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Being cut off from the outside world was like losing extremities.
Luckily, Zack was not without practice with severe damage on upper limbs.
Phase 1: Initial Evaluation
Learn the symptoms through reviewing patient's prescription as well as conducting a series of detailed examination, giving an overall assessment of patient's baseline functionality and occupational capacity to determine the current condition of the extremity.
In fact, loony bin was not that loony as it sounded. There was a rigid schedule to keep everything disciplined, and from two to five o'clock everyday, patients scattered around the recreation room, the only sound being a ghost volume from either television or radio where orderlies played mind-numbing programme. One might even call it peaceful.
Zack hated every minute of it.
The Uncanny Valley Hypothesis suggested that people repelled a humanoid object the most when it resembled actual human beings largely but not to the fullest. For a short period, Zack had wondered if that were others' perspectives towards him, but now, he could be comfortably saying that he was human enough.
The recreation room was carefully decorated wtih mediocre colour and round furniture edges, no sharp objects, nothing stimulus, reminding him of a live-size dollhouse. And the dolls, presenting by mildly sedated patients with steady breath and dilated pupils, might look like talking to each other happily, but the conversation was just meaningless soliloquy. Zack took the whole picture in, before him laid a finished jigsaw puzzle, except when scan carefully, there were a few pieces mismatched and forced into the opening.
It was unnerving and he wanted nothing to do with this room. However, mental institution was not somewhere you could enjoy your free will. Even if he was permitted to do whatever he wanted, it would be difficult to find something meaningful and intriguing here.
Magazines and donated books took up most space of the library, not exactly qualified as reading materials in his mind. Conversations between he and staffs were purely professional, while those with other patients just frustrated him due to the lack of logic. He rather listened to Hogins ranting about conspiracy for 12 straight hours. Speaking of his friends and colleagues, visits seemed to cease after several months, impeccable excuses provided for the prolonged intervals. Surprisingly, Dr.Sweets lasted the longest, who still visited him to this day.
"Mr.Addy, you have a visitor."
Speak of the devil. Zack followed the orderly to a meeting room, only met by the psychologist sitting at an empty table. Odd. Usually Dr.Sweets brought piles of files and notebooks with him, laying them on the desk for reference.
"Good afternoon, Dr.Addy."
Zack didn't voice his observation, simply greeting back. He settled himself across Dr.Sweets as they conversed like any other sessions they had in the past. Dr.Sweets started by asking questions about his well-being and tried to persuade him to come clean that he in fact didn't kill a guy, Zack then blatantly rejected and moved to discuss how the others in the lab were doing. They exchanged pieces of their life, mainly Dr.Sweets latched on a lengthy complaint about Dr.Brennan and Agent Booth dancing around each other. It could almost be described as a friendly chat.
Somewhere along their conversation, Dr.Sweets fell silent. He sat up a little straight, eyebrows frowned as he worded his next lines carefully.
"I will not be able to continue our sessions since there are more urgent matters that require my assistance. And frankly speaking, we are not making any progress. Maybe a set of fresh eyes could benefit your situation." Dr.Sweets paused, twitching in his seat uncomfortably. "I've already refer you to an in-site psychiatrist. He is exceptional regarding behaviour analysis and has a lot of experiences working with people who ..." Another pause. "... have chosen the wrong path. It would be for the best, I think."
Zack considered his statement, for a moment he was tempting to plea, but his IQ was too high to see past this rational arrangement and demand something against logic purely for the sake of his emotional need.
"I concur." The lab phrase felt foreign in his ears.
They continued talking for another ten minutes before Dr.Sweets bid his goodbye and disappeared behind the door of the meeting room.
With that, it's official. He was left alone in this madness.
Phase 2: Wound Protection
Apply appropriate protection to the injured part, using techniques such as external compression garments and wraps, retrograde massage, elevation, and active motion to achieve edema control and prevent other complication.
McKinley Psychiatric Hospital consisted of a complex, four resident buildings and a garden. Centered in the garden lied a rectangle pool, unproportionally large compared to the compound. Zack was not impressed. What pool could match the one right in front of the Lincoln Memorial? The one he used to see everyday coming and going. Nonetheless, whenever the institution permitted him free time, he sat near the pool.
Sometimes, other patients took the other side of the bench with him. Seldom did they speak, leaving his thoughts wandering to old memories. But today, he got a chatty one.
