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     I could see what looked like a door, suspended above me…and he was there.  I had never wanted anything as badly in my life as I wanted him.  Some force was compelling me toward him and I gladly would have gone, except that it felt like I had bands of iron strapped to my chest holding me back.  The harder I struggled, the farther away it felt like we became.  I could see his hand stretched out to me, and would have sworn that I heard him call my name. It was no name that I had ever been called, and yet I knew it was me he called to and something inside me responded to that name so fiercely that it was almost a physical pain.

     The light behind him shone as bright as the sun and he was eclipsed by it, appearing as only a shadow…a shadow reaching out to me…and I knew without a doubt that he was what I had yearned for my entire life.  I could almost see his face, but not quite.  And yet I knew that it was the face I had seen in my dreams my entire life too. I fought the invisible bonds holding me as the doorway began to shimmer and waver in the air above me, the edges fading as I watched in horror. I knew that I had to reach that doorway.  I had to reach him or nothing would ever be right again.

     The doorway was disappearing so fast that it was nearly gone, and the bright light was fading away.  Panic clawed its way up my chest as I fought to break free, my fingers  nearly touching his outstretched hand before it seemed to swirl away in the mist and I cried out in an agony of despair.

     He was screaming something at me and clawing at the misty shadows even as I fought whatever was holding me back, but no matter how hard we tried we never managed to breach the distance between us, and as I watched,  the door began to dissolve completely.  He wavered and his image became wispy, like the ragged edges of clouds dragged across a stormy sky.  I shook my head back and forth in denial and struggled harder, my heart racing as I fought the invisible forces holding me back.  But regardless of how hard I struggled, the door, the man, and the light all faded away, becoming transparent and then just simply ceasing to be, leaving only the shadows of my room in their place and an after-image burned into the back of my head as my eyes strained to see what wasn't there anymore.

     I threw my head back then and screamed a long drawn-out scream of pure agony.

     "Nooooo!"

     It felt like my heart was being squeezed inside me, the pain so intense I wondered briefly if this was what it was like to have a heart attack. And then suddenly whatever force had been holding me was gone and I fell forward off the bed and landed on my shoulder.  Dimly I could feel pain blossom at the site of the impact, but it didn't matter.  I didn't care because the lacerated lump that used to be my heart was constricted in an agony that made everything else pale in comparison.  I dropped my head onto the ground and my outstretched hand clawed at the floor as sobs finally tore through my body.

     I cried hysterically for the better part of an hour, until I just simply couldn't cry anymore.  Until I was so exhausted that all I could manage to do was lay there limply like a wet rag doll,  staring at the spot in the air where I had last seen him.  Hot tears slid from my eyes and my hair quickly became a salty, tangled mess.  Finally, exhausted, I closed my eyes.

     With almost clinical detachment I realized that my throat hurt to swallow and I knew that I had screamed so hard I had damaged it somehow, but it didn't matter.  Nothing mattered now.  He was gone and with him had gone my ability to feel or care about anything.  That was okay.  If I couldn't be with him, I didn't want to feel anything anyway.

     I knew I was crazy, and not just because I was here.  Being in a nuthouse didn't make you crazy, you had to have something wrong with you in the first place to get put there…and I most certainly did have something wrong with me.  Normal people did not see floating doorways in their rooms.  Or transparent images of people who they were sure they loved more than life...another tick on the crazy side of the tally sheet.

     Even as that thought crossed my mind, I saw the nurse's aide peer through the window on my door, her eyes darting around the room frantically until she finally located me sprawled on the floor.  Our gazes locked for only a few seconds before she looked away almost fearfully, shaking her head.  I didn't blame her.  How could she possibly be expected to understand why I did what I did,  when I didn't even understand it myself?

     And maybe she was right to fear me.  After all, who knew if insanity was catching?