Hi Hive,
This is the first chapter of the book i'm writing detailing my time with mental illness.
Lewis Ashton – The Mad Me
Chapter One
The Sinking Ship
‘It’s Time’
Lewis opens his eyes, still the dream carries on. A blurry vision of a beautiful shape (a woman) slowly disappears from all perception.
Lewis is alone in a double bed, he stares at the lampshade for a while, movement is slow at 1pm on a Monday, Lewis is up early today.
‘Look out of the window’
Moving towards the shafts of light coming from in between the curtains, Lewis draws them, slowly.
‘Another day in paradise’ Lewis amuses himself.
Lewis is a slim figure, no muscle, no fat, nothing but bone. He’s wearing his girlfriends pyjamas, he grabs her dressing gown and makes his way downstairs, into the dark labyrinth of this all but fallen down home. He boils the kettle and hopes there is milk for tea.
‘I drank it all’
Lewis opens the fridge and curses the bastard who drank the last of the milk, black tea this morning..
All the blinds and curtains are closed and no light seeps in through to the downstairs, boarded up windows and the front door being nailed shut help to ease Lewis’ mind from the thought of being broken into, or indeed someone from thinking that this was a lived in home. Of course, it was lived in, there was Lewis after all, and Jenny. Jenny is Lewis’ girlfriend, currently at university studying fine art, also holding down a part time job as a waitress. Although Lewis didn’t realise it yet, his one saving grace was this beautiful soul that kept him fed and watered.
The kettle still steaming, Lewis makes the most of his milk-less tea.
‘Can’t tell the difference’ Lewis says aloud whilst eyeing up his cup of tea.
‘Must just be all in the mind’ his words trigger some involuntary train of thought that leads him to a crouching position on the kitchen floor, deep in thought.
He hears the kitchen door being unlocked and is snapped out of his sudden detour, quickly stands erect and smiles at the door in eager anticipation.
‘Did you go to therapy today?’ Jenny asks as she walks into the kitchen, the smell of London following her. Lewis enjoyed this experience, a cold smell, he enjoyed it much, it smelt of possibility.
‘Maybe, I don’t think so’ Lewis answers, hoping she will laugh.
‘Whatever’ Jenny replies and makes her way to the kettle.
‘Did you at least buy cigarettes?’ Jenny turns to Lewis to ask.
‘I don’t have any money, you didn’t leave me any’ explains Lewis.
The kettle boils, Jenny picks up her bag and walks out of the door, making her way to the shop of which is only about a three minute walk from the house to buy some cigarettes.
‘Lewis, you have to go to work, you can’t expect to sponge off people for a living’ Lewis’ dads words echo through Lewis’ mind.
Lewis picks up his phone and does the one thing he really didn’t want too, he calls his Dad.
‘Hi Dad’ Lewis prepares for a badgering.
‘I Suppose you want money?’ Lewis’ Dad asks, Lewis could hear the mixture of Love and hatred in his dads voice.
Lewis hangs up the phone, annoyed with himself and his parents. Jenny walks back into the kitchen and puts her bag down, again.
‘Lewis, you need to do something, I cannot support us’ Jenny says whilst lighting a cigarette and pouring water into a cup of tea, Jenny wishes Lewis would go to work and snaps out of whatever madness he seems to be acting out.
He isn’t acting. Since starting therapy he had found himself deep in psychosis, although he didn’t see it as that yet.
‘It’s not me Lewis, That isn’t me’
He looked at Jenny, searching for something concrete to prove this wasn’t Jenny. It didn’t look like her, not what he remembered.
‘Shall I go pick up?’ Lewis knows that if he’s going to be kept in this strange reality then he’s going to at least smoke.
‘OK, just hurry’ replies Jenny with a smile and hands him £10.
Lewis, without a shower or brushing his teeth, grabbed the bike and rode the few miles to the dealer and knocked on his door. – Going through his mind at this point is the thought of him working as an undercover police officer, gathering intel on all the local dealers, he hated the drug culture and the kind of people he had to deal with.
‘Alright, mate, Can I ave a ten?’ Lewis croaks, faking the croak.
Making his way back home through the country side, Lewis starts to talk to film crew he knows is documenting his life. – In his mind he is on an exercise bike and none of what he see’s is really there, well still there, but he believes himself to have been hypnotised and someone else is living out the reality and he see’s just what the camera see’s, whilst safely in a recording studio (film set).
‘Fuck off, you cunts, I just want my life back with my Jenny’ Lewis says aloud to the cold air as he cycles.
‘Then do something to prove you know this isn’t real’
‘Like what, kill myself?’ Lewis answers, very annoyed at going over this everyday.
‘Exactly, until you do something to prove you know this isn’t real, we’ll just keep you here, we’re making loads of money, they all love us for keeping you here’
‘Fuck it, fuck off’ Lewis speeds up on the bicycle and tried to imagine a life were him and Jenny are happy.
