A Big Sleep -open-

Tally liked old movies; shot in shades of grey or that warm tinted Technicolor from the 50s and 60s. She liked it when everything was so obviously filmed on a set; fake rooms, fake streets and props painted to look like whatever they had to be. Screw the realism of modern films, set on location- movies were supposed to be fake, supposed to be an escape. Lauren Bacall, not a single hair out of place, or a wrinkle in her dress as Schatze Page in How to Marry a Millionaire, Gene Kelley never putting a foot wrong in his perfectly pressed suit, the streets fresh and bright without a bum or a trash can in an American in Paris. The meat and the bone and the shit and the vomit of reality were one thing, but why would anyone willingly want to see it on a screen?

Wishing that she could have always looked perfect too (and no one ever ate in old movies either), Tally felt wearied with the weight of the real. Flyaway strands of her hair that would just not lie flat, the burgeoning prickle of the hair in her armpits mingled with sweat underneath her thick coat and woollen dress, the split in her nails, the chipping of away of all the colours in the polish. In the chicken coop, this was more apt than ever; straw underfoot, earthy smells of chicken ass, shit smeared eggs and musty feed. It made her nose wrinkle up, wish that she could dowse the whole place in perfume- but on some level, Tally didn’t mind it. There was something here that reminded her of home, simple southern folk, cookouts that she tried to not eat at and Scottie- he always loved animals.

It was one of the reasons she often felt like they were two opposite sides of the same coin; her brother all heart and slow and nurturing, while Tally was cool and clever and cruel- filling in the parts that each of them were missing to form something more whole. She wished that she could have written to him; but he hated reading and she hated the thought of someone else getting to see it. Being one of the patients with ‘problem behaviours’ meant working out in the stables, collecting eggs and mucking out goats for four hours a day and however they dressed it up, it was a punishment, meant to break them. And though she would never admit to it, she actually didn’t mind the work, or the animals. Scottie kept chickens too, out in the yard of their old house, and one old rooster that was so raggedy and rangy that you had to wonder how it could still be living- though Tally predicted that it might outlive them all. The smell reminded her of him- his personal hygiene left a lot to be desired because things like that just didn’t bother him (two opposite sides of the same coin). If she shut her eyes, she could have been smoking on the porch while he collected those eggs from the old, ugly hutch they were kept in, noticing her and raising his arms to say hello.

Maybe that’s why she was here on a Sunday afternoon when she didn’t need to be, shouldn’t have been- because of course there was a rule against this, there was a rule against everything. If she was in here because she seemed to have a problem sticking to the rules of the world outside Hallowsgate, Tally didn’t see how she would stand a fucking chance in here. Sliding down the length of the chicken coop, Tally drew her knees into her chest, watching the hens roosting, wished she had a lighter so she could smoke something, but in no hurry to walk around and find an orderly to light it for her. Making a clicking noise with her teeth, she got on her knees and pulled a little closer, poking out her finger to the chicken closest to her.

“Hi,” she cooed softly, reaching out to feel the silky auburn feathering of a Rhode Island Red. The chicken flinched away a little and Tally let out a small ‘oh,’ at the ruffled movements. “Don’t be like that, girlfriend,” Tally chided. “If I had things my way you or your eggs wouldn’t get eaten. There are 107 calories in a fried egg you know? And turkey and fish are much healthier.” Try telling them that though, try telling them that she was getting too fat already- she could feel it sitting on her bones- and they would just treat you like a mental patient. Even when you’re being completely fucking reasonable. She was tired of it, missed her home, and her brother and the freedom so much that it hurt.

But still, talking to a chicken? Now this was more what crazy people were supposed to do, Tally supposed. Who could have guessed that staying in a nut house made you into more of a nut than you were before?

She reached out to stoke again, and this time the chicken didn’t flinch.

“Good girl,” Tally smiled, the chicken’s flapping stopping as she pulled it onto her lap. Chicken coop. Cooped up. Fattened up, festering in a cage like an animal. They were a lot alike, Tally and the chicken and god that smell, so almost like home, but so far away from it.

Feathery wings crumpled and flapped in her face, so that Tally had to draw back away from the struggle, still holding it. “Sit still….you fuck….sit still!” Tally snapped angrily, digging her perfectly painted nails into the feathers. Still it struggled, still it ignored her. "Little shit....little cunt..."

