Whitmore Asylum
A fictional story written by Simon Kendle, inspired by the
creative works of
Maci Hart, Simon Kendle, Silas Overbey, and Matilda Liggat-
Moline
Chapter 1: Blackstone Falls, West Virginia
The cool fall wind blew through the open window of our 2002 Toyota Tacoma, just as
(alternative for “old”) and clunky as when we got it. She rode through the North Carolina road,
nothing but trees and grass around us, driving through leaves in the air like Moses parting the
Red Sea. The light copper sheen was long gone from the paint, now a smooth, dim shade of
brass, but at this point, a third of it had been scraped off from several close calls. If a passerby
saw her on the road, they would see a junky machine that ran like a dilapidated cat missing a leg,
but to me, to us, it was a dream. My mother was riding shotgun, admiring the view, her sandalled
feet lying on the dashboard, covering a dozen assorted stickers of mushrooms, goats, and
motivational statements. I remember it so vividly, she was grinning; we were almost there. I was
seven at the time, sitting in my Dad’s lap, in the driver seat, flipping through his CD collection to
find something we could listen to. Three-year-old Angela was sitting in her baby seat, nibbling
on a carrot, minding her own business as always. Sometimes my parents scolded me and told me
to be more like my sister, to leave them alone, which was funny, given that they give her twice
the attention as me, but I suppose you take what you can get.
“Well? Didja find anything?” mused my Dad,
“Yeah, I think I did.” I pulled my hand away from the multitude of CD cases, holding a
disc, my hand covering the title from my dad’s sight. I put it into our CD player, dust and old
coffee spills staining its plastic, almost like they were a part of the car. I pressed play, and a soft
fizzle, like a radio glitch came from inside. Then…
Oooooh, baby do you know what that’s worth?
Oooh heaven is a place on earth.
Belinda Carlisle’s angelic voice filled the car, filled the road, filled North Carolina, filled
my entire world. My dad let out a soft belly laugh and fist-bumped me. At least… that’s what I
wish had happened. Before I had found any worthy CD, my dad thrusted me into my mother’s
arms. A black tow truck was barreling down our lane in the wrong direction.
The driver was a -quite literally- beer-bellied man who looked to be around the unripe
age of 55 or so. He looked drunk, asleep in a sense, his eyes flickering, twirling around his
sockets like a basketball. His hands were awake and tense, gripping the wheel. His jaw was
drooped, saliva trickling down his gray bird’s nest of a beard. It was unnatural. As I looked at
him, his eyes, his twirling eyes, I felt like I was in a trance. My vision spiraled around him, the
light of the sun fading, the feelings of...anything… fading. Just his eyes. His spinning, swirling,
muddled galaxies of eyes. His eyebrows then furrowed, staring directly at me with deep hatred.
He closed his jaw and accelerated in our direction. Despite my father’s attempts at an escape, we
were too close, we were going to crash. Right before the truck’s bumper hit our driver seat, I
woke up.
Dream journal entry #267, Aug/8/2023
The same dream again, the same memory.
The same man, the same look.
The same people, the same.
Every time, the way his ugly eyes meet mine, a little part of me dies inside like it did that day. For
some reason, I don't hate him, I don’t blame him. I don’t feel fondly for him either, of course. He
killed my parents, after all. Why don’t I hate him?
I should stop thinking about this and get some breakfast. This is Kristan Pierce, signing off.
Angel was already up, eating a bowl of honey nut Cheerios and reading a true crime
book. She was clad in sweats and a robe, her eyes neutral, I couldn’t tell if she was dead tired or
wide awake. I reached for the pantry, pulling out a protein bar and a pop tart. Dallas dragged
himself into the room, his usually handsome dark locks now reduced to a tangled clump of hair
and dandruff. Too much dandruff. His eye bags drooped lower than the floor, with more red in
the whites of his eyes than white. He was a bit easier to read than Angel. You would think I
would be able to understand my little sister, especially after nine years of us being alone together,
but it was quite the contrary.
“Tough night much?” I chuckled. Dallas grumbled in an incomprehensible southern
dialect. I could barely make out “bean water.” He’s always like this without his beloved coffee.
Angel passed him his mug, and mind you, only his mug, with “GOD BLESS TEXAS” inscribed
on it. Dallas took it and filled it with his precious bean water.
“So,” he said, “What are we going to do today? When I get back from work and Angel
gets back from school, are we just going to mope around the whole day?”
“Well, if we want to explore it later today or this week, I found another abandoned home
while driving home today, they say it burnt down,” I suggested.
“Who’s they?” whispered Angel,
“Some neighbors I asked about it. They said it was a family of five. One died, the rest
were relatively unharmed.”
“Who died?” Dallas asked grimly.
I muttered “The one who set the fire,” almost hoping Dallas didn’t hear me. We sat in
silence for a bit.
Pop! My pop tart came out of the toaster. Dallas, unlocked from his frozen state of
thought, walked out to get dressed. Angel twirled her messy chesnut hair for a minute, then
looked back down at her book, either undeterred or hiding her discomfort. I shrugged, grabbed
my pop tart, and went to my room.
It was an aged room, it looked as though it had been through a century of wear and tear.
When we got the building, or rather, when Dallas got the building, a year or two ago, the
salesman told us that the paint used to be a bright pink, so I was glad that the paint was mostly
worn away or faded, pink is not my color. The window was open, on behalf of my fatigue-
drunken self the night before, and my bed was completely undone, as always. Multiple desks
around the room were topped with mountains of papers, books, and small projects, including a
makeshift robot I was working on, disassembling a toaster for the fun of it, stacks upon stacks of
random ideas, dream journal papers, robot parts, cardboard, knives, and clothing strewn around
the entire room, but I still knew where everything was, every little scrap of paper.
People sometimes tell me I need to clean my room more often, but they don’t understand
that it’s already fully organized. A perfectly clean room with only what I needed made me feel…
empty. My punching bag and boxing gloves were in the opposite corner of my bed, the other two
corners being desks. The window was adjacent to my punching bag, with a purple orchid lying
on the windowsill. I’ve always loved orchids, they were my mother’s favorite too, they almost
seem to have emotions, and their colors reflect it. They’re resilient, too, the only plant I could
keep alive say for a cactus.
Chapter 2: The Fire on Carnegie Lane
