Norwich State Hospital

by Carol Hays

I wanted to know what it was like inside. A vacant asylum, abandoned for twenty-five years, and there were rumors about a wrecking crew. I was going to investigate: left the Canon on the dresser, listened to Tears for Fears the whole drive. I circled the muddy exterior, found an outside door that caved after warning me to STAY CALM. I stepped inside; molding walls suffocated me with fractal patterns of chaos, Rorschach ink blots haunting my mind. One room held flaccid curtains hung like giant tongues, and I was scared to pull them back, anticipating the maggot-lined bodies that I might find. The end of the corridor shifted, and I crossed the vomitory of an exhausted theatre, the seats still glowing an unnatural red. I hadn’t known about that, theatres in hospitals; but I was curious, asylum patients watching reruns of The Brady Bunch.

Published in the 2009 issue of the Lee Review.