"I could not help but notice you watch the pool quite frequently." She whispered, eyes darting back and forth as to assure they did not raise any alarm. "I know what you are actually looking at. You are thinking about the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool."
Zack wiped his head so fast he almost choked. He scanned her face carefully, but his excellent memory gave out nothing. He did not recognized this person. She was neither an acquaintance that knew his background, nor a staff that could access his file. Once the impossible was ruled out, whatever remained, however improbable, must be true.
"Are you a mind reader?"
"Better." The patient slid closer, voice so low that he could barely hear. "I only tell you this because I see great potential in you. The whole conversation is under strict confidence. Apparently you have doubts about the death of Lincoln, otherwise you would not sit by the pool every day. And you are right. He did not die from the assassination."
She leaned in to continued. "Because I am Lincoln."
Looking back, this conversation reflected poorly on both of them, a paranoia talking to a dead person, exactly the kind that would happened in a loony bin. Zack had so many arguments in mind, like Lincoln would be 120 years old if alive or the fact he was male, yet he settled for a simple monosyllable.
"Huh."
"Great potential indeed." The woman nodded gladly, trolled away in satisfaction.
Zack turned his head back to the pool. Wind brushed through, stirring his sigh into the air. This was his life now, either brooding over the outside world or interacting with insane people. And no, super power was definitely better.
Followed his free time came dinner, which took place in the commissary. Apparently today was his lucky day as another patient approached him and sat across the dinning table.
"If you are also a famous figure in history, I am not interested."
Shoving a full spoon in his mouth, Zack decided he did not want a repeat of illogical conversation. The food tasted like those chefs expected insane people lost palate as well, a mix of sour and bitter with a hint of spicy.
"You think too loud. It is annoying." The man pointed at his head. "I used to be the same, you know. Several voices talking in my head, made me want to rip out my brain and squash it into a puddle so there is no thinking any more. But I do good now. You know what the solution is? Those little white pills they gave you after dinner."
"'You do well.' Good is an adjective which cannot be used to modify verbs."
The man gave him an exasperated glare. "You are driving me crazy. Just take the goddamn pill, let your mind go blank and leave me in peace."
Maybe the problem was Zack himself, for clearly he attracted lunatics. First was the Master, then there was "Lincoln", now this. He brought it on himself and he had to suffer. However, the man did have a point, he was over-thinking his situation. All this overwhelming feeling of being alone in an asylum set him back into denial. He clutched to past glories, unwilling to admit the life he once hold dearest was no more. It was time for a break.
Later in line, he took the pill, swallowed it, and let the effect kicked in, allowing him to pretend he was Batman patrolling Arkham.
Phase 3: Functional Rehabilitation
Carry out exercise programs to help with movement and strength, from passive exercises where patients do not use their own tendons/muscles to strength training using putty of different firmness, grippers, weights, and other aides, gradually increasing strength and endurance to safely reach expected function.
The autopsy table illuminated in the dark, providing light too faint for Zack to conduct a proper examination. Still, he bent down and checked every inch of the bone carefully, looking for anything abnormal.
"Check the metacarpus."
Yeah. Multiple fractures to the palm and carpus indicated the victim has been holding up his hands against a great force of impact. Wait. He lifted his head, the hollow rim of the skull looking back, and its jaw cracked as if it smirked.
"I believe you are dead. Please refrain from talking to me." Zack continued examing, not wavering in the slightest regarding this apparitional scenario. But clearly the skull did not like his trick going unresponsively, so it sat up, blocking Zack's ongoing inspection.
He sighed, usually bones were very cooperative. "Talking and moving really take all the merits out for being a dead person." He placed both hands on the table, making direct eye contact with the corpse, which had been told repeatedly by his colleagues it would make people uncomfortable, might as well tried it on a dead man.
"You are ridiculous."
"And you are like a cartoon made by animation-major undergraduates."
The skeleton crossed his hands in front of his sacrum, pitch black in his orbital bone. "Mock my appearance will get you nowhere. You seem quite defensive to me. Given that all you have around here are lunatics, lashing out to the only one that can make intellectual connection with you appears to be quite irrational. Why is that? Are you going crazy?"
Zack opened his eyes, heart pounding wildly. Dreaming about conversation between you and your skeleton self was hardly a good sign, not to mention his boney doppelganger attended to perform psychological analysis on him. If he started to losing his mind, at least the symptom was somewhat innovative. However, in another perspective, common forensic anthropologists were bonded to develop some psychological problems, a collateral damage of working on decomposing corpses. Maybe instead of slipping into madness, he was actually becoming normal.
