• It's funny how things change when you least expect it to. This year was supposed to be the year that I made everything right. I had it all planned out, everything was supposed to work out and my mistakes from last year were supposed to be forgiven. Can anything ever truly be forgiven?


    Thursday. Why school started so close to the weekend I'll never understand. I was finally old enough to walk to school, but my mother insisted on driving me like she always did. I knew the way, all the turns, all the streets so why couldn't I walk? I even took my medication on time to prove that I was responsible. I guess all parents are like that.

    I didn't have any classes with anyone I knew, a great way to start working on plans. Way to go administration. Each class was hell, not only was I different from the other kids in the school but this aide followed me around all day. I could do my work on my own, I could focus more this year why was this woman following me?

    The whole day I wanted to talk to my friends, well I hoped they were still my friends. The end of last year was a disaster, it's a good thing all of our parents got us out of trouble without the need of the court system. I had the perfect plan to end the year, but of course with my luck and they way things really work out nothing went right and property was destroyed.

    Maybe from now on I should just leave all planning to those who aren't medicated. The ones who are normal and not medicated for being “a danger to himself and others around him”. My mind just isn't like everyone else's.

    At lunch I eventually found everyone at a different table than the one that we sat at the year before. This had made me confused, why did they move? Of course, Ricky and his big mouth was there to tell me what was up. No details spared.

    “We aren't your friends anymore Jack,” he blurted out when I had gotten to the table with my tray. “Your mom told our parents that you can't be trusted...”

    “And after the fire last year, I believe her,” Sarah had spoken up. I'd once had a crush on her, but that was over and had been for a long time.

    The way they treated me was a crushing blow. I just wanted to show my friends that I could plan fun things, I didn't mean for it to go so far as a fire burning down the abandoned house.

    “Oh... I'm sorry,” I spoke softly, like my voice was caught. I didn't think they had heard me. All of them, all five of them stared at me.

    Nothing was going right, I felt horrible. I didn't care about school anymore, I didn't really care about anything anymore. As I left the cafeteria as well as the school, I could have sworn I heard them laughing at me. I knew it was in my mind but I felt like they were really laughing.

    It was hot out as I ran down the street, the sun was high in the sky. Nothing was going to make me go back to the school, there was no way that I was ever going back. I had only gone to the school one year made those few friends and now I have none! No one could make me go back!

    She can.

    My mother was standing outside of our house when I turned the corner of the street. She looked so angry, probably about the fact that I left school. I knew what was coming, I knew she was mad and was going to tell me all about it.

    “Jack, what have you done now?” She questioned with a tap of her foot, arms crossed.

    “Nothing,” I looked at her trying to figure out what happened after I left school.

    “Then why on your first day of school, do I get a phone call from the principal telling me you left?” He had a demanding tone in her voice and I hated it. She always got that tone when I did something wrong or not normal, which seemed to be always.

    “I'M NOT GOING BACK!!!” I yelled, stamping my foot. Sure that wasn't the thing normal fifteen year olds do but then again, I'm not normal.

    I didn't wait for my mother to say anything, as I ran past the house and farther down the street. I think she was calling for me, but I didn't care she couldn't make me go to school.


    I think I was swinging by the time “they” found me. I would be the last time I would be able to do anything normal in a long time. My mother was with them, these strange men in white coats. She looked upset, like she was crying. Not much had been explained to me when I was diagnosed about three years ago, and not much was being explained now. All I knew was that I really wasn't going to go back to school, for a long time.

    How was I to know I was on a point system, and that I had used up all of my points? I had time to think about this as my mother talked with the men. I didn't really pay too much attention, they were mostly talking about all the bad things that I had done. She sounded scared, for me, or herself I wasn't sure. An hour had passed, papers signed, arguments made, and all just to send me to this place called Havenwood. She wouldn't say anything as she gave me a hug and left me with the men.

    Havenwood looked nice, from the outside. The inside was a completely different story. As I was brought in, I heard cries, the cries that sound as though they are from people who are ill and have no hope of ever getting better. I didn't like these cries and the men in white didn't seem to care about them as they brought me to an office. Filing cabinets and a desk sat in the room, they made me take a seat as someone different came in.

    “Jack, patient number 5543. Age 15. Disorders: Pyromaniac, Depression, Bipolar. Boy, you have some major problems,” he finally said after a moment of looking at a chart. What would all of that have to do with why I am here?

    “I thought I was better now,” I said in a pleading voice. He just waved me off and went on talking about what I did that went with each problem.