All she’d wanted was to sit with it calmly in her lap, but the animal it seemed had other ideas. Tally couldn’t have that. Chicken coop, cooped up, fattened up, festering in a cage.

The chicken began to squawk as Tally’s armed wrapped tighter around it’s body- the wingspan beating against her face until her hands had found a place on the chicken’s neck.

Tallow remembered a fight she had once with her brother. Eleven years old, her hair tied up in ribbon, sitting out on the porch and trying to catch bugs. Somehow, she managed to close her fist around a moth, kept cupped delicately in hand so she could feel its wings brushing against her palm like blinking eyelashes. Between finger and thumb, Tally held one of the wings, watching the moth jerk wildly, astounded at its fragility. Socttie was there watching and something strange twistsed through her stomach as she grasped tightly, pulling at the wing until it came away in her hand- sad and dead like a fallen leaf- letting the moth fall to the ground, still twitching, still writhing in its silent, strangely beautiful agony. Breath hitching sharp, Scottie had pushed her a little rougher than he should have done. “Loolah you shouldn't do that!” he commanded, scooping up the moth himself, cradling it and running a delicate hand over the other wing as though to soothe it. “He aint never done nothin' to you.” Tally was only little shaken at her cruelty, at the power of making something hurt- and the feeling wasn’t as unpleasant as anyone would guess. Still as soft as anything, Scottie closed his fist around the moth and squeezed down on it- to put it out of its misery. It crumpled dead like a ball of paper or dried pressed flowers and Tally, even at eleven, thought that- if you got a choice- it wasn’t so bad a death. Cupped and held close in Scotties’s palm all gentle and warm like that.

That same jittery, jumping of her heart is there as she pressed down on the chicken, trying to stop the jerking and the shaking. Expecting a snap that never came. There was a strange sick, but not altogether unpleasant feeling running the length of her body like shards of ice. Chicken coop, cooped up, fattened up, festering in a cage.

Tally pulled the chicken and flicked it’s body like a bullwhip, still holding onto the neck. Her breath heaved like she’d run three miles. She felt the spine loosen, the chicken go limp- just like that. Easy as pulling on a sweater or slipping into a cold pool of water. But she didn’t feel herself stop. Tally took the chicken’s head and dashed it against the floor.

Again, again, again. A strange dull noise, a jerking of loose bones and delicate skull, a noise from Tally like a choked sob.

And then she stopped and looked at it, the sick feeling dying into nothing except for the dull feeling that they probably frowned upon this sort of thing at Hallowsgate. Like…a lot.

“Oh, crap,” Tally said flatly to herself, out loud. The chickens seemed for the most part wholly disinterested in what had just occurred, unperturbed at the senseless killing they’d witnessed. Except one, walking past who caught her eye at what felt like the perfect moment with a reproachful gaze that seemed to say, And why did you do that, Tallulah Tansy?

Standing up, Tally nudged the chicken casually with her foot. God knows, she would have to admit with little more than a shrug.

Janine missed her old home mostly. Her family home she missed everyday, but in this instance, home meant her last facility. Wings of Change. It had been comfortable, familiar, she's lived there off and on at first but then a solid nine years. It was hard to move away. Hard to see all the staff she'd grown to know and rely on suddenly without jobs, no place to go and work and make their families proud. It had been a small facility, nothing compared to Hallowsgate, but with pretty grounds and a air that almost made them all feel like family.

At Wings, Janine had been kind of like the cancer patient in the family. Odds were any big family had one. The one who had an average life, average problems until this hit. And suddenly everyone's eyes were fixed. Watching the person they knew fade away, wither, until they seemed like someone else entirely. A husk. When Janine first moved into Wings of Change she'd been young, hopeful. Tired but smiling. She'd made friends, did volunteer work, tried to get better, tried to help others. But as she got older and her brain chemistry made it's final decisions she deteriorated. Slowly loosing touch with reality and herself. Mentally withering. Though she was turning into more of a child than anything: scared, easily frustrated and confused.

So, perhaps Hallowsgate had a few things going for it. No one knew what she used to be here. There was less pity in their eyes when they spoke to her and had their gazes meet hers. They didn't know how much of herself was lost.

