It was as if the frightful torrent that is winter was suffocating the life from the entirety of the chamber. Down the walls water ran lacing the floor with a slick coating of ice, the inhabitants of the chamber would face pneumonia. When found here, the primary thought would be to extricate one’s self from such a horrid existence.

“Oh my heart! My life! Oh! Thou have no pity for me? I whom begs merely for a shimmer of warmth in this place where Jack Frost cripples the ability to function, to feel. Why hath thou no mercy? Please? PLEASE?”

Wails from men and women who lay bare on the floors of these forgotten dungeons were regularity, ignored by any of the physicians, or practical people who roamed this asylum…

Long brown tresses swirled from her most beautifully ordained crown down to her bosom. Teeth, white as shining pearls, her smile would bring even the most treacherous in nature to their knees in thankfulness for another day to live. Her hands and feet are dainty, her smell sweet as blossoming lilacs in spring. She was la fille de toutes les belle choses. As was custom she married with a large dowry into a wealthy and powerful family. Within a year of marriage she presented her husband a baby boy with little dimples and sweet chubby cheeks…

“Aaaaaaaghhhh!”

The man in room two nineteen was receiving his daily beating. He would return to his cellar smelling like piss, the smell constantly lingered about his person asphyxiating the others in the chamber. The lady who murmurs to herself in the corner retch; her bile smelled of dead rats. The bile would splash across the floor, one of her black, deadened, decaying teeth would fall out of her mouth, and whether any of them were still there is debatable. When she was through she’d remove her cloak from her shoulders wipe up hr mess, put the cloak around her person again and resume her murmuring. This was her daily routine.

The man, the man who was receiving these beatings had been there but a fortnight and had been subjected to more beatings than a lunatic of a year. It wouldn’t be long until that one would disappear; the lunatics whose shrieks resonated throughout the entire establishment penetrating the guts of the others were the least likely to survive…

The petite beauty had embraced motherhood as well as the duties it entailed. She remained in the same state of utter radiance on the outside. Her thoughts, her love of life was deteriorating to dust with every lash laid upon her once night fell. Her better half was unsatisfied by the strives his damsel made to fulfill his every wish, execute perfectly all of his demands. God bless their son’s little heart, for his slumber was undisturbed while but a floor below him the entirety of the street heard, but paid no heed to the otherworldly shrieks bellowed out from our petite beauty with the little hands and feet…

Treatments for patients were hard to come by, not yet discovered by the minds of this day. How does one go about changing a horrid woman’s belief that she was superior to a man? How does one go about taking voices out of a man’s head? The only logical solution is the removal of such peoples from society. Such ideals could not be spread throughout this culture, their unheard of atrocities are not to be spoken, a corruption to morality.

It is desperate times. When people forget their place, drastic occurrences happen, change that isn’t needed happens and an infinite downhill tumble occurs. The unspeakable may happen behind the walls of this asylum, but unspeakable could happen to those innocent in nature, so locking away the batty, society’s outliers is easily justifiable.

Those in room six twenty-eight, that’s the room of the women who prowled the streets after having been sent out by their husbands. Upright, God fearing men would not stand to be humiliated further by the actions of former wives. To have the town speaking of about the adventures drunkards paid for with the bearer of these men’s children. No! Such disgrace would not be tolerated; the women of the town were thrown in with the batty to live out the short remainder of their existence in a loveless hell with not a possession to their name, the people apathetic.

In room five thirty-nine those who heard things, terrible awful things, they were kept here. Not only did they hear voices, some were none to carry out the wished of these voices. In town families still grieve over loved ones slaughtered by an absolute maniac. A dreadful night, the entire block was wipe out. It is said the man intruded upon the properties, with merely his carving knife. A family had all been hung by the rafters in the ceiling. Yes, they were hung there, traditionally hangings are done by rope, this psychopath had desecrated the bodies, every single one of the family members were tied up by their innards, including the eight month baby. When they found the culprit in the last house of the block, like a child makes angels in the snow he mimicked these movements in the spilt blood of the family.