    Soon a man came in with a rather drab looking outfit and told me to put it on. It was weird getting dressed in front of them but they wouldn't let me leave the room. The outfit was a light gray with just my number stitched onto the right pocket.

    “This is a shame, such a young boy. Take him to room 690,” the man with the chart ordered and I was taken to a small room with just a bed.

    As I sat on the bed I waited for something, anything but all I got was the sounds of the cries. It was all upsetting, first my friends leave me and now my mother lets these people take me away. Where was everyone, why was I alone? I started to feel like all my trying and all my attempts were all for nothing. I started to feel like I should be dead.

    The first time I felt like that I almost did go through with it. I ended up at the hospital getting my stomach pumped and my arms wrapped in bandages. My mother was so worried and immediately got me diagnosed for depression. I only tried it a few times till my mother demanded that my medication be up to the maximum that it could be.

    Now that I am alone and no one cares about me, maybe I should really try and end myself, but I would probably just screw up again. I laid on the bed, and looked at the ceiling. The whole room was padded, so I couldn't kill myself if I tired. A few hours passed before a guard/nurse/or whatever he was came into the room.

    “5543, time to go to the courtyard,” the guy said, he kind of looked like a guy that is only there cause he has to. He took me to a courtyard where a few other people were dressed like me. I guess they were other patients thought not the criers.

    I went to a bench and sat down, at least I could still look at the sky and feel the grass under my feet. A moment passed before a girl came and sat with me. She was cute, her hair in a messy bun. She had a slight twitch and kept moving but she tried to remain still.

    “Hi, I'm Janie. I've been here for a long time,” she smiled and looked across the courtyard. “I TOLD YOU TO LEAVE ME ALONE!” She screamed, startling me.

    “Um, I'm Jack. I just got here,” I said after I calmed down. This cute girl was talking to me...and whoever she was yelling at. It was quite exciting. We ended up talking the whole time we were allowed outside, most of the time she yelled at someone I couldn't see but it was alright.

    The whole night in my room, after my meal and when the lights went out, I was thinking of Janie. She wasn't like anyone I ever met, sure she spoke to herself but she was cute and spoke to me. I'm not even the nicest looking guy, my hair is dark and a bit wiry, and my face is a little bony. I could never make myself look any better, but she didn't seem to mind.


    Monday morning. The whole weekend was a little fun, but boring at the same time. There were these things I had to go to where a whole bunch of patients came and sat around and talked out what was wrong with them. Janie wasn't there and the doctor that was at this meeting thing told me that I would have to come to it once everyday.

    This one guy though, number 1298 I think, he said he was there since he was just nine years old. He looked older than my mother and spoke so softly. He told us his name, Jerome I believe, and told us that everyday he would sit in his room and do math problems. I think he tried to predicted many things, but like most people none of it came true.

    On Sunday we got to spend the whole day outside in courtyards. Me and Janie talked and bothered some bugs that were in the grass. I had gotten the urge to hurt myself a few times during the whole weekend, and that evening wasn't any better. I don't know how I got it but I was up in my room with a knife and starting to cut into my arm.

    The morning that followed all the doctors looked in my room. I wasn't out but I was dazed and they were all rushing around me. I wanted to be left alone.

    “Leave me alone! I want to die!” I had cried, even though they weren't listening to me.

    Down a hallway, down an elevator, and through another hallway. They had carried me to the infirmary even though my protests had started all the other patients with their cries. I had tried fighting, but I was so weak. The nurse had tied me down and tended to my wounds.

    “Oh dear Jack, what have you done to yourself?” She had said in a low sweet voice. I nearly melted when she spoke.

    I didn't answer her or even look at her, why did she bother with helping me? I'm not that important, maybe people just want me to hurt more. All that resulted with that attempt was a few cuts across my arm, a deep cut in my leg, and being moved to a different room so that they could clean my first one. I'm such a failure, I can't even hurt myself properly.

    I wasn't allowed to have my meals with anyone else and I wasn't allowed to go outside for a whole week. All I had to look forward to was talking to Jerome and the others.

    “Now 4565, tell us why you tried running away so many times,” our doctor for the little meeting things liked using our numbers instead of names.

    “My name is Misty,” she had growled and looked at the others. She had been playing with her hair and looked a bit annoyed at being called on. “I ran away because my mother is a b***h and I can take care of myself.”

    “Now, now, 4565. I talk to you about this before, you are ten years old and things aren't as simple as you would like them to be,” I think Misty wanted to attack him at that time, but all the other patients in the room started laughing and bouncing around. The doctor went about trying to get everyone to calm down.