The other thing Janine liked about Hallowsgate was the farming area. Wings hadn't had such expansive grounds and certainly not enough room for something like Hallowsgate's farm. It reminded her of her first home, her family home. Or more accurately her neighborhood. Her parents had owned a small Bed and Breakfast, at the base of a mountain, overlooking the valley. But next door was a recreational stables. Janine had been forever walking tourists over and going for a trail-ride, but in her off time, she always liked to visit their other animals. The family next door were long time friends with her parents and not blessed with children of their own, so the three Zeeger sisters were always welcome to come and go as they please. Visiting the goats and sheep and the pair of neighbor dogs. A couple: the lady a sweet faced Australian Shepard cross and her dog-husband of the Old English sheep dog variety. They were part of the family that way. And always happy to do some chores for the neighbors to keep things that way. Getting the eggs from the chicken coop and leaving them in a basket by the door, taking a few for themselves to bake cookies that afternoon.

Janine had spent the morning trying to put thoughts on paper. She was having a bad day, bad feelings in her bones and couldn't quite suss out why. The words escaping her and more and more the pen feeling foreign in her hands. Not connecting with the paper the way it ought to. The pages were eventually torn out of that book. Ripped and crumpled into nothing. Then disposed of. Though she missed the waste basket the first time.

She'd bundled up in her warm puffer jacket and a hat. Duck boots, knowing that she planned to head for the farming area. The walk was intended to cool her off, calm her down. She was feeling angry, which wasn't an emotion she liked on herself. And that fact only seemed to frustrate her more. Coming into the pen, she could hear quiet cooing from the chicken coop. Janine was always wary of other patients, Hallowsgate housed a much wilder bunch than Wings had. So the woman peeked through the partly open door, seeing the young girl and the chicken she smiled at first, but slowly things didn't seem right. Confused, Janine would her eyes fixed and her heart frozen. She didn't understand what was going on, what she was seeing. The world seemed to be playing a trick on her again. As the chicken died, Janine just stared, not believing her grey eyes.

"Why did you do that?" she said, walking slowly, shakily into the coop, eyes fixed on where Tally was nudging, kicking in Janine's mind, the still warm bird with her foot. "What the hell are you doing? Why!" Janine got closer and closer, almost in a trance. Finally flinging her arms out to give Tally a shove to the chest with the last word off her lips.

“I didn’t…” were the first words out of Tally’s mouth when she realised that she wasn’t alone in the coop anymore, though denials died on her lips when she realised that the other woman was just another droolie loosing her mind over something- getting all worked up about the chicken judging from the way that she started demanding that Tally explain herself. And she was working on a damn good lie, which probably would have been spectacular and believable and perfect- probably- when Tally was shoved. Slim as cornstalks, there wasn’t much to anchor her willowy body to the floor so Tally toppled backwards, all bony limbs and hair and little else. Her hands were out to cushion the fall though she should have let her ass absorb most of the damage as a pain shot through her left wrist.

“Hey!” she said, in a voice lost somewhere between indignant amusement and righteous anger while her teeth were gritted together as she pulled her wrist away and clutched at it. “Lady, you wanna not go around fuckin’ shoving people? Jesus girl…” She bent it and though it did hurt, Tally would have guessed that if it was broken she would have knownit, though after heaving up god knows how many vitamins and nutrients over the years it was a wonder her bones didn’t crumble to ash at the mere touch of another human being. “Fuckin psychos,” she muttered to herself, not really appreciating the hypocrisy in her words.

The chicken carcass was under her ankle now, due to the awkward position that she had fallen in and Tally slid her leg away and kicked it a little closer to the other woman. “Calm the fuck down would you?” was all she could offer to placate the other woman- even if she knew that if it came down to a fight that she would lose fairly easily; downed in one shove, as delicate and as brittle as the chicken spine that had snapped without much bother under her own efforts. Still, she wasn’t going to catch a beating over a fucking chicken of all things.

Tally couldn’t understand why the other woman seemed so pissed off. They’d been serving chicken at this shit hole for as long as she’d been here and she’d not seen anyone go mad about that even once. It was a walking nugget…not really something to go around pushing people on the floor for. Shaking her head, sighing heavily, Tally looked up at Janine, trying to gauge whether she should try and stand up again- her eyes saying ‘you got that all out of your system now, or what?’ Tally tried to push herself up with both hands, but winced with the ache running through her tissue when the flat of her left palm had pressure on it, so had to shift all of her weight onto her right as she tried to get up.
“Goddammit,” she muttered. “Goddammit were you a fuckin linebacker before you got here or somethin’?”

