Escape from the asylum

I was thinking about quantum physics when this story popped into my mind...

Up from the ground and through a mouse hole came the sound of CQ on her radio: "You're not dead Zen, can you hear me?"

Zen or the new inmate to her friends who had been brought there by the king's henchmen and admitted by Hard-kill the overseer of the asylum was in the old ladies gymnasium when she heard CQ calling.

Zen was coaching Bad-bones the Fish to jump the peg, but it was never going to happen, and it was almost coffee time anyway.

Forever grinning Ellie was keeping the count but she was bored. The clock said ten 44 am which meant something about angels to those in the know.
With a crash the big doors flew open and the coffee trolley pushed through.
“Coffee time,” shouted Charlie, flashing his tattoos.

As nothing much had got started there was nothing much to stop, so everyone sat on the bench by the window and Charlie poured the coffee and handed out the pills in the little plastic cups. It was snowing outside and had been for three days so everyone was snowed in, not that anyone could get out through the bars on the windows anyway.

“What is it?” said Zen.
Everyone looked at her. Was she talking to them or to herself as usual?
Zen had been brought in unconscious and when she woke up she couldn't remember who she was which was not helped by the drugs given her by the staff of the asylum.

“Are you really mad?” asked CQ.
“Certainly,” replied Zen.
Everyone drank their coffee in silence as Zen carried on her monolog.
“Cap'n Kelek said to me to say to you to bust out of there and get back on the boat,” said CQ.

“It's snowing,” said Zen looking at her fingers.

“Cap'n Kelek said to me to say to you: that's an order.”

“But I've got a good place here, showing people how to jump the peg,” said Zen rather glumly and looking at Bad-bones the Fish who was past it by a long shot, slurping coffee.

“What's your answer?” said CQ.

“I'm thinking,” said Zen.

“Don't take too long. Cap'n Kelek is going on another adventure and he wants you to go with him. CQ over and out.”

Hard-kill in his iron office sounded the fog-horn and coffee break was over.
Bad-bones the Fish creaked to her feet and looked at Zen for direction.
“Take the rest of the day off,” said Zen turning to look out of the window at the snow.

Waiting down through the long days and years of the crazy place where you can only walk the huge hallways of alone; no maps, no signs to show the way out. No wind to fill the sails. Echoes of the madmen who came before scratched on the walls to say: give up, there's no hope here; despair seeping from the bones of their dying; the floor pooled with their weeping; no reprieve for the insane, the lunatics shunned by all.

“What am I doing here,” thought Zen.
A banshee wail startled her out of her reverie.
“To hell with this,” she said and crashed through the big doors of the gym. She pounded down the long dark hallway towards the light at the end. Hands clawed at her through the bars of the cells as she passed along. Cries of despair beseeching her for help.

The public address system came to life with the laughing of Hard-kill in his iron office.

“This place is crazy,” said Zen as she flew through the doors at the end and out into the light of the operating theatre where five white coats were removing the brain of an old Dead Sea dog.

Zen jumped over the table and out through the door into another room that was dark and full of whispers. Through there she tore at breakneck speed into another room and another until she was exhausted and fell down onto her knees. Gasping her prayers into the huge emptiness she realized where she was: she'd gone full circle back into the gym.
“Help me,” she cried.

Through her battered senses the sound of the alarm bells finally penetrated; someone was making an escape bid.
White coats came from everywhere, their hands filled with syringes and pounded down every hallway. They found Paraffin Fred playing his sax up against the dreaming lamp-post and jumped on him and filled him full of lead then dragged him off to the cotton-wool cell of no return.

The public address system blasted: “Stay in your cells, there is nothing to be concerned about.”

The wind of doom picked up the snow and howled around the outside shaking the windows threatening to get in. A big white owl crashed into a window pane and battered itself against it, then in a flurry it was gone, blown away by the screaming wind.

There is no escape, said the doom.
Lie down and die, said the cold floor.
No hope here, said the rattling windows.

Zen held her head in her hands and rocked back and for on the leathery bench of dejection.
Hard-kill laughed from his iron room.

"CQ calling, CQ calling: look outside... Cap'n Kelek's come to rescue you. CQ over and out."

Zen looked up and saw Cap'n Kelek's grim, weather beaten face looking in through the window. Then they saw each other. Cap'n Kelek disappeared into the swirling snow. Before Zen could go see where he went to, the window crashed out of the wall into the snow...

"Suffice to know, albeit emotionally, or otherwise, whatever you believe in is something you will have to lose to know, if it is worth knowing, and if it is not then why bother? And so saying let's begin to begin," said the lost voice.

In the snowfields of yesterday under the bridge of forgetting, near to the fallen idols of old beliefs, a cornucopia of standard ideologies were rusting away in the rain on the frozen lake in a place that is hardly worth talking about.

“We're beginning to see the end of the old way of things,” said Bad-bones.

A screaming banshee wail jumped down and said: “Eeny, meeny, miny, moe.”

“Exactly,” said Bad-bones.

“Huh?” said a lost voice.

“I mean to say...” said Bad-bones.

“Of course you do,” said the screaming banshee wail.

“Huh?” said the lost voice.

“Well this is a pleasant day to begin,” said the voice of doom.

“He's talking to us,” said the screaming banshee wail.

“Pretend he's not here,” said Bad-bones.

“I've begun,” began the lost voice, again.

“The end is near,” said Bad-bones.

“We believe you,” said the crowd.

Hey!” came a voice from the crowd.

A woman pushed through and ran to the boat and jumped in.
“Zen!” said Kelek.
“Cap'n!” said Zen.
“We've been looking for you everywhere. Where have you been?” said the Cap'n.
“I was lost in that crowd,” said Zen.

Suddenly the ice cracked and everyone that wasn’t in the boat went down into the freezing lake and drowned into frozen statues. Zen was okay in the boat though with Kelek and the gang.

“Heave ho,” said Kelek, “let's get out of here.”
“It's good to have the band back together,” said Zen.
No one looked behind as they rowed away into the future.

Images from Pixabay

More of an earlier part... https://steemit.com/zen/@wales/snip-snaps-and-splash-pirate-stories