A house, a garden, dogs, cats, flowers, in the middle of no-where, Lewis can picture it so vividly.
‘We can still hear you, you’ll never get that until you prove this isn’t real’
‘Thank fuck’ Lewis pants as he reaches the back door to the house and he enters, at least when he’s with Jenny it’s not quite as bad, he’s with someone at least.
The house he currently lived in was inside a scaffolding yard, about 10 feet away from the main train line to London, dark, un-inhabitable to the normal folk, but his parents had allowed him and Jenny to stay there rent free.
Unlocking the back door, he enters, checking for signs of entry and searching for cameras – Even though he believes that he has been hypnotised not to be able to see the cameras watching him constantly, he couldn’t not show that he knew they were there, even if he couldn’t see them.
‘You were quick’ Jenny smiles, already in her pyjamas.
Lewis liked this Jenny, she reminded him of his Jenny. This’ll do Lewis thought, hopefully if I stay here and they see I’m not a danger to anyone they’ll stop all this madness and tell me what’s been going on.
‘Got me a bad guy’ Lewis smiled back, assuming she had been watching him on TV biking home and had a good laugh about it, she didn’t know that he had been working undercover for the police though, they only show the mad man picking up some drugs, they’re getting away with murder.
‘OK’ Jenny replied, puzzled.
This was the beginning of the bliss in his life, making a cup of tea, with Jenny, or a close approximation, some ganja, candle light in the kitchen and dire straights playing on the stereo. He normally had a few moments of peace in between the constant talking in his head, that he would conceal from Jenny, he knew that who ever Jenny was, even if she was in on it, showed love towards him and he would never do anything to let down or indeed endanger her or him.
‘Who am I?’ Jenny Lewis replies
‘Then who’s that with you?’ I don’t know Lewis says in his head
‘Then run away, tell me you know it’s not me’ I tried running away and ended up back here! I’m not screaming my head off and acting crazy! Just stop doing whatever you’re doing.
‘How was UNI?’ Lewis asks Jenny
‘It was ok’ she replies
Lewis is searching her face for clues as to whether she is telling the truth about going to UNI or not, he knows he isn’t crazy, but the voices in his head are so real to him.
‘OK’ He gives up trying to tell if this Jenny is lying, maybe she is Jenny.
‘Don’t you want to work for MI6? I thought you wanted that’
Not if it means I have to live in this make-believe world.. but if I’m making a difference for the better, then what’s my life worth? He had got used to talking to the voices in his head whilst still being in the ‘present’ which was normally just maintaining a standing position in the kitchen and making sure not to look like he was doing anything in his head, a smile he found, went a long way.
Lewis was sure that during his initial therapy he had been inducted into Mi6, but due to the high security of these missions he had been hypnotised not to remember them and put into this holding house with imposter Jenny’s in between missions. Partly why it got this bad is that he just wanted to make a difference in the world, no matter the personal sacrifice.
‘Shall we make pesto pasta?’ Lewis askes Jenny, snapping himself out of the mad stuff for a second to re-assure Jenny, or this particular Jenny, that he was fine living like this as long as something was being done for the good.
‘If you make it, I have to get on with my UNI work’ Jenny finishes her cigarette and casts a worried look at Lewis.
Jenny made her way upstairs to the bedroom, Lewis gathered his thoughts.
‘If you make this dinner, it won’t be what you think, you’re not really there’
Lewis grabbed the pasta an onion and pesto out of the cupboard and set them down on the kitchen surface in preparation for dinner.
‘Lewis, what do you see?’
Some pesto, pasta and a fucking onion – Lewis replied in his head with a what the fuck are you talking about sort of look, he picked up the onion It’s an onion.
‘No, what you have there is some baby food, popcorn and an apple’
Well to you maybe, but to me, here, it’s what I say it is – Lewis laughed at the thought of cooking their ingredients and presenting this to Jenny as a nice home made meal.
No, don’t let them make you laugh, this is sick, what they’re doing.
Lewis made the dinner, talking to himself during the whole process, sometimes when he was alone he gave up the ghost and spoke out loud to the various voices.
‘Write down who you think it is talking, how can you tell?’
‘I don’t need to explain myself to you, I hear your voices, but not in the usual way, I have to repeat what you’re saying and I do it in your voice’ Lewis muttered under his breath, knowing that if he wasn’t meant to let anyone know what was going on in side his head, no-one would be able to hear over the pasta boiling in the pan.
‘Doesn’t make sense, you can hear us, obviously, you’re not supposed to’
‘I’m telling the truth’ Lewis replied to the voice inside his head aloud, whilst swinging a knife around and stabbing at the fridge, he could also sense people were around him and it was terrifying.
‘See, he just gets annoyed and lashes out, we can’t have someone like that being able to walk the streets’
FUCK OFF – Lewis goes back to speaking inside his head.
Chapter Two
Mind over Matter
Painting is one of mine.