Madhouse Fog. Sean Carswell

       1

      I’d been hearing a voice in my head lately. Not voices. One voice, and I didn’t want to listen. It still somehow convinced me to take a job at the Oak View State Psychiatric Hospital.

      The first thing I did on arrival at Oak View was to take a seat in the back row of a large lecture hall. All of the hospital administrators and a good chunk of staff were having the beginning-of-the-year meeting there. I sat between two empty chairs and scanned the hall for Dr. Bishop.

      Despite what the voice in my head might tell you, I was not a patient at the hospital. I was a new employee. Dr. Bishop had hired me to write the grants needed to keep this facility humming.

      All the other voices in my head—which were all mine; I usually refer to them as thoughts—had told me to stay in Fresno, to find a way to breathe life back into my suffocating marriage, to keep writing grants that would fund the community space I’d helped to create and dedicated fifteen years of my life to running. For some reason, I listened to Dr. Bishop’s voice. I took this job at Oak View and joined the staff at the staff meeting.

      An exceptionally short woman sat down next to me. She said, “You must be Mr. Brown.”

      She offered her tiny hand for me to shake. I shook it. It felt like a canary in my palm.

      “I am. How’d you know?”

      She swept her bangs sideways above her right eyebrow. “I know that everyone else in here is not Mr. Brown so I made an educated guess.”

      I nodded.

      She said, “I’m Dr. Benengeli.”

      I didn’t exactly follow. I thought she