The denial hit Janine like a knife to the heart. Suddenly her mind was filled with doubt in a wave, like the Shining's elevator doors opening to let that wall of blood pour in. Nightmares come to life. Janine shook her head, she knew what she saw... didn't she? No, no, this little girl was messing with her. There was the chicken, suddenly dead on the floor. Janine had seen her kill it. She'd seen it. Hadn't she?

But what if the chicken was dead before. What if she'd imagined the animation, the flapping wings. Tally could have picked it up, moved it's limbs, made it look like something. Her mind could have filled in the blanks. Dr. Morn had always said that was what was happening. She was always so tired that she would miss bits and pieces of life, then her subconscious would fill in the blanks, try to make sense of it for her. It's trying to help That's what he used to say. Her brain was trying to help her get through life, but it didn't always fill things in the way it was supposed to. It made mistakes.

But this seemed so real, so vivid. It couldn't be a mistake. Janine shook her head head, harder this time and exhaled hard out her nose, trying to focus.

"D-Don't say that! Don't lie to me. I saw you. I saw you kill it. I did. Why would you do that? It-it wasn't even doing anything." She was just so shaken. Her eyes moving from the dead bird to Tally on the ground and back again. She knew what she saw. A singular act of cruelty. Animals were food, Janine knew that, she wasn't a vegetarian or an ignorance is bliss kind of person. But Tally had just killed it. Not for a purpose or by accident as far as Janine could tell. Just to kill it. Just because.

Shot a man in Reno.

Just to watch him die.

Her head shook again. Linebacker? What was she talking about. "Don't tell me to calm down and lie in my face. Just Don't. I know what I saw."

“What are you even raving about?” Tally blinked watching Janine stomping around and telling her not to lie to her face, but it was with hesitant motions that Tally pulled herself up from the ground. This one was off at the deep end and make no mistake, she could tell it from the stamping and the heavy exhaling. All she’d said was one pathetic I didn’t …she didn’t believe it and this other woman couldn’t believe it, but man alive did she seem to be incredibly offended by lying. It would have been funny if Tally’s wrist didn’t hurt so much. Hell, it was still sort of funny.

That voice that told people something wasn’t a good idea, that it might piss someone off or really hurt their feelings was just white noise inside of Tally’s brain as she fought to suppress a grin. “I have…literally no idea what you are saying,” Tally didn’t think that Janine would believe it for even a second, the evidence was overwhelming at as far as she was concerned there wasn't much getting around it, apart from maybe hoping that Janine would be easily discredited in front of staff- but that wasn’t the idea; the point was that she’d know Tally was lying and be even more pissed off than before.

Tally never understood how people got so wound up about things like little old white lies and bending of truths. For the most part they were just words- and how was the old saying supposed to go; sticks and stones may break my bones but words can never hurt. But in a place like Hallowsgate, filled with neurotics, post traumatics, depressives and droolies it seemed like words were one of the most powerful weapons a person could have in their arsenal- could cut as deep as sharpened knives.

“Of course I didn’t fuckin’ kill it. Why would anyone do that?!” Tally repeated Janine’s words, watching her face carefully and trying not to smile again- not the pageant put on one, something smugger and nastier that would sometimes creep out when she wasn’t paying attention, all of that stress and all of that sadness over one fucking chicken. “You didn’t have to push me…I could have broken my fuckin’ arm you know!?”

Were it not for her warm knit toque on her head, Janine might very well have pulled her hair out. Frustration and upset welling up inside. Poking painfully at every weakened and sore part of her. Instead she gave another pointed breath out her nose, like Dr. Morn had told her two when she was getting upset. In through the mouth, out through the nose. Like a runner. Like a yogi. Not like an upset whirlwind of confusion of a woman trapped in a psychiatric hospital.

Her mind was racing, scrambling. Like a roller coaster if seemed to skip from being sure of what she saw to considering all the moments were she'd been wrong, or told she was wrong, before this. Flashes of memory going over and over in her mind: the dead chicken, the girl, alive or dead, flapping it's wings or manipulated by a human hand.

