By R.R. Stark They were driving me mad, the patients, the doctors, my wife, everyone! But the voices I was hearing were very real!          I was going mad! I was certain of it! All the tragic clues were there. At first I stubbornly remained in denial, then the dreaded suspicion of the fact crept into my conscious mind. I had wondered if my mind was playing tricks on me, which was my first clue. Things were present in one second -- and gone the next. Even people that I assumed were standing there talking with me would vanish, simply after I looked away for a second. Was I becoming schizophrenic -- or just imagining things?          Then the voices started in, telling me strange things. Finally, only after three months when my wife had loathsomely committed me to this godforsaken asylum, I began to realize that I must be going mad. I didn't notice anything unusual until I had been here a while. But I blamed it on my wife first, who despicably rejected me, and then on all the other patients here. They all drove me to it! All of them! These damn crazy people! And even the doctors, those lecherous insufferable shrinks!          But the strange voices came gradually. At first they were incoherent murmurings and whispers that echoed in my mind, and they kept me awake nights, which is probably why I developed insomnia. Eventually, they became sharper and clearer. There was a damn conversation occurring in my own head! It occurred to me that perhaps I was telepathic -- but it was more likely that I was simply going insane.          When I began understanding the voices, at first it was boring idle conversation between two somebodies, be they disembodied voices or something else, I didn't know. But then I became attentive as soon as I began hearing something quite interesting.          "I'm getting sick of this rotten crap-hole," said the first voice.          "Yeah, I hear you," said the second voice.          "I'm breaking out."          "When?"          "Five days from now. And I need your help."          "Alright, I'm there for you."          And then the voices stopped. I got up off my cot, and looked around -- at nothing, because nothing was there. I put my ear up against the dismal gray cinderblock wall, wondering if I was hearing something from the other side of it. But there was nothing.          Whoever was planning an escapee here, I wanted to be in on it. But how would I find out who they were -- or were they just the voices in my head and nothing more?          The next day I entered the common room where all the patients congregated during the daytime, either to watch TV or play cards or other monotonous activities, all of which I despised, because the doctors' purpose was to numb our sick minds, training us to become sluggish and indifferent, rendering us dumb and docile. The medications they fed us essentially laid the foundation for this lethargic state of mind.          I looked all around the room, looking for them. Most of the people were chattering, or laughing, or carrying on normally -- but then abnormal behavior was normal in this place. However, I saw two people sitting in a corner of the large room, apparently playing an innocent game of poker at a small TV table, and they were being very quiet, unlike all the rest. These two had to be them. I've heard their voices, these two who were plotting to escape. No one had ever escaped from this psychiatric hospital before; it just wasn't done. The patients were too sedated, and their ability to clearly think things out was rendered void.          This was not a high-security prison; it was an asylum for people with mental disabilities or diseases. And I was one of them, labeled as a schizophrenic by the psychiatric staff. In the beginning, I figured they had misjudged me, misunderstanding me, denying that I actually had a certain ability, telepathy or whatever it was. But I wasn't going mad because of this ability, but because of the crazy people around me driving me toward insanity. When you hear voices the way I did, they obviously had a concrete source. And when I saw those two men presumably playing an innocent game of poker, talking in whispers, and acting suspicious and shifty-eyed, I knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that these two were the source of the voices I was hearing. With this evidence I knew that I wasn't crazy. But if I told anybody of my suspicions, they would just laugh at me. The shrinks would probably put me in a straitjacket and throw me in the rubber room. For now I could not speak of my discoveries to anyone. Yes, I could tell the staff that these two individuals planned to escape -- or I could find a way to confide in them and escape with them. So I took the initiative.          I sat down in a chair next to them, smiling, acting as casual and normal as possible.          "Playing poker, eh?" I chuckled.          One just grunted, the other nodded.          "I used to play poker, too," I smiled.          One of them shook his head and the other snorted.          "Seriously, I did. How about you let me in on the game?"          One of them snarled, "Why don't you get outa here, creep. You're not one of us anyway."          I was shocked. "What are you talking about?"          "You're one of them. So get lost."          "But, I just wanna play poker."          The two suddenly stood up and left, leaving their cards. I was disheartened, feeling rejected by my fellow patients.          Back in my room, I sat in my narrow cot, feeling horribly hurt. They were being terribly mean to me, for no reason, and I just wanted to be friends with them, to play poker with them. Of course, I had ulterior motives; I was going to gain their trust and be in on the escape plan. But what were they talking about, saying I wasn't one of them? Perhaps because I had not been there for very long, only a few months, and many of these patients had been here for many years. I was just a newbie, so I didn't fit in yet, obviously. Besides, I was too much of a nerd, so that didn't help me fit in.          