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have to do for yourself. So, in order to get in and around and through the mass of people staring at me, I just sprout some dream wings of my own and see myself not going through that crowd, but kind of floating and bobbing above it, looking down on the people. In that way I get myself over to the door with the sign that reads Admitting Office. Standing there looking at that sign for the longest time, I decide that this is the place I have to go first, admitting, I guess, that I am crazy.
    At least I don’t have to admit much. “Just give me your papers, please,” says the admitting woman, when I tell her my name. “We’ve been expecting you. From Dr. Hardy, right?”
    How nice to know they’re expecting me, I think, handing over the papers from Dr. Hardy. Or is it nice? Does that mean they’ve been expecting me all this time to go slap-dab crazy,but, no, they couldn’t even know me. But could they, someone here, know me? Know. Knew. When Abraham knew his wife, Sarah, she conceived. If I let them know me, I might conceive. Do I want to conceive? I don’t know, and I won’t ‘knew’ neither. So, I won’t conceive. There. It is finished.
    Or started. For here arrives Charles, so says the admitting woman, to see me up to my floor. Charles looks like a penguin. In his black pants, black button-up sweater, and white shirt, all with his black slick-backed hair, Charles looks like a penguin. So I expect him to waddle. But he doesn’t waddle. He just takes Daddy’s army satchel and whisks out of the office to the elevator, while I’m doing this little half-walk, half-run, hurry-up gallop to keep up with him, and probably waddling myself. Take a picture of ridiculous, anyone? Snap.
    â€œSmell the flowers.” Snap. “Now, look up at the sky, see the little angels floating around.” Snap. “Put your arms around your daddy, now.” Snap. “Put your hands at your sides, now, like this, see, and turn this way.” Snap. “Pre-e-ty pictures, Elizabeth. Pre-e-e-ty pictures. Uh-huh.”
    All is quiet on the elevator. That kind of loud quiet that makes you want to scream, or shout or blow a whistle, or do something to make the quiet not quite so loud. But I do not scream, nor shout, nor blow a whistle. Rather, I stand prim and proper, just like Aunt Lona would stand. I do not pose for anyone anymore. If I have to be put away, then I can at least be prim and proper about it. So, I hold my head uphigh, even though my chin keeps on drawing down towards the floor, so to keep my chin from drawing down, I look at the elevator numbers lighting up, waiting for the number 8, the number that Charles the penguin has punched—4, 5, 6, 7, until finally 8 lights up and the door opens with a little “ding-a-ling.”
    You’d think Charles would say “Follow me,” or some little old dinky thing, just one word, even. But I guess he’s used to people following him, so there’s no need to say it, and since I’m well accustomed to following people, there’s no need for me to hear it, so everything works out just fine between Charles and me.
    Out of the elevator we turn right to face a green door that has on it, “Psychiatric Ward.” What a word, “psychiatric,” that most times can bring a thousand different words to mind. Crazy, insane, lunatic, neurotic, abnormal, weird—you name it. But the main word that comes to my mind on facing that door is “help.” That’s all. “Help.” Someone help me, please, help me to not break down and start crying all over the place like that little girl who got lost in the five-and-dime and went into screaming fits because she got separated from her mama. Better yet, help me, someone—God?—to help myself. But God says that he helps those who help themselves, and since I can’t right now help myself, who is it that’s supposed to help