If Janine had known how Tally was, she would have been sure she was lying. Had Tally been someone who Janine trusted, she would have been awash with shame by now, apologizing for her accusations and begging forgiveness. But Tally was neither of those things, likely never would be. Right now she was just another frustrating puzzle piece in Janine's life that refused to fit in the picture properly.

"How'd it die then smartass?!" she demanded voice raised, jabbing a pointing finger at the chicken. The living birds in the coop were starting to get upset, some walked out of the shelter into the cold, other's cowering in corners. The lone rooster flapping it's wings at the girls in warning. "I saw you do it, it's still warm for Gods-sake." Janine took a step forward, starting to feel a kind of momentum around her anger, letting it carry her forward. Maybe if it had been a good morning she'd have been more apt to listen to Tally, but not now. Not when this was the first horrible thing to make sense to her that day.

Tally shrugged nonchalantly, “Maybe it killed itself,” she raised an eyebrow and gave a little half smile, dancing around Janine in one fluid motion, slightly obnoxiously. “Maybe you did it…” maybe she meant it to come off less like a threat than it actually sounded, or maybe she meant it exactly like that. It was just the two of them after all, no witnesses or anything like that. Although what do I care? It’s just a fucking chicken. The way Tally saw it, there wasn’t much worse than having to eat every day anyway, all of that weight just sitting on her. She hoped they stuck her in solitary. She hoped they shocked her- that shit probably burnt a whole bunch of calories, but seriously doubted anyone would do anything like that over something like this.

She’d already hit bottom and the way that Tally saw it one fucking chicken was not enough to call in the riot police. Hell, would anyone even notice if one of these mindless squawking animals was no longer taking up oxygen? For one minute, the patients of Hallowsgate and the chickens seemed almost interchangeable in that respect.

“You did just attack me,” Tally held up her wrist and tried to do a circle with it, “Jesus that smarts…Maybe you lost it with the chicken too. I should go up to the medical wing or something I guess. Maybe you should try and hide that,” she nodded at the chicken corpse again, which Janine was now poking .“Before anyone sees what you did. Or I feel the need to tell them how my wrist got busted up…” Using her right hand, Tally gave a little wave- which was not as practised and as pageanty as the left admittedly, but the effect was still pretty good nonetheless and tried to make her way out of the chicken coop, following the rest of the startled hens out again into the fresh air.

Get real. Janine would never just randomly kill something for no reason. She wasn't that sick, just a bit twisted. That accusation was enough to make Janine a little surer. This little girl was just a brat and a liar. Probably a sociopath too. Weren't serial killers usually cruel to animals too? Strangely, Janine didn't feel afraid of her. The girl all but looked like she was made of twigs and the closest thing to a weapon in the coop was the chicken droppings and straw on the floor.

With a scowl, Janine couched down next to the dead chicken. She was ready to ignore her, or at least try to. The anger and frustrating still swirling in her chest. She thought of Dr. Morn again. Phillip. How he tried to teach her to relax and let go. To not let her barriers affect her moods the way they did. She stared at the bird, it hadn't done anything. Reaching out to touch it. Very much still warm. Dead at this little snotty girl's hands. Janine picked it up, gingerly at first, then more solidly. She could take it in, report it? That seemed like the right thing to do. Help the staff out a little. Surely they'd want to know what this awful girl had done.

But as she stood up Tally's words caught her ears again. "Maybe you lost it with the chicken too. I should go up to the medical wing or something I guess..." Lies lies lies lies lies.

Before Janine knew what she was doing the dead chicken had left her hand, Flying like it never had in life, towards Tally's retreating back. Her face red with anger and her shoulders tight with the tension overflowing in her body. How was anyone supposed to keep their facts straight when all people every did was lie?

Janine had really pitched the thing, so it was akin to being hit quite hard by a feathery football. “oof,” said Tally with a little squeak as she felt all the air being knocked out from inside of her. For a minute she was just a little dazed, stunned before she got to turn around and look at Janine. “Did…you just throw a chicken at me? Well…I’ll be cream crackered,” she started and then began to laugh. “A dead chicken.” She’d done a few things in her life, not many things, but quite a few; been through Hurricane Katrina, a Miss Teen Princess (of course), seen the Statue of Liberty (the model in Alabama) and almost stabbed her momma in the stomach- but she’d never been hit by a dead chicken.

