Vivaldi blares through Rachel’s headphones. The music is so loud that the other patients can hear it, but they couldn’t care less. There’s a sense of unity between the patients like it’s them against the world; in a way it is. They wouldn’t dare tell on her.

The music plays over and over. It’s the only thing that can distract Rachel from the suckiness that is her life. She hears footsteps down the coming closer and closer to her room, most likely to check to see if everyone is asleep.

Someone makes a ‘caw, caw’ noise. It’s like a signal of sorts. A warning to Rachel whose music is loud enough to hear in the stillness of the room, but not loud enough to completely ignore her surroundings. She takes off her headphones quicker than you can say, “crazy”, turns on her side and feigns sleep.

The nurse steps into the room. Rachel can see the light of the door casting the nurse’s shadow on the wall. It’s Barbra. She’s really good at catching the girls awake when they aren’t supposed to be. It’s almost like she’s psychic, but that’s impossible. Isn’t it?

Rachel claims to be able to read minds and see the spirits of the dead. That’s the main reason she’s in the nuthouse. She couldn't possibly be the only one, right?

So it might not be impossible for another psychic to be walking around here.

“Lights out girls. Especially you, Rachel.” Barbra says with a sigh. You can just hear the exhaustion in her voice. That’s what you get from dealing with crazies all day, Rachel thinks. Barbra closes the door and the room becomes dark again.

Rachel whispers to the girl next to her, “That was close, huh?”

There’s no answer, and Rachel assumes that the girl is already asleep. It’s safe to turn on her music again. She turns it up, but not loud enough to disturb the other two girls in the room. She falls into a dreamless sleep to the violin riffs of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons-Winter.

Rachel discovered her gift of mind reading when she was only seven. It happened suddenly and without warning like the time someone hit her in the head with a rock on the playground. She was in class, doodling on her math handout when she heard a small voice in her head say, “I wish it was lunch.” She thought it was her voice at first, but as she did her work she heard two, then three, then four voices at once floating around in her mind. She was so perplexed that she didn’t notice someone calling her name.

“Rachel, hey Rachel,” the voice shouted into her ear. She recognized it as one of the voices in her head. It was James White. He had been asking for a pencil for the past minute or so, and somehow Rachel hadn’t heard him even though she sat right next to him.

“Oh, um, sure you can have a pencil. Here you go,” she said and handed him a standard issue no. 2 pencil.

Rachel got back to working on multiplication—which she hated. That was when the voices decided to invade her thoughts once more. Being a smart little girl, she decided to actually listen to the voices instead of freak out. She discovered that a lot of them sounded like her classmates and that was how she figured out that she wasn’t crazy at all. She was psychic. A lot of people didn’t believe her though. Everyone thought that it was the overactive imagination of a child. Except that she never stopped talking about how she could read minds.

It went on for years. As Rachel got older, the mind reading became more uncontrollable. On one of her worse days, she would be able to hear everyone in the immediate vicinity. It wasn’t good if she actually wanted to go to the movies or to the mall or actually have a life. It was why she didn’t have many friends. It was also why she was almost always seen wearing headphones with her music turned all the way up. It was a pleasant distraction.

It was only when she told her parents that she was seeing the spirits of the dead that they decided to do something; that something was to send her to a mental hospital where she was diagnosed with schizophrenia. It is why she’s here in this place anyway, and she hates it.

Rachel wakes up at six-thirty, a whole thirty minutes early. She usually takes this time to write in her journal about whatever. She has time to do it throughout the day, but she doesn’t usually have the privacy she does now, so she cherishes the time she has. It was something that she used to not do, but she supposes that being in a place like a mental hospital does that to you.

She writes about life in the hospital and all of the patients. The usually writes about the weird dreams she’s had, but lately, she hasn’t had any. It wasn’t strange at first, but it’s like there’s something missing without them.

Barbra opens the door to tell the other girls to wake up. She sees Rachel already dressed and smiles. What a good a girl.

“You’re going to say that I’m a good girl. Thanks Barbra,” Rachel says. She laughs at Barbra’s bewildered look. Freaking people out is always fun.

“How did you know I was going to say that,” Barbra asks, biting her lip. It’s a nervous habit that she has along with biting the inside of her mouth. Having telepathy gives you access to everything about a person. That’s what Rachel likes about it. It means that you’re always one step ahead of everyone else.

“I keep telling everyone that I’m not schizophrenic, but no one will listen to me.” Rachel gives one of her best kicked puppy looks. “I wish I could be let out of here.”

“You’ll be let out of here soon enough if you stop telling people that you can read minds,” Barbra reminds her. The nurse goes over to the other two beds and shakes the other girls.

“It’s time for breakfast girls!”

Melissa groans and turns over.

“I hate breakfast,” she says.

Rosie stretches out her legs and sits up. Her blonde hair is sticking up in all directions and Rachel giggles.

“You all head down to the cafeteria. I have to wake the rest of the wing.”

After a few moments of lying in bed we comply with Barbra’s wishes. The others and Rachel go down into the cafeteria to begin another day of routine. Oh joy, Rachel thinks.