The Visiting Committee

Author note: This story was originally published in a gorgeous August 2024 issue of The Write Launch.

TW: suicidal ideation, hospitalization, suggested eating disorders, religious trauma. Many trigger warnings, so consider yourself warned. ;)

The first day, early morning

I wake up to lights in my face again. Right in my eyes, beaming back through a crack in my head. This is at least the eighteenth time they’ve come by in one night. I’m counting them like sheep to pass the time as they cycle in, their voices changing every couple hours.

I don’t know what time it is, but I’m hoping it’s close to 6:00 a.m. so I can stop putting on the sleep charade. The hard plastic of the bed wrinkles below me as I crash sideways, grunting, trying to avoid the migraine-inducing hit to the eyes again, hoping that it communicates to them that rest is still important, even here. I hit the pillow too, only serving to hurt my hand.

“Stop!” I plea. “Do you really have to do that? Please close the door. Please stop.” But they still make their rounds, constantly, to shine the spotlight on my weak frame and splitting head slouched sideways into this overbeaten pancake mattress.

The fluorescent lights here are either off or on, and they’ve decided to keep them on tonight, surrounding me…