    My whole experience was like that. Day in, day out, pills, talks, visits to the infirmary. I would have gone even more insane if it hadn't been for Janie. She was everything to me during the three years that I was at Havenwood.

    One day, during one of the talking sessions it was my turn to talk. What was I to talk about though? My obsession with fire? My plans that never went right? My constant changes in moods? Our doctor just wanted me to talk about the first time I lit up, so I did.


    “It wasn't that I was cold, or that I was at a camp with a fire going. I just wanted to see the flames and watch the stuff burn. It was so beautiful, the flames dancing around the things I threw in. It was poetry in motion that beautiful blaze taking down the old barn of my childhood town. I had also brought with me old books and other things that had made me mad. At school or anywhere, I didn't care. I broke into buildings and homes to get at all the stuff,” I guess the doctor and the other patients were scared of me then. I didn't see what was so wrong with what I did. It made me feel good and I was happy inside watching the flames.

    Was it wrong for me at five years old to enjoy burning things? The colors of the flames and the sounds of the crackles? Jerome and Misty stared at me, I know some people are scared of fires but I love them.

    “I think it's time we call it a day,” the doctor spoke up in the silence that followed. That was the last time I went to a group session. I even got a new doctor after that day, I kind of missed that guy.


    Around the holidays of my last year at Havenwood me and Janie spent a lot of time together. It was like she knew something that I didn't. Then again she always knew things I didn't. We had gotten each other gifts that year, I had made her a picture that I was only allowed to color. I wasn't allowed near anything sharper than crayons. She had gave me a necklace that she had made with shoelaces and a pendant that she said her mother gave her.

    I never took it off. It was and forever will be my most precious thing.
    “You'll always remember me right, Jack?” Janie sounded so sad when she asked me that. Of course I could never for get her. I gave her a hug as my answer.


    That spring I was released from Havenwood. The whole three years over just like that. My mother picked me up that day, she looked better than before. Maybe I looked different too. During the car ride home she barely spoke to me, I tried talking to her but she said nothing. The house was the same as the day I had last seen it. I'm was glad my mother didn't move. I knew what I was going to do, I had known since that day three years ago. I made the doctors believe I was well, that all my thoughts and ideas were now controlled by the medication.

    It was going to be perfect, I was sure of it and I knew the consequences. The doctors had drilled it into my mind the whole time I was there.


    Thursday. The same day that school had started my last year. It truly was going to be perfect. I was smiling the whole day as I got ready to go out. My mother was a little frightened, but I assured her that everything was going to be fine. It was about five in the morning when I left my house and walked to the school. It was a small town so the middle school and high school were the same building.

    I had found a way into the locked building and started messing with everything that could put out a fire. I would not have this ruined by anyone. It took me maybe an hour to get everything ready. All I needed was for everyone to be in the school and I could start. Sitting in the principals office I played with the microphone for the intercom system. The door to the office was locked and I made sure that no one could get it and I could safely get out.

    Eight A.M. The perfect time. Everyone was in their class waiting for the morning announcements. They would never expect my voice over the speakers. I could hear the police trying to get in. I didn't care.

    “Good morning,” I started to speak into the microphone. “I know there are some of you expecting to hear Principal Krain's voice, but sadly it is mine.”

    It was too perfect. I doubt they remembered me, but I remembered them. I could hear them yelling for the door to be busted open.

    “As you may or may not know, I once came to this school to start a new life. It went great till I made friends and they turned on me,” just a flip of a switch and I would have to leave before the few tiny bombs I made went off, but I wanted to wait. Give them time to try to get in.

    They managed to smash open the window and look in at me sitting at the desk with a small switch. I smiled and they looked so scared, I loved the look on their faces. “I must go now. I do wish you all the best.”

    With a dark smile, I pressed the small switch and stood. Three small bombs went off under the school immediately starting fires that spread through the school that would burn everything. I jumped out the window after bowing to the police and leaving the switch. I would get caught, but I would be fine with that, it went perfectly.

    They found me at the same park on the same swing as before. This time there were no men in white coats nor was my mother there crying for me. I was just smiling, happy that my plan worked and that I did what I had wanted to the whole time I was at Havenwood.


    Ashamed of what I did? Regrets, remorse? No, the only thing that bothers me is that I will never see Janie again. Nor will I see any of the friends I made during my stay there. I am ready to accept what punishment I am to receive. I won't lie to you, fire and pain are still what I long for, but I will always have time to cause myself pain. Fire, though, fire is the one thing that is so perfect that you only have a limited time to experience it.