Ten Million Prostrations

"Repent!" said the female voice. It came through the walls of the mental hospital, first passing the fifty yards of lawn. It had to come from somewhere. They must be zapping his brain somehow.

"Repent!" came the voice again. The man, the madman, walked back and forth in the halls, pacing fast past bolted down prints of Monet and bulletins of hospital rules on orange and yellow paper. The bathroom smelled of urine since the Alzheimer's patient peed on the floor and the same smell of rotten, yellow urine seeped into the hall. But the madman was silent, said nothing, and a conversation continued in his head.

"What do I do?"

"Ten million prostrations to efface your sins!"

"I can't do that many."

The madman began to cry.

"If you cry, you have to do an extra ten million!"

He began to pace.

"Don't step on a crack or you'll break your mother's back. That's right, we'll break your mother's back!"

The madman looked down, stepping carefully. He could not believe how evil these people were. He tried not to step on any cracks in the vinyl floor tiles. He tried, but failed.

He could hear his mother scream. It sounded like it came from the ceiling. They must have speakers set up in the ceiling. He wept.

"Ten million prostrations...no twenty million prostrations! Every minute you delay, it's another ten million prostrations!"

The madman dropped to his knees on the white tiled floor, as his mother screamed from his weight on the separation lines of the tiles. Twenty million prostrations. He could never do that many.

Then again, he could do that many. He could just do prostrations all night and all day. What would anyone care, he was crazy, right? They would expect it.

He began with his first prostration. The female voice came at him.

"Do it naked!"

The madman hesitated.

"Don't wait, or it's ten million more."

Down the hall, the other patients were watching t.v. The staff were at the secret smoking spot. Only the night manager was around, but he was not watching. But what would he see? A bearded man, silent, face writhing, eyes dark, gnashing his teeth in a real life bible story gone the way of Cthulu.

The choice lay before the madman. Life or death. Get naked and make prostrations until he died from the labor, or remain clothed, and end his life in a mental hospital, knowing he was a coward for not facing his sins. At least in death from prostrations he could have peace of mind. He would also know that his mother was safe. Maybe they would give her surgery after breaking her back?

He went to his room. Off came his shirt. He walked around the room, speaking mentally to the female voice.

"Can I just keep my shirt off?"

"Ten million more prostrations. Do them naked, or you will be deported!"

"To where?"

"To Africa! They'll hack you to pieces with machetes."

The thought came into the madman's head, unbidden, unwanted.

I hate Africans.

"No!" the madman screamed inside his head. He pulled himself, his "I" away from the thought.

Damn Africans.

"It's not real, it's not me, it's not real it's not me..." It drove him crazy when thoughts like these came into his head. All he could do was watch the thoughts, like a frightened child watching all of his school friends get run over by eighteen wheeled trucks.

"So you are racist. They will love you in Africa," the female voice chided. "Now, off with your clothes or off with your head."

"Those weren't my thoughts! I hate those thoughts! You put them there."

"Ten million more!"

It took forever, but his pants dropped. His underwear was next. Then his socks. He was stuck in the room, couldn't face the hallway naked. They would see his skinny ribs, his shriveled penis, his butt crack.

"Prostrate."

The female voice, cold, distant, full of spite and hatred. How they managed that with their brain zapping device the madman couldn't quite figure out. Maybe it was one of those specially tiled megaphones he saw on t.v. But it didn't matter. They had all the power.

The madman stepped outside his bedroom door, and into the hallway. He began the prostrations. On after another. Ten million times a half hour of stalling equaled a few billion prostrations, or so the female voice said.

He reached twenty before his arms gave out. He lay there, sobbing, and fell asleep.

It was in the middle of the night when the night manager came, his angel like face, his soft gaze of compassion. He wrapped the madman with a blanket and took him to his room.

"Please, get some rest. You've had a hard day," the night manager said.

He turned to the door, and waited there, his back to the madman. He couldn't go out into the hallway, not like this, not with the tears running down his face, crying for the poor madman who worked so hard every day of his life just to stay alive.