It was hard to be pissed at that, looking down at the corpse of the bird and clutching her side as her shoulders began to shake and her side began to hurt. “Dead fuckin’ chicken! Jesus Christ….you are crazy as a bag of hammers, you know that?” Tally was still surprised at the complete lack of any kind of staff, expecting an orderly at least to have come running- and it was something she would take a note of later, but for now she didn’t exactly want to push her luck by hanging around here any longer than she had to. As for the chicken…Tally wasn’t sure whether it was smarter to pick it up and hide it, or just leave it where it was. In the end she figured it wasn’t worth all the effort over a chicken.

“Are you quite finished now? Got all of that out of your system?” Tally asked with that same, false, manic sort of smile written all over her face. “Fuckin weirdo.”

Janine was left blinking, like someone who'd been fast asleep shaken awake and thrust into a bright white room of florescent lights. She looked from her hand, a feather under one of her fingernails, to the bird that had just bounced off Tally's body. Wide-eyed, the throwing hand moved to clap over her mouth. Not thinking about the likely unsanitary nature out of sheer surprise. The other hand over that one on her lips. What in the hell did she just do?

She forced herself to drop her hands. Pressing her lips together tight. Shit shit shit. People didn't just throw dead birds. That wasn't a "thing". Especially not a wise decision when your target was the girly psycho that killed it in the first place. Not that it was a decision. Janine didn't think to herself "I'm going to huck this at that bitch", it just happened. Like a random strike of lighting out of a thunder storm, blink and you'll miss it. Janine always blinked.

She gave a kind of whole body exhale out her mouth, she needed to get a hold of herself. She crouched on the ground, heels popped off the ground and a hand in the dirt to steady herself. Silent against the sound of Tally's laughter, just trying to breath and focus. Her eyebrows and forehead knit all together in concentration. "You are crazy as a bag of hammers." She grit her teeth between her long exhales. Crazy crazy crazy Janine. She was going to be stuck with that fucking word the rest of her natural born life. Was it every going to roll off her the way it did for others?

"God, How can you even be such a bitch?" was the single phrase shouted in frustration at Tally's final taunt. The nearest chicken gave an alarmed flap. Janine's hands tugged at the hair hanging out from under her woolen hat, pulling it smooth, but mostly applying static. Still crouched on the ground. Trying to focus, stay in the moment, but it was hard when all Tally made her want to do was mentally drift away.

“Oh my god, are you having a breakdown?” Tally laughed louder, looking down at the girl crouched on the ground, her hands in her hair as she shouted at her. There was an element of satisfaction to be found in watching her drop like that, looking down on her, thinking- well at least I don’t do shit like that. Janine asked her how she could be such a bitch, and it wasn’t a question that Tally tended to reflect too hard on and unpick, trying to find the person behind all the cruelty. Because it’s funny, was the answer that came the quickest to mind, because I’m better than you and you might as well get used to it. “Are you going to cry or something?” she mocked, affecting a babyish whine. “Are you going to cry because of a stupid fucking chicken, you stupid fucking crazy bitch?”

She was pretty sure that the chicken was bleeding from its head, so it seemed likely that her nice white coat would have been spattered slightly with its blood when Janine had hurled it at her. Chewing over that it in her head, it didn’t exactly endear the other woman to her- along with this new, frankly mental display. They were just like the droolies at BayPointe getting so worked up about things that didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things- no wonder they all ended up in mental homes. Not Tally though, outside of herself, her own body there was precious little else of any importance.

Crouching, Tally picked up the chicken again and tossed it towards Janine’s head quite casually, before making little chicken noises.Because that was funny too. They started quietly at first, small clucking, as Tally began to make the motions with her arms, then got increasing louder as she started to circle around the other girl shrieking, “Bruckbruckbruckbruck,” her face awash with a horrible, malicious sense of glee.

She wasn't having a breakdown, though she'd had a few episodes that could be called that. More so she was just trying not to be her. How sad was that? Her natural state so easily lumped in the same category as things that made people worthy of pity and more prone to leap off something far too high above solid unyielding ground. Janine was a person who didn't function the way she ought to. No one went and broken her, she had not traumatic past to blame it all on. She just came this way. A lemon. Were she a car, a children's toy she'd be labeled defective and sent straight back. A shame a family couldn't do that with their latest human being.

