Journal 43

The day started gray. My parents sat at the breakfast table. Their faces were drawn and sad. No one said a word. Today was the day that I would be tested. The day that would determine the rest of my life. My hands shook in my lap as I waited for the clock to strike eight. Then the people would come in their sterile white lab coats and blank faces. They would come to take me away from my home and test whether or not I was what our society considered sane. I wasn't sure if I would come back. No one ever knew whether they would be determined crazy and sent away. No one knew where. The door bell rang, and my mother rose to her feet. She took my arm and led me to the front door where the people in white coats waited. The door opened with a creak to reveal them. My mother pushed me out the door softly, and I stumbled outside. The people then did something unexpected. They took my arm and took out a needle. I knew what was going to happen, but I was still terrified. What if I didn't pass? I started to squirm. I didn't want to go. Soon all the people in the coats had surrounded me and were holding me down. They stuck me with the needle. Everything went black.
I woke up in the testing center. No one else was in the room. In was at a desk and my torso was strapped in. I shivered with terror. I noticed there was a bright yellow pencil next to a stack of papers; it was the mental health test. I picked up the pencil that was way too bright for the room that was covered in gray. I opened the test and started to fill in the bubble sheet. None of the questions made sense. I had so many questions and no one was there to answer. The test was multiple choice, but the answers didn't match. I didn't understand. I just filled out the test and did my best. The second that I filled out the last bubble, the people came into the room. They took my test and looked at me with blank faces. A man stepped forward and looked at me, and he told me that I had failed. That I was already crazy and that they did not even need to grade the test. I would not be going back home.