Worlds Colliding

Abstract

As I waved my badge in front of the electronic monitor and saw the light blink green in acceptance, I trembled in my freshly ironed white coat. Beyond that blinking light and that locked door was a world of mystery and adventure. A world where normal rules of social conduct do not apply, where the real and surreal intertwine. I was excited and nervous and terrified. I was entering the psych ward. I cannot tell you exactly what I expected to find. Something along the lines of white walls, fluorescent lights, and nurses in starched white uniforms with perfect nurses caps and friendly but strict smiles. Patients wandering around in gowns, muttering to themselves, screaming at the walls. Chaos. Which was why I was shocked when I opened that heavy metal door and found myself staring across the hall at a thin, short Indian woman in a hospital gown, with her salt and pepper hair in a long braid down her back. She could have been my mother. My first rule coming into this rotation was to not stop and stare, but within the first minute of entering the ward I had already broken it. I stared at

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