the man had never lit up in his entire life. So if it was not his lungs making his voice rasp I wonder what was. But what do I care? He was nothing but a crazy old man who tried to control people with crippling fear, so I tend not to think about him too much. And neither should you.