I went about my day with the same stale, forty-second day of oatmeal feeling that I had ever since I had gotten used to the hospital. There was a certain comfort to it, in a tedious, suffocating kind of way. I had lost track of how long I had been here. No one had come to visit me since the incident that landed me here. I call it the incident not to be dramatic or evasive, but because I don’t remember it and no one will tell what it was. They tell me that it isn’t important. The important thing is that I get back in touch with reality. I wasn’t aware that I was out of touch with it. I’m just a bit nervous is all. You’d be nervous too if every night you fell into an abyss of nameless chaos. The world used to make sense to me. It used to make so much sense that I could tell you the future. In good moments, I still can. Now, the whole world is like radio static broadcast through a PA system and my dreams are worse.

Eventually, I found myself playing cards during rec time. I was the best card player in the ward, to the point that I had to throw games on purpose to get people to keep playing with me. I dealt the cards and looked around the room. There were other dull tables filled with dull people. The whole world around me was dull. Some of that is definitely the hospital. That’s on purpose. There was something else at play here too. Even the troublesome patients seemed flat to me. I feel like the world used to be so vivid, but all of my memories feel dead. I turned my attention back to the game and my opponents. Daniel was awful at cards. I don’t know why he played with us, but without fail he would shuffle his small round body to the table when the time came. Andrea always tugged at her blonde curls when she was bluffing, but was otherwise a decent opponent. Sean was a real wild card. He was middle aged, the only regular player who was older than me. He wasn’t a great player, but you could never tell what he had by the way he acted. He just played based on whatever came into his head.

The rounds went on and the cards slid around the smooth surface of the table in their little dance to Fortuna. I took the early lead, like I always did. Gradually, I began throwing more and more hands as the game progressed. I usually like to barely win. That was my game now. How slim a margin can I win or lose by? For now, I was in a lull though. My opponents had been too reckless and I had a big lead to drop. I scanned my surroundings again. Some of the other patients were painting. Something bubbled up from my unconscious. “You guys had better shut that window or all your papers are going to blow away,” I said without much thought. The others turned to look at me, but did nothing. They rarely acted on my advice. The wind blew and as I said, their papers flew away.

“How’d you know that was going to happen?” a slender man called out.

“I told you before. I can see the future.”

“That’s not true. No one can see the future!” the man replied agitated.

“It’s ok. She could just feel the breeze and made a lucky guess,” Andrea intervened. That pacified the man, but it wasn’t true. I couldn’t feel any breeze. I just knew. I turned my attention back to the game. By the end of the match, I had managed to lose by ten chips. That wasn’t a record, but it wasn’t too shabby either. I was feeling pretty good as I went through the rest of my day. Everyone doubted me, so it felt good to be vindicated in my divine insight.

By the time evening rolled around, my mood soured as it always does. The anticipation of my nightly descent into the gibbering hell of chaos doesn’t really do the nerves much good. I’ll spare myself the labor of recounting the details, but suffice it to say, my night was wholly unpleasant. I rose in the morning, hands shaking as they usually do and did my breathing exercises. They usually helped. I brushed my shoulder length hair and did my best to go about my business. Last night was particularly bad. I stayed quiet and taciturn through the morning and afternoon group therapy.

When it was time to play cards again, I had loosened up a little. This was comfortable and familiar, one of the few things that reliably made sense to me. The windows were open and a gentle breeze filtered through the room. A pudgy man from the painting table approached us clutching his latest work in his hand. He spoke attempting to channel a personality far more self-assured than his own. “Alright, psychic. What did I paint today?”

I gazed hard at him for a moment. I had absolutely no idea. I frowned and began to look away. Then the reflection of the window caught my eyes. I could see the scribbled outline of a rabbit. This revelation banished the disappointment from my mind. “Some kind of hideous rabbit,” I finally declared. The man scowled and protested. I ignored him and he returned to his table. The voice of God manifests in many ways. I turned my attention back to the game.

“You know he has a crush on you, right?” Andrea laughed at me.

“Well, maybe he should try being nice to me then. We’re not fourteen years old here.”

We continued our match. Each time I picked up a card from the table, I discharged a small dose of the crackling tension that tormented my body. The cards were like lightning rods for my nervous energy. Today I just let myself win. I didn’t have the energy to pretend anything else.

“That was a rough game,” Sean declared. “Good thing we’re not playing for money or I’d be going from the madhouse to the poorhouse. Say, Delphina, how’d you get so good at cards? What’d you even do before you ended up here?”

“I don’t really remember all that well. Everything I do remember feels like someone shuffled the chapters in a book. It doesn’t feel like I was there and it doesn’t make any sense.”

“Yeah, trauma is tough like that. I can’t remember basically anything from the ages of twelve to sixteen,” Daniel almost muttered in his overly soft-spoken way. His voice fit his frame; he was a waif of a boy in his early twenties, perpetually trying to keep his head down. It was then that my friends decided that they would like to spend a little time outside. Last time I was out there, a snake slithered right up next to me. I wasn’t going to make that mistake again. Maybe I’d just go stare at the wall for the rest of the day.

After some time trying to trace all of the cracks on the ceiling, a staff member came to talk to me. She told me that tomorrow I was going to have to miss my card playing because one of my relatives was coming to see me. I recoiled. I had almost forgotten that I might have had a family. Why hadn’t anyone come by sooner? I nodded my approval and the woman left.