He ended up in the asylum, one of the people inhabiting room five thirty-nine. It was not long the before the shadow of the moon he did away with himself. The others in the room screamed all night for the warden that didn’t open the door until morning; the rats had already started upon the corpse. These were the men of room five thirty-nine…

Her energy was deteriorating. She was not going to stay with the monster the man she married had become. Due to his status, a divorce would be declined without a second thought. She couldn’t just leave either; everyone knew she was Lady McAllister; she would have to make him disown her…

Nothing within the asylum went without research. Experiments seemingly never ceased on the patients. Scientific research was conducted in efforts to cure the patients of their ailments. It could be argued that the experiments were inhumane. A peasant would have a feeling of awe, a terrible sickening awe, at what was happening to these people. It was all for science, to cure the ailments and prevent a spread…

She had accomplished it. She was banished, with a few dresses and petticoats. He graciously gave her a few pounds. His last words had been: “Remove yourself from this estate. You have no children, you have no family, don’t return.” Indeed the last words he had spoken to her.

Freedom was not what she’d imagined it to be. Her parents had disowned her as well for being sent away from such a perfect marriage with a man of such high standing. There was nowhere for her to go.


She was still a pretty damsel, but one couldn’t remarry without dowry, the money she had she needed for food. She had a scanty amount left as it was. Her mind was simple, as a child things were given to her. She need not know how to read nor write, but only to be a good wife. She could be a beggar lady yelling for alms to fill her belly…

We’re a civilization of progress. A curiosity has shaken us, trying to make us aware; aware of wants, our needs, our aspirations. Searching, always searching for a higher truth; more understanding of the world that surrounds us. We’ve been sent forth on a journey of intellectual stimulation. Feeding our brains, feeding that hunger which makes us wonder. The hunger Sir Isaac Newton felt after the apple dropped. The curiosity Confucius felt about life.


Sometimes we hunger for things that need not be hungered for. We fill a void that should have never been filled. We are curious for things that we need not seek. For not all questions need answer, nor should answers be found for questions that start innocently enough; not all answers are as innocent as the question…

Weary was a relevant adjective for the energy of this girl. Freedom had left her homeless and scared. There was no work for the uneducated woman, except that of a housekeeper. None of the town folks had accepted her offer. Her husband had more than likely corrupted her search. Her husband had managed to threaten the whole town into utter damnation if they helped her. She was shunned, shunned into an utter hell. Her belly tortured her with its endless rumbles. Her hands were chafing as the November cold set in; her once soft hands were hard and calloused. Her luscious brown hair was now nasty tangled lumps upon her head. The women of the town looked more elegant than she. Walking, endless walking; retracing yesterday’s steps hoping someone would invite her in to warm her hands by the hearth.

She turned her head; it was too late for her to run. Her reflexes had failed her it took but three seconds too long for her to recognize her husband…

There was not a lot of paperwork to it. They took age, weight, height, and a list of recent ailments. They asked why the family felt the need to commit their relative to the establishment. Not a lot of paperwork at all. The staff almost convinced the patients of their lunacy. All arguments were disregarded. The dungeons weren’t the primary facility people were sent. The primary accommodations were decent enough, the food was terrible, but it was sustenance nonetheless. ..

There was a struggle, when he returned home the butler would ask why it looked like someone had bit a chunk out of his hand, by then an excuse would be thought of. The lady sat across from him in the carriage an incredulous look warped her once beautiful features. Too bad she was bound and gagged; otherwise the man would be dead. The carriage halted and a humongous establishment loomed over them. An air of certain doom hovered at the gate. Her husband got out and carried her as he did their wedding night into the doors.

An older gentleman greeted them. He raked his eyes over her body, all the while directing questions at the husband. Two orderlies were bright forth to unbind her. She looked at the older gentleman; her husband had quit the premises a moment before.

“Where am I?” she spoke lethally, trying to poison his countenance.

“Lady McAllister you are at Sullivan’s Asylum. Your stay shouldn’t exceed more than a few weeks. Your husband was worried about you, due to the recent behavior you have shown. We’ll try to make it an agreeable stay as well as fix these problems that we were told of...”

The first words they say to you are always lies.