Final

“Continue,” motioned the old man while his fingers gracefully wound around his pen to tap it gently yet impatiently on the clipboard he was holding.

The woman’s eyes were blankly fixed on a certain empty space, her gaze boring right through the man like he never even existed. “What more do you want to know?” asked the lass.

“Well,” the other cleared his throat. “In your own opinion, do you think you’re cra—“ he paused to correct himself, judging his term to be unprofessional. “Do you think you’re mentally unhealthy?”

“If it was so, then it might be. If it were so, then it would be. But as it isn’t, then it ain’t. It’s simple logic,” explained the woman with an air of indifference, as if it was the most normal thing in the world to say.

The old man, however, didn’t look the least perplexed. “Answer me properly, Cass—“

“I’m Alice,” corrected the lady, her tone quite irritated.

“Answer me properly, then, Alice,” rephrased the man, cringing at the sound of the name.

She, in turn, had a wide grin plastered on her face. “We’re all mad here.”

“Don’t you label me with everyone else,” scolded the older.

“Well, you belong too. If people minded their own business, then the world might have gone around a great deal faster than it does.”

At her response, the man let out a hearty chuckle. “Do you even know what it means to be insane, or understand the scope and limits of the very sense of it?”

“I do,” stated the woman confidently as she rocked back and forth in rhythm. The man in the immaculate lab coat leaned forward in anticipation. “But first, you have to give me a definition of what I am not, as you say.”

“Do you mean to ask me what being healthy is?” demanded the man, to which Cassandra – or Alice, as she liked to be called – nodded vaguely.

The old man stretched out his tired hands. “Health is the overall well-being of an individual. It can also pertain to a person’s total efficiency.” His voice sounded like he was reading aloud from a medical manual, like he has repeated the same words over and over in his lifetime.

“Does it also mean that an individual is free from any kind of sickness or injury, maybe?” insisted the woman.

“Not quite.”

“Not quite?”

“Yes, not quite.”

Alice smiled to herself. “What about normal? Is it the same thing as being healthy?”

“In some context, perhaps yes,” pondered the old man, his aging face and graying hair strands gave more effect to his contemplation.

“Then what is reality?” quizzed Alice, her words piercing the man’s mind to question and doubt all the things he believed in and stood for.

In surrender, he let his shoulders droop and relax. “Why don’t you answer it for me?”

“They all go together in perfect synchronization, you see,” started the woman. “Reality is whatever the majority wants it to be. Logical or not, as long as it’s what society does as a whole, it’s what they consider normal.”

“The computer keyboard, for example,” explained Alice. “Designed as early as 1873, the keyboard was created by Christopher Latham Sholes. It is in random order or, as what we call it, in QWERTY.” The man fought back a laugh. To him, it was getting more and more amusing, but she continued anyway.

“But if, for instance, I decided to make a new one, with all the letters arranged in alphabetical order, no one would buy it. The original type of keyboard is the only available model, causing many people to learn typing in that particular system.”

“If I were to use an alphabetical keyboard, I would already be considered abnormal because I don’t go with the flow. I don’t follow what most people would do. At that moment that I become the odd one out, I instantly become unhealthy or, as you like to call it, crazy.”

“You see, people only go insane when they try to escape from routine,” concluded Alice finally. "And routine is to type using the QWERTY keyboard. Routine is having toast and coffee for breakfast. Routine is having the clock turn clockwise – even though no one stated that it should be that way. It just is. Everything just is. Things just are."

Astounded, the doctor almost forgot to scribble observations on his handy clipboard. He didn’t let his amusement show, though, and managed to maintain an emotionless composure all throughout as the woman talked.

“As you had said earlier, being normal is being healthy. If so, then with the same analogy, being different is being crazy. Are we at the same page here, doctor?” said Alice.

“Interesting.” The old man rested his chin on his propped up hand. “Moving on,” he suddenly remembered his initial purpose for a personal visit. “Do you think you’ll be able to leave this place?” He gestured to the peeling white paint on the four walls enclosing them.

Alice just gave a shrug, although it was quite difficult to do so with the tightly strapped straitjacket she was wearing. “Maybe. Maybe not.”

The old man pretended not to hear her last two words. “If you do get out, where would you go?”

“it depends on where I want to end up. In this case, anywhere would be perfect,” answered Alice. Even though she spoke of freedom and independence, there was no intensity nor longing in her eyes.

The doctor, content with their brief conversation, stood up and got ready to leave. He advanced to the heavy door with a small – yet barred – window. “For the record,” said Alice suddenly, making the man halt in his tracks. “I’m not crazy.”

The man laughed. “Yes, that’s what they all say.”