There were various cliques in the hospital, it was true, and sometimes it was hard to figure them out, considering these were mentally ill people. Some little groups comprised of delusional people; there was a Hitler, an Abraham Lincoln, a Napoleon, a Robert F. Kennedy, an Albert Einstein, and a Dr. Freud. They often played checkers together, or sometimes even chess. There was even a group of verbal extremists, or just plain loud talkers, and sometimes they played war games, and imitated sounds of machine guns and bombs exploding, and so forth. There was a group of entertainers also, and they imagined they were in a talent show; there were singers, dancers, comedians, dramatic actors, talk show hosts, etc. Some of them were hysterically pathetic, some were downright idiotic, and some were actually pretty talented. There was a computer nerd group, and the whole group always circled one computer and spouted technical jargon, but none of it really made any sense, especially since much of the time they made up their own terminology, like shifty goofenwonkus, mega-hyper-farction, or cyber-electro-spasms.          There were other weird cliques, but I didn't fit into any of them. Not just because I was a newbie, but because I didn't like any of them. I didn't like anyone here -- they were all stark raving crazy. And since they were driving me crazy too, perhaps I would eventually fit in somewhere. Perhaps I would end up reluctantly choosing one of these repulsive groups, and try to fit in. Yes, there were a few loners, like myself, and some of them had been here a long time. Perhaps I should just remain a loner, become part of the lonesome loner group, a strange group where its members did not congregate, but remained separate from each other and everyone else too. That's where I belonged - which was a lack of belonging.          The next day, I sat alone in the common room again - and I began to hear the voices again.          "We have to come up with a foolproof plan," one of them said.          "Definitely. But we have to keep away from others," the other remarked.          "I could swear that fool was butting in on purpose -- as if he knew something."          "He couldn't have suspected anything -- don't get so paranoid."          "I suppose you're right. But we need to be careful anyway."          "Absolutely. But let's work out a plan."          "Sh-sh-sh. Here comes a nurse. Keep a lid on it for now."          I looked around to find that nurse walking around in here, near them, but there was only two nurses standing and talking at the doorway. Perhaps those two had gone to another area of the building, since I didn't see them anywhere now.          I had to somehow approach these two individuals, become their friend, gain their trust, and escape with them. I had an idea. Perhaps if I suggested a foolproof plan, they would let me in on their little secret.          While I sat at one of the long tables with all the others in the cafeteria, eating a bowl of bland beef stew, I began to hear the usual assortment of disjointed voices:          "Heil Hitler! Heil myself! Heil Hitler! Heil myself!"          "I know how to repair this mega-fusional anomalous glitch-factor, because all we have to do is sub-recalibrate the spatial-audio macro-file to the electro-para-pneumatic simulator."          "For score and twenty-thousand years ago, our forty fathers came to this spam -- and ate it."          "To be-be-be-be-be, or snot to be-be-be-be-be..."          "We are going to take a trip from the earth to the moon, just like Jules Vern did, and do the other things... whatever that is... "          "We have to get out sooner than I thought, somebody's onto us, you were right."          "I suspected something, you know."          "If eels equals M&Ms that see squares, then according to my relative's theory, I should know the answer!"          Amidst all the usual voices, I heard the ones I'd been looking for, the ones in my head. They were going to act sooner than expected. But because they suspected me, I was sure of it. But how could they tell? They had no idea I could hear their voices. I hadn't done anything to reveal myself to them. Maybe they were just paranoid - like me.          I shook my head. I kept forgetting that they were driving me crazy in here, and most of these voices, or most likely all of them, were the results of my own deluded mind. I was imagining all this. Nobody was planning an escape. These were obviously just the voices of my own demented mind, voices of a pathetic patient who desperately wanted to get out of here, to escape. I was merely projecting my own desires upon others, especially those two men that often played poker at the TV table. I was connecting dots where none existed.          Not finishing the stew in my bowl, I got up to place it on the counter against the wall, and walking past the tables, I heard the voice:          "I think that's him."          Like a fool, I stopped and looked around, seeing everybody, yet seeing nobody, no one I could pinpoint, not even those two playing poker at their TV table. I shook my head and left the cafeteria.          I sat in my room at the little table, face in my hands, thinking, pondering, contemplating. That last remark I had heard was just a fabrication from my own paranoid mind -- it had to be. They're all definitely driving me crazy -- crazier than when I first got here. I had been perfectly sane when my wife committed me -- that damn bitch! True, I was having a nervous breakdown from the stress of work, finances, and married life, but by no means was I going insane at that time. But now, I was being driven to it, by anybody and everybody -- they were all around me now. They were making me hear voices that weren't there, voices that were only in my head. I had to get out of here, I had to escape! That's all there was to it!          Perhaps I was delusional. Perhaps I was imagining it all, the two voices, the ones that belonged to those two individuals, and all the other voices. I knew I was being driven insane as long as I remained in this place.          I don't know why but I had this fear that if they found out about me, I would lose my freedom around here, or worse, they might stick me in the rubber room.          Why would I think that? Find out what about me? They already knew I was crazy, didn't they? Something was confusing here -- very confusing...          Then a nurse walked in, and commented," You're staying awful late, Doctor."          I was too tired to respond as I sat at my cluttered desk, still feeling confused.          "Are you going to sleep on the cot in the back room again?" She asked.          I mumbled, "I suppose."          I felt oddly disoriented, feeling a strange shifting from one side of my mind to the other, and then I began remembering who I was.          Then the nurse announced, "I thought I should let you know, there are two patients missing."

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