Review day was rarely fun. To ensure that the most accurate representation of patient progress was on display, reviews were not announced to patients in advance, nor were they on a regular schedule.

This was not to say that reviews didn’t follow some sort of procedure. Formal reviews always had at least two doctors present; some had more staff on hand either to advise or observe.

To patients like one of the asylum’s founding inmates, they were a bit more familiar than they were for some who went through only a handful before being released or, more frequently, redirected to a more appropriate facility to handle treatment.

And so it was on a day where a certain skunk felt a bit out of sorts that he was escorted to the interview room, without so much as having his tousled hair brushed. Seated in the sturdy chair and strapped securely into place to listen while the doctors spoke on his apparent lack of progress. In fairness, they also spoke on whether any new treatments seemed appropriate, or whether they’d possibly missed anything. There were always questions, though in the longtime patient’s case, they were yes-or-no at best, any attempt to answer more fully than that were futile, the muzzle and gag enforcing the strict speech restriction he was under, his efforts met with resigned smiles from the staff.

To sit and listen to others talk about him as though he were barely there, watching as notes were taken, forms completed. Always when he walked in he told himself not to get hopes up, but the heart knew not logic, and by the end of the reviews he always hoped for some different answer.

“We’ll continue the current regimen.” A conclusion he’d heard before, but despite his best efforts to prepare, it was a gut punch. Just as it always was. With a gesture from the lapine lead doctor, the orderly standing near the door came to release the skunk from his chair while the rest of the staff filed out of the room for coffee before the next set of patients came in.

“I’ll take it from here,” Dr. B stated softly, smiling at the orderly once he’d helped the skunk to stand. A raised eyebrow from the bear was the only answer, but he’d been working at Azure Glen long enough to know not to question. He nodded and hustled to catch up to the others; after all, the best gossip came from the doctors that attended these review meetings. “...completely lost her mind, actually started bouncing off the walls. I thought that was just a saying!” he heard as he hurried to the break room door, the interview room well behind him.

“That was hard today, wasn’t it?” the snowshoe hare asked softly of the only other person in the room, patting the canvas-covered arm of the patient, urging him to start walking without the usual hooked fingers and tug employed by the asylum’s orderlies. As it happened, the light touch worked, the straitjacketed inmate beginning to walk out of the room. “I’m glad you at least answered us honestly when Dr. Malone asked if you were angry. No one here blames you, you know,” she said, walking slowly next to the patient while he slowly shuffled along, tethered ankles causing slow progress down the hallway back to the wing of padded cells. “Just like I know you don’t like hearing that. Tough street skunk Blacktop, you don’t need our pity,” the doctor said with a chuckle, somehow managing to have it not sound belittling. “And on that, you’re right. You don’t,” she said, gently guiding the skunk into his padded cell. The inmate was so stunned by the words “you’re right” being uttered by the rabbit doctor that he didn’t even put up a fuss at being escorted back into the thick-walled room. Had she timed her speech that way, or were her mind games just that good?

“I do wish you’d stop pushing us all to the outside, but you knew that already of course,” she went on, her British accent not having faded in the slightest over the years despite the staff and inmates, those that could speak, rarely having a similar one of their own. “Turn around for a moment, would you?”

Still curious where this was going, the inmate did so, as ever trying to add to the conversation, muzzle bulging out slightly as it contained his attempts to speak. “Mmm. Possible they put this on a little too tight, let’s have a look, hm?” she said, tending to phrase it like a question so an inmate might feel as though they had some sort of control over things. It also served as a warning to frightened or violent inmates that contact was about to happen, and in this case it did, the doctor tucking the end of her thumb lightly against the leather strap that ringed the skunk’s muzzle over top and bottom. Such checks were familiar and the skunk drew in a breath to register his usual complaint when he felt a second hand, one laying gently atop his crossed arms as the rabbit lifted her eyes to meet the inmate’s.

“Blacktop,” she said simply, using the patient’s preferred nickname rather than the real name that some doctors insisted be used. He’d just barely started to squirm in the leather and canvas restraint when a soft squeeze on his strapped forearm stilled him once more. With a look and a simple gesture she’d managed to get his attention more than she’d had it in a long time.

“You’ve had it rough,” she went on, leaning in close, a luxury she could enjoy given that the inmate was unable to cause her any serious harm in his current condition. “You were sent from your first home before you were old enough to remember, and have never had a good one since. Your current home is a padded room. That’s hard, incredibly hard. No one blames you for hating it here,” the doctor said, pausing a moment to let that sink in.

“But today was review day and I want you to think about this: Even when you feel alone in the world inside these four walls, you are not. We care about you simply because you are you.”

And that was it. Nothing more about patients having to work with doctors to get well, or having to accept their own problems before healing can begin. Nothing about “doctor knows best”. Just a little hopeful smile, a gentle pat on his arms, a helpful movement of her other hand to sweep a bit of stray hair out of his eyes, and she was gone, the heavy door of the cell closed, locking him back inside.

Once again he’d have a lot of time to himself, but this time he had things to think about. The words echoed in his head just as did the image of the doctor looking at him, really looking at him, reaching out and making contact.

It was a little harder to hate the world this review day.


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Picture commissioned and story written by  Mephit1313