English, Male Narration of Crazy Diamond Story
Description
Vocal Characteristics
Language
EnglishVoice Age
Young Adult (18-35)Accents
North American (General)Transcript
Note: Transcripts are generated using speech recognition software and may contain errors.
My name is Edith Rose. My last name is something you don't need to know. They said my full name when a judge and a witness committed me into Hillview mental institution, but I barely heard any of their words. I was too busy asking the hospital security guard to let me tell him his fortune. I told him I could see the future that the universe had given me a gift of second sight. I remember him laughing at me as I sat down on the floor of the hospital room and swayed back and forth with my arms, making erratic movements. I have no idea what I told him. His future entailed. All I recall is the face he made when I was done with my rantings, it was an expression one might make almost without realizing it toward a person of whom seems to be utterly out of his or her mind that look on his face stayed with me while I was wheeled into a room and given a colorful pill to swallow. I kept thinking about him when I laid down in that rock hard bed and how the wrinkles in his face had burrowed so deep within his bronze skin as he stared at me, his eyes had twinkled in a wicked way like the sinister troll that he was as he observed me use my gift. He was one of them, one of the unfortunates who had not been bestowed with my power. And so who in turn did not believe in its magic. He was just like the men and women in the scrubs who looked down on me with pity in their bored eyes and told me to go to sleep in the dark cold room which now imprisoned me. I woke in the night but I was not fully conscious. I couldn't move or speak, but someone was shaking me. A woman. What are you doing? She demanded, why are you here? She had a good grip on my forearms and shook me harder. Tell me who you are. Tell me what you're doing here. My eyes could barely focus when I finally opened them enough to make out her confused and scared face. She had long mousy white hair that fell in wisps around her sagging jaw and her puckered cracked lips. Shadows swept into the room. Two of them, they grabbed her on each side of her wide shapeless body and removed her from the room without a word. I slept, a nurse woke me up sometime around morning, but I didn't know what time it was. My head was swimming and my thoughts were racing with the memories of the night before when my own family had me legally committed to rot behind these white walls. You're going upstairs. The nurse said, simply waiting for me to take a seat in the wheelchair she held on to before me. I didn't ask about the strange woman who had woken me in my bed the night before, but instead swung my legs over the edge of the bed and settled myself into the chair. Meant for me, we made our way to an elevator and the voices started their rants. She feels like she's trapped. Said a woman's voice in my head, resounding within my ears. I rubbed my eyelids and pressed my fist against my forehead. No, she needs to find the other dimension. A male voice proclaimed in response making me shake my head in annoyance. I had been drunk the night before and now in the cold, clear light of day that was absent of my usual alcohol intake. These voices were much more aggravating to me than they had been when booze mostly drowned their incessant bickering out. The nurse was silent as she rolled me through the winding hallways. After we exited the elevator, we stopped at a doorway at last that looked like the entrance to a prison. As she pressed a button beside the large formidable door, a male nurse answered by opening up and taking charge of my wheelchair. When he looked upon me, it was the first time any of the staff had smiled at me and he did so with genuine kindness and his tired blue eyes, he offered me food, but I refused it. I was 56 and 100 and £5 and I'd spent the better part of the year starving myself to get to this weight. I wouldn't give it up for a cold cut and some apple sauce after I'd said no to the meal, the kind nurse whose name he said was David showed me to my room. I was alone, no roommate and I was thankful for that. I slept again, provided with another mysterious pill. I slept so deeply that I almost didn't wake up when one of the nurses turned on my bedroom light and announced Edith, you have a roommate. I opened my eyes but didn't sit up. I instead studied the despondent heavy set girl who plopped down on the bed beside my own. This is Claudette said the nurse, she then switched off the light and walked out. Although not before leaving the door cracked open for round the clock checking by both her and the other staff members. There were already cameras in each corner of the room, so I didn't find this action necessary, but I kept quiet. Nonetheless, I watched Claudette sit up in her bed and stare at the wall. I said, are you ok? She didn't respond immediately, but instead adjusted herself so that she was facing me and said, I just tried to jump off the balcony in my apartment. I want to die. I sat up and lean my head against my bed posts. Why do you want to die? I asked not that I couldn't identify with the way it felt to want to discontinue being a part of the world. I have bipolar disorder. She replied simply, she slid her legs beneath the covers of the bed and rested her head on her pillow. I could just make out her shadow within the light from our cracked door bipolar disorder. It made me recall the first time I had been hospitalized, I was 17 and then a junior in high school. I remember not sleeping for weeks and ferociously writing poems about death. My mother had eventually suggested I see a therapist and I told the woman I saw that I wanted to commit suicide. As soon as I said the words, she called my mother into the room and recommended that I'd be hospitalized. I was put into an adolescent wing of this same hospital. And after I saw a psychiatrist, I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. I was prescribed medication. But as soon as I was discharged, I discontinued the medicine thinking the doctor was all wrong about me and the so called mental illness he claimed I possessed, I hesitated to respond. I couldn't see Claudette's face but her voice reeked of hopelessness. I think I have bipolar disorder too. I finally said do you want to die? Claudette asked, tossing herself onto her back so that she was now facing the ceiling. Sometimes I admitted mimicking her movement. Why didn't you make it off the balcony? My boyfriend came home early. She replied, he saw me climbing the rail lane so he called the cops. They brought me here bad timing. I guess I almost offered my apologies to her for her thwarted attempt at suicide. I pictured the bridge the universe had shown me and the other dimension waiting for me beneath it. I understood her to a point. I at least understood what it was like to want to leave everything and everyone behind. She didn't have another place waiting for her. Like I did though, she didn't hear the secrets. I heard spoken in my head. The secrets which revealed the new connection with the cosmos I possessed. Do you always feel like your thoughts are racing? Claudette asked, folding her hands and lying them atop her chest. Yes, I drink to make it stop. I told her missing my usually ever present booze. So do I, she said I don't sleep? I won't feel tired for months and then suddenly I'll shut down and I can't get out of bed. I recalled my own struggle with such mood swings, how I felt like I was flying on a cloud and I would write all night. Then darkness would overtake me later rendering me completely incapable of even doing the most menial tasks. Do you feel it too? That itch the feeling that overcomes you and tells you to just get it over with, just do it, kill yourself. Claudette. Laid still. And I could tell she was extremely disappointed that her balcony plan hadn't worked. I felt it. I admitted I don't want to die but something, someone tells me to do it to get out of this world. Do people ever tell you that you talk too fast or too loud? Or is it the opposite that you speak too slowly? Almost slurring your words. She asked, I recalled my mother, father and younger brother telling me I talk too loudly and too fast. Yes, I replied, it happens a lot. We should be best friends. Claudette said, turning on her side to face me. You know what I'm talking about and no one else does that should make us friends, right? And you can call me Claude. I hesitated watching a black abyss open before my bed and admit a shadowy stranger at the foot. You have the power said the shadow, you must find the other realm, the place that will take you away from here, the ghost or whatever it was lingered before me. I could only see the outline of his body as he stood before me and then was subsequently sucked back into the black hole he had arrived from. We can be friends. I told Claude and we talked all night even though I was dead tired and wanted nothing more than to go to sleep when she finally said she couldn't talk anymore apologetically to me because she was too exhausted. I was incredibly annoyed because she was the one who'd continued our conversation as the hours had passed by. It was as if she was telling me to be quiet when all I'd wanted to do was to tell her to shut the **** up the entire time. I didn't say anything. However, and instead turned over and fell back into a deep sleep.