The rest of the night went sleeplessly. Zack jumped out of bed at the first sound of broadcast telling it was breakfast time. As well established as the library was not up to his standard, he aimed to the library directly after finishing his meal, and this time it might just have something useful, since he vaguely remember books such as The Interpretation of Dreams in a certain subject, whatever superstitious it sounded.
Personally speaking, he hold no grudges against psychology, more like Dr.Brennan's attitude rubbing off on him and he always inclined to concede with her no matter what. Soft science as it was, psychology did appeal to him as a viable choice at the moment. His suspicious dream required an explanation.
Introduction to Psychology: Gateways to Mind and Behavior, 736 pages, were he a lesser mind, he would be intimidated by how thick a textbook was. Picking up this one along with several other enormous books, he moved to a desk nearby, opened the first one and dug in.
Zack spent two weeks reading through all materials he could find about psychology, from beginner stuffs to profound researches, none of which helped him draw a conclusion on what exactly his dream meant. But learning as a distraction provided him with an exit for his pend-up frustration. As a psychology amateur, he now knew that it was not healthy to bottle up emotions and he was certainly making progress to adjust to this environment.
If he still dreamed of illuminated autopsy tables and corpses, it was just side effects of not using his brain to maximum capacity in the daytime.
Phase 4: Sensory Re-education
Use sensory stimulation to help sensory-impaired patients recover functional sensibility in the damaged area and acquire adaptive functioning.
Despite his robotic gesture and monotone voice, Zack got attached easily. In case his incessant chase after Naomi was not sufficient, the names he gave to those dermestes maculatus could be counted as a solid evidence. To his defense though, in Naomi's case, he was just awful at "taking a hint". Heaven knew he tried, not his fault that people were intentionally subtle when giving those subtext. There were two subs in a row, his confusion was justified.
Attachment was fine, great even; helped him feel grounded in a life facing homicides on a daily basis. The thing was that the bonding he had did not extend beyond family and workplace, and fewer could be satisfied on both affectional and intellectual level. Those rare ones he had with people in Jefferysonian were special and dense, almost felt physical. And the detachment did not come as naturally as attachment.
A practical way would be allowing the connection weaken by slowly removing pieces of the others' existence. Zack considered this counter-intuitive, but psychology dictated you had to let go gradually, for the sake of your emotional stability.
So technically, he hacked their emails out of sheer scientific necessity.
It happened in an uneventful afternoon, just like any other day in the asylum. Zack was scrolling through papers on screen about some new techniques in cranial reconstruction. The institution permitted him 2 hours every day to use computer so that he could take some online courses after he had covered all the books in the library.
Apparently he did not use the computer as it was intended, rather just idly browsing. Who used internet to learn things after all. Suddenly a piece of news caught his eyes, saying there was an explosion took place at crime scene a week ago, four down, two taken to the hospital including one forensic specialist, and he recognized the equipment box laying at the bottom right of the news picture with Jefferysonian's logo on it.
Before he knew, Hogins's medical record was displayed on the screen. The blast did not cause Hogins severe injured ... at first. But several days in, the symptom escalated. The venous plexus swelled, compressing his spinal cord, all bluntly shown on the X-Ray. It was consistent with the doctor's diagnosis, no room left to discuss. Who would think their mundane anthropology job could be this risky? Instead of dusting bones, they were sometimes caught between war zone. Zack's hands twitched involuntarily, remembering the explosion.
He refused to believe Hogins would stay on wheelchair for the rest of his life. Thinking about the vastness of his house, wheelchair just seemed extremely inconvenient. There had to be a way.
His following actions took place spontaneously, leaving a backdoor to the hospital system for treatment updates, sifting through Internet trying to find any possible approach and following every traces his colleagues left online, including hacking into their accounts for unpublished information.
The last one was not so much about helping his friend, and very invasive. He was not proud of what he did, yet not shame of it either. If a peek, or numerous peaks, into his friends’ life was what he needed to survive in this loony bin, all he could do was to accept and do it regardless of social conventions. Every now and then, he looked at those family photos they exchanged via emails, the only thing he felt being calm. His irritated mind finally settled down.
Given time, wounds would heal, no matter how badly damaged. Following a carefully tailored rehabilitation project, they might even regain functionality, like his hands. But under the black gloves, there were just burned skin and tangled tissues.
FIN.