Hilter House

Before my eyes even open for the day, I know it’s going to be another hot, sticky one. The feeble AC unit in my window whirs desperately, wondering if today would be the day it dies a bitter, merciful death.

I thought the same.

The light filtered in from the broken blinds, Arizona’s sun seeking its victims before the rooster has had a chance to crow, before my eyes are fully open, before I sit up and put my feet on the faded wooden floor.

The water running from the shower head provides no relief, a weak drizzle of lukewarm water at its best, no matter if you had the knob turned all the way to blue, seeking a cold stream to jolt you awake. It wasn’t ever quiet in the Hilter House cabin I’d been assigned to, but it always felt still. I could hear the pipes groaning and the floor creaking in another room despite me being the only occupant. Noises that never really quite went away, but there was always the unshakable feeling of it all being enveloped in a thick, invisible fog, remnant of a cellar that hadn’t been opened in over a decade.

At 0700 hours, I stepped outside with my hair still damp, likely to start steaming under the full attention of the sun now, and my gray uniform wrinkled in ways no amount of ironing would ever truly get out.

Six other staff members stepped out at the same time from their own worn cabins, just like the morning before, just like they would the morning after, and we all moved in the same direction with nothing more than a nod towards each other. Acknowledging that we were still here, together, here to take care of the true residents of the Hilter House.

A buzz of the door, a sheet of sterile air hitting my nostrils, and a shuffle through the metal detector before my shift officially began, twelve hours of this tomb, and it truly was like a tomb. Nobody who came to the Hilter House ever left, even in death their remains were never wheeled out. I didn’t know where they went, I didn’t know where anything went, but I knew in the fourteen years I’d been here, there had never been anything hauled away. Upon the death of a resident, there was only a new delivery. A new face, new bewildered eyes. Well, not always bewildered. Some vacant, some seething with rage, some with tears in them that eventually dried up once they knew this was the end of their road.

I’d been recruited for the role when my prestigious psychiatrist career fell apart. It wasn’t even my fault, I’ll keep telling you that, just like I’d told everyone back then. But it doesn’t matter now. I was unemployable, and facing a prison sentence. They gave me another option – Hilter House. I don’t remember ever saying yes, but I must’ve. I woke up here fourteen years ago, and I’d worked with the residents ever since. I don’t think I’ll ever see the world outside of this barbed wire enclosed facility again, but as I look into the small white rooms and see the eyes peering back at me, I always thank whichever gods are out there that I’m not on the other side of this door instead.

My first patient on the first day of the week is always Sara. All residents stick to an identical schedule all seven days of the week, including their therapy hour, with me. Sara rarely needs my help, or the extent that I can offer it, but I sense in the way her nostrils are flaring and her right hand anxiously pinches her left wrist that today won’t be like most days.

“Thanks, Gary,” I say to the direction of the staff member responsible for bringing Sara to the small room where I sat, vacant aside from the dark desk I sat behind in my chair, and the padded navy chair Gary sat the patients in across from me. There were no pictures on the walls, no calendars tacked up, not even a notepad or a pen. In the top left corner behind me was a single camera, recording every movement and uttered word. I knew exactly how much it saw, and how if I angled my body a certain way my right hand would be shielded from the footage.

Gary stepped out of the room, shutting it behind him with an audible click. I looked at Sara and waited for her to speak. A few minutes trickled by, or at least they must have by my mental account without a watch, and Sara stared at the floor still rubbing her left wrist. I could practically hear the conversation in her skull, the multiple conversations as she tried to single out the voice that spoke aloud.

“Doctor, it’s beginning again, please, please make it stop.” She finally whispers, her voice barely audible and she can’t help but make a quick glance up to the camera as she speaks, before her eyes dart to my right hand and shoot back down to the floor. My lips form a tight line, knowing her low whisper and scared look at the camera instantly activated the attention of whomever was watching it. I smiled a thin smile, there was nothing I could do for her today.

“Sara, I assume you’re referring to the voices again? Let’s explore if upping your medication might just help you feel better.” Her face went white and fell, eyes finally looking directly at me as she processed my response. It was a no. She knew it, and she knew she’d messed up. Sara was new, only a year in, and had been one of the crying ones when she’d first arrived. I almost expected to see her dull eyes well up in tears again, but none came. We continued for the rest of the hour with standard questions about her symptoms, about which voices she’d been hearing, what they’d been telling her. The usual.

My next patient was Sam, I liked Sam. He’d come in with vacant eyes from the start, never fussed, and had a loose manner about him, like he’d always known he’d end up in a place like this. I knew enough about his background to know that he certainly had lived his life as though he’d wanted to end up in a place like this. Sometimes I’d catch myself pausing my gaze on his hands a moment too long, visions flashing of what those hands were capable of. Nobody ever really paid attention to him here, he was simply too placid now, including the people behind the security cameras. I knew we could do the real work I do.

The pointer finger on my right hand met with my thumb as though I’d picked up a thin needle, yet nothing glinted between my fingers but air. Sam’s eyes glazed over and as he sat back I dropped into a monotone voice speaking to him about his case file. It was just noise, just something that would sound similar to how I’d start most of my sessions. He responded when questions were asked, but I knew he wouldn’t remember his answers. The camera couldn’t pick up on what my eyes were seeing, how from my right hand a wisp of gray matter uncoiled itself and made its way towards Sam. Upwards, toward his face, the side of it, and found its way into his ear orifice. It could have been any facial orifice really, but I preferred the ear so I could still see their faces plainly, uncovered by the smoke.

Here is where my fingers begin moving in slow methodical motions, reaching the prefrontal cortex, a massage of sorts to ease the urges, the violence, even just the desire to escape. It was a mercy, I told myself. A mystic sort of ability that had made me a revered psychiatrist. Until, well, until… It wasn't my fault. That’s all you really need to know.

Every patient gets a different sort of treatment. Some don’t get it at all, simply a defeated shell of who they were, with no natural urge existing. Some are too medicated, at which my attempts to get through are like wading through a squelching muddy creek, never reaching where I need to be. I can’t make them happy, I can’t make them love, or cry, or shout. I can only quiet what is already there. That’s all. That’s all I’d ever done.

At 1900 hours, I exchange the sterile air for a heavy, murky heat and cross the same yard as I’d done yesterday, and will again tomorrow. I exchange nods with the other staff members and we disappear into our worn cabins.