Eyes

'Back again, lad?' Jeff grinned at him from the booth.

'Afternoon, Jeff,' he greeted the old guard.

Jeff got to his feet. 'Here to see your mama, hey?'

He nodded.

He looked at his log file. He looked back at Sineas. 'Go on in, lad. Say hie to her for me.'

He waved a hand, tried to smile then walked through the gate. He made straight for the entrance. He did not mind the eyes anymore. The droopy eyes from the patients that scanned him up and down like he was some cheap piece of clothing in a second-hand shop. He had enough on his mind already. He walked up the steps and through the giant doors.

His previous visit had made him feel uncomfortable, nervous and on edge. Surprisingly, this time he felt safe. He felt at home as the eyes of most of the patients and nurses looked at him. He didn't mind anymore. It felt like he could relate to them. They were a lot different from the ones that gazed upon him at school: The ones that did not have to browse him. The ones that only had to take one look and make an instant decision. These eyes looked at him, but they did not judge him. They did not care about what he looked like, how he talked like and why. They seemed to say, 'we understand.' He felt at home. He walked towards the reception.

Nurse Flo was there, chewing a piece of gum. She looked just as grumpy as she had the last time he had seen her. She was reading the exact same fitness magazine too.

'Afternoon,' Sineas said.

She lazily looked up at him. She took her time forming a smile. 'Sineas. How you been?' She nodded towards the corridor behind him. 'Knock yourself out.'

'Knock my..?'

'You remember the number, right?'

He nodded. 'Eleven.'

She leaned back in her seat, chewing her gum and turning onto the next page. 'Go on then.'

Sineas coincidentally bumped into Nurse Bethany whilst she was coming from the far end of the corridor.

She smiled. 'Everything good at home?' she asked him.

'Everything's good.'

She smiled and turned around. She led him to room eleven and opened the door. It had been unlocked. 'Go on in and see your mother now,' she grinned at him.

'Thank you,' he said before he walked in.

His mother was sitting cross-legged on top of the couch. She was playing poker with one of the patients: a female just about her age sitting opposite her on the floor, just behind the footstool. The patient looked normal to Sineas.

His mother saw him from the corner of her eye. She smiled then looked back at her opponent. She tilted her head towards the door.

The patient dropped her cards obediently, got up and went for the exit.

Sineas looked into her eyes as she passed by him. He failed to read them.

She closed the door behind her.

Priscilla immediately jumped from the couch and flung her arms around him. She could not stop kissing his cheeks.

He finally managed to pull her off of him. 'Mama, mama, its okay,' he laughed. 'You're acting like I just came back from the dead.'

His mother walked back to the couch.

'You're playing cards now?' he asked her as soon as she sat down.

'Poker keeps me sane, my boy,' she said crossing her legs on the couch.

'So what did your doctor say?' he asked her impatiently.

She smiled and shook her head slowly. 'Reality is very difficult to face, son. And that reality is that I am never going to leave this place. I'm going to die in here.'

'Don't talk like that, mama,' he said as he sat on the floor, 'we can fight this together.'

She laughed, 'Oh, Sineas, my boy. The world is a dark, dark place. Do you still think Doctor Jacob is keeping me in here because of my "wild temper"? I do have a temper, Sin, and so does everyone else. But when I directed my temper on you all those years ago I felt so ashamed. Sin, my point is- no judge with a fully functional brain would keep a mother locked up in an asylum for more than ten years for beating her son…once! I don't think I've ever lost my temper the way I did with you that afternoon when I saw your father's body just…lying there. My sister, your Aunt Janice was the one who always had the temper, not me. She was always the sensitive one…the violent one.'

Sineas looked confused. 'Well, if it's not the temper they're keeping you in here for then what is it?' he asked her.

She shrugged hopelessly in response. 'Who knows? The pills they give me change names everyday. It's as if…I don't know. I think their pills are a means to try to make me go crazy so they can continue to keep me here.'

Sineas was baffled. 'But who? Why?'

'So how's school?' she asked him a smile spread across her face.

He stood up and sat beside her. 'School sucks, mama.'

'Is that why you didn't go today?'

'How do you know that?'

'Sin; there is no high school that dismisses at one o'clock in the afternoon.'

He sighed and leaned back into the sofa. 'The people there are mean, mama. In fact, I think "mean" is an oversimplification. They're sadistic. The whole bunch of them.'

'What did they do to you, my boy?' She rubbed his shoulder gently.

Her eyes were staring warmly at him. These eyes, he thought. These eyes he missed. These eyes he could not do without. He said, 'They treat me like a little monster. A goblin or worse…the guy who's sleeping with their mothers.'

She said, 'Sin; people will always be idiots. Especially people your age. Just learn to ignore them and they will ignore you back. Just don't make the mistake of showing them that what they're doing to you is affecting you or you might give them a reason to continue to be mean towards you.'

He rubbed his face slowly. 'Easier said than done.'

'So there's nothing good at all? Nothing worth going to school for?'

He pondered for a while. 'Well… there's this girl. Clarissa. I thought she was different from everyone else. I thought she might actually like me. But I think she just wanted to look like a saint to everyone.'