It dawns. But with a strange clarity, one that does not comfort me, one that comes to check on me, and even so my mind insists on dressing it as an elegant house; I think naming things by their true name would mean admitting the existence of the iron that holds them up… the light enters with discipline, it falls in exact rectangles on the floor, not in puddles of capricious sun, and the room I call an alcove behaves like a watched place, where everything is in its place too soon, too clean, too white, and even the air has a kind of order belonging to someone measured by others; and I hear the murmur of the building, the coming and going of the tasks, footsteps that repeat their route with a belllike punctuality, doors that breathe at fixed times, wheels that pass and leave a metallic chant behind, and I think of servants because it is less cruel than thinking of rounds; my hand, before my thoughts straighten, searches for the linen cord on my wrist, brushes it with the pad of my thumb, and that contact gives me back a line of the world, a border that says here you are, here you remain, do not dissolve yet. Still.

The door opens softly but not courteously, by habit, and a nurse enters with a working gesture, she calls me by my real name, she says it wrong, a metaphor, but with the certainty of wanting to register someone’s presence so the day can begin; her eyes drop to my wrist and her hand checks the cord I have turned into an amulet, she asks about sleep, about appetite, about sadness, about black thoughts, about the urge to vanish, about the urge to hurt myself, about voices, about that shadowman who does not appear on her forms but does appear in my breathing; I answer what is necessary, not to lie, but from the economy of the soul, because I think there are words that if you let them loose, you grant them permission and I still do not know if I want to give them that power; when she leaves, she leaves behind the smell of soap, a trace of hallway, a silence, a schedule, and my room becomes a house again only because I need it, but the house no longer has the luxury of fooling me completely.

Later the tea arrives, but the tea is no longer tea, it arrives on a cart that sings on wheels, it arrives in little cups, in blister packs, in small tablets that seem innocent until you have one on your tongue; I call it service because that word has lace, and I hold it with both hands so it can look ceremonial and not like simple supervision; they ask me to drink water, to open my mouth, to show my tongue, to swallow in front of a pair of trained eyes, not to save anything for later, not to make my body into a hiding place, and shame climbs in me like cold heat, not for being ill but for being watched; then I feel, in the stretch of air beside my waist, a presence, a gentle pressure, a shadow in the light, light that becomes more truthful, and the shadowman appears without appearing, he forms in me like an inner door, he offers me something that has no protocol, a rest with no more questions, an energy, a way out, and that frightens me because to leave I would have to break the little structure that holds me up, but it also tempts me because without that escape my obedience becomes a slow death, a proper living, a living with no pulse in my wrists.

Midmorning they take me to St Michael, or I say they take me to St Michael so I do not have to admit that I cross hallways, doors, corners where the world becomes too literal; the hospital chapel has a gentle calm, but it does not offer miracles, it only lets you breathe, and the stone, or the plaster, or the paint, stays still under the light; there is the sacristan, a man with a low voice, the chaplain on duty, and sometimes, without meaning to, nurse on the night shift slips out of me, because his hands know patience and know how to put out a crisis without breaking anyone; he offers me a brief phrase, for those who learn to tie, and I tighten the cord on my wrist, I feel the texture against my skin, that tactile anchor that returns me to my own body when my mind wants to dissolve; he does not speak to me of guilt, he does not speak to me of punishments, he speaks to me of holding on, of getting through the day with tiny things, of not fighting fear as if it were an absolute enemy, but of learning to live with the door closed without letting the soul stay outside.

Afterward a gentleman appears, but he is not a gentleman, they call him social worker, discharge coordinator, and the way he looks is not that of an owner or a judge, but of someone who truly tries not to let me go in the abyss; he brings a folder, he brings a life plan, he brings words that could be salvation or could be a cage depending on who signs them, supports, housing, follow up, calls, appointments, gradual steps, and in his voice there is a real goodness, the kind of goodness that exists inside an institution and still sounds human; and he speaks to me of my well being, he tells me I am not alone, he says there will be someone on the other end of the phone when the room fills with shadows, that there are paths, that there are doors, that there are options and that promise moves me and angers me at the same time, because I know doors can also be shut with papers.

My legal guardian arrives, he does not need to raise his voice to decide; he is not a doctor, he is not a priest, but his authority has the same shape that in my mind is called father, the man who signs, authorizes, safeguards the future in the name of stability, and his love resembles a well polished lock; because he brings documents, he brings arguments, he brings worry, I can tell, and he tells me all of this is for my own good, that the plan is correct, that life must become manageable, that I have to follow treatment, that I have to obey order so I do not collapse, and I look at him and I feel pain, because I love him, and yet I also feel that his love tightens around my throat; the gentleman listens to him calmly, he tries to translate, he tries to negotiate, he tries to build a bridge, and I remain in the middle, as if between two languages, the language of protection and the language of freedom, both with an edge.

In the common room I still say market, because market sounds like world, like voices, like exchange, like something alive, but that market has fixed chairs, it has windows that do not open all the way, it has a large clock, it has a television that looks at everyone without looking at anyone; the smell is not of fruit nor of bread, it is of food served at exact hours, trays, plastic, cleaning; and in that scene where the mind tries to have normalcy, suddenly someone screams, someone decompensates, a body falls with a sound that makes the floor tremble, the staff rushes in, firm hands and voices, and the air fills with electricity announcing that pain is contagious too; I stand still, too still, and then I see him, I see him crossing the hallway, the shadowman, not as monster but as exit, he is not a threat, he is a threshold, an escape that walks in broad daylight, and my chest answers with an indecent mixture of fear and desire, and in the same instant my tongue stumbles on truth and I say dining room, I say nurse, I say wristband, and I do not correct it, I leave it there, a minimal crack through which the real world begins to show itself.

That afternoon, with the folder open and signatures lying in wait, with the gentleman holding up options, and with my legal guardian holding up a kind of stability, I understand the dilemma is not running toward the door, the dilemma is choosing which part of me will command, my voice or my symptom, my body or the plan, fear or life, and as I understand it the wristband burns like a bell rope, a rope that calls a deep silence, one that promises me rest and also a price, and the shadowman, from somewhere between my waist and my will, offers me a pact, a promise, he offers me his dark horse.

The last window.

¿What is your dreadful name? I asked without words… while I watch the elegant house fold in on itself, as if the lace of its curtains were in truth a white gauze, and the castle, like that, loses its towers until it becomes a hallway, and the hallway lengthens patiently to where the big clock stands, and in that stretch of merciless light my wrist weighs more than my name, the wristband burns warm, insists, tries to hold me at the edge of the body, but I am already farther away, not in a place, in a loosening, as if someone were untying from within the last knot that held me; I see St. Michael, its doorway and its statues remain, the sacristan becomes a voice going out in the distance, the gentleman cries my name in desperation, my guardian joins him in the madness, but the only thing that grows is that shadow opening, the shadowman crosses the air, but he is no longer a monster, he is a door, and I look at him from a place where pain can no longer find my throat, and I understand, without words, that leaving is letting go of the shift, of the lock, it is leaving the key where no one demands it of you anymore, and while the world continues its liturgy of wheels and steps, my vision becomes a tiny garden without bars, a breath and by the God who watches us from on high, by his mantle of sky and mercy, tell me, shadowman, ah, wretched me!, if in the remote Eden, where I will dwell among angels, I will someday have the comfort of feeling alive again, though I be dead.