Her round grey eyes were watching Tally warily as she walked up. Enough that she could see the chicken coming. She tried to dodge it but not all that well. It kind of grazed her, a few droplets of blood hitting her cheeks and hair. She fell forward, catching herself on her hands and knees with a little "oof" of breath out of her body. The dirt of the coop was freezing cold on her bare hands and through the thin fabric of the scrub pants she was wearing. The bird had kind of ricochet off her and landed about half a foot from her right hand.

"Will you get lost?" Janine said, sternly and a bit loud but no longer shouting. She didn't move. She probably looked stupid there on her hands and knees but she couldn't seem to bring herself to. Her eyes on the ground now, refusing to look at the young girl. In the back of her mind Janine knew she ought to get up and walk away, maybe take the chicken with her and find a staff member. But her body just seemed frozen stiff. Like life was a T-rex and if she didn't move it wouldn't see her and destroy here. "I'm not going to cry over a chicken and we're not five fucking years old. Go away."

“Well alrighty,” said Tally with a smile and a nod at Janine’s suggestion that she got lost. Annoying someone only really had the most effect when it was clear you were getting to them and Janine seemed tired of the whole affair. She stopped her clucking and plunged her hands into her pockets. Fuck the chicken, fuck Janine, whatever. That shivering shaky feeling from earlier was gone and in its place nothing more than that same lingering aggression curling in her veins but not quite reaching the surface. The chicken was just a thing now, a was instead of an is, something in the past tense and long forgotten. She was done with any drama surrounding it, ready to return to her room, painting Joey’s nails and getting fatter and fatter.

“Y’all have a nice day then,” she said, and gave Janine another of her cute little waves. Whatever the other woman decided to do with the chicken was of no mind to Tally- she didn’t even know her name, and had to assume that the other woman didn’t either. No one would care. When things died in Hallowsgate, it seemed, they did so shrieking and struggling for life but markedly unnoticed. For a moment she thought of the boy, Harlow, and how much he wanted to kill himself (without quite realising it yet) and how much Tally wanted to help him. It would be easily done, she thought with a strange quiet sense of catharsis. This was the place of the forgottons; never ending with bangs, only with whimpers, going so very quietly into the night.
And none of it mattered.

Someone come and wring my neck for fuck’s sake, someone dash my head against the floor until my skull caves in and bits of my brain begins to fall out of my ear because I don’t think that I can take it anymore.

Tally started up the grounds and back towards the hospital without much fuss or ado.

She was on the ground, low down, like she was trying to keep from being struck by lighting from low rolling rain clouds the colour of gun metal. This hospitals for the mentally ill, they were like that, each resident a passing cloud, you never knew which one had something awful stored up, ready to make your life a living hell. So, she stayed there still on the ground on her hands and knees like an animal. Staring at the dirt and dead grass. Like maybe it might grounded her somehow, help her figure all this out rationally, the way regular people do.

This was stupid. Letting some child let her think she was terrorizing her of whatever. Janine, you're a grown ass woman. She tried telling herself that, that she ought to stand up and act like it. But to no avail. She waited it out until she couldn't hear the crunch of the girl's footsteps any more.

She slowly sat back on her heels and lifted her hands out of the dirt. She brushed them off clumsily. Not quite connected to their movements due to the cold and her condition. She placed her hands in her lap and sat there for a moment, watching the nearest chicken who was slowly a tentatively making it way over to her. She tried to reach up a hand to it but moved too fast and frightened it away again.

She sighed and turned her eyes to the fully broken bird that lay not far from her. She felt guilty. How could she do that to the poor thing? But more urgently, the doctors needed to know about this didn't they? About both Janine's little outburst and that other girl's actions. This little girl couldn't just wander around killing things. That wasn't healthy. So, Janine gave herself a little mission. She got up slowly, brushed the straw and grime off the knees of her scrubs, or at least tried to. Then gingerly picked up what was once a bird. She had to go into the building and tell someone the story, and she had to stay lucid enough to be clear. Here goes nothing. She walked towards the hospital like a solider. Fallen friends in hand.