Viraj's Dream Doorways

"Do you ever feel like you're the only one who can see the truth of all things? The world is going to end soon, and no one seems to know. I don't mean that in a religious sense. I'm not talking about the apocalypse. I'm talking about the end of life on our own planet. The scientist say it has been happening for decades, but they can't figure out why. They say that it's a mystery of nature, and that's all."

The old woman in front of me nodded as she inched forward in her chair. Her voice cracked when she spoke, "I used to think that way myself when I was younger, Viraj. It's a feeling like no other. You feel something so deep inside your soul that you just have to get it out there. But now that I'm older, I think differently."

I paused my writing so I could look at her face. She had an angelic glow about her that sent goosebumps up my arms and a chill down my spine. The wrinkles around her eyes told stories of laughter, pain, and joy. Her hair had streaks of grey mixed with brown and was tied back into a bun behind her head. Her clothes were simple and well-worn - a blue dress with red buttons down the front and white cuffs around the sleeves of her dress shirt. And yet, when she spoke, her voice was young and full of hope again.

"You know what my doctor told me last week?" she said as she reached for my hand across the table we were sitting at in the cafeteria at Saint Peter's Hospital for Mental Health in Eastwood City, Sydney Australia. "He told me to slow down and sit back if I want to live longer!" She laughed joyfully at this as her whole body shook with each giggle. "What do you think he meant by that?"

I smiled back at her as best as I could while writing down what she was saying in my notebook - words like "truth", "nature", "living", "death". It wasn't much, but it was enough to keep me interested. She'd been like this every time I met with her over the past year or so since her diagnosis with delusional schizophrenia - always talking about something mysterious or prophetic every visit or every time we passed each other in the hallway - asking me questions like whether or not I thought there was absolute truth, or if everything was relative depending on where you were standing at any given moment in time - if today's truth would be tomorrow's lie based upon how many people believed it to be true or false.

Her name was Katherine Collins, and she had been admitted 19 years ago after suffering from paranoid delusions following a traumatic breakup from her husband, who she accused of cheating on her with multiple women throughout their marriage - women who she said were probably demon spirits themselves trying to steal him away from her through black magic spells. They tried everything they could to get through to her during those first few years - medication, group therapy sessions, and even electro-shock therapy which seemed to work initially but then stopped working after a while, leaving them with nothing left but medication, which they continued to give her over the past 15 years or so until last year when doctors recommended placing Katherine into residential care at Saint Peter's because they no longer saw any signs of improvement in their patient's condition even though they continued to increase dosage levels of anti-psychotics during each monthly scheduled visit, or change vitamin supplements or blood pressure medications several times per month whenever symptoms required adjustment or restarting all treatments again whenever symptoms started returning again during the next month's scheduled visit months later.

If anything, Katherine looked healthier than most other people here except for some small signs of age here and there on her face, which was probably more likely caused by the repeated cycle of illnesses from all the different medications (most of which caused side effects such as increased weight gain, decreased appetite, and higher blood pressure) combined with a lack of physical activity due to being confined within four walls in this hospital for almost two decades now ever since being forced into residential care here (on account of no one having any money left to pay for additional treatments anymore).

But regardless of all these factors, Katherine still managed to look healthy because most importantly (her doctor said), most people didn't seem to have as much energy inside them anymore compared to her. Everyone else here, who were mostly suffering from similar conditions and illnesses, seemed to keep themselves isolated. They moved around slowly from room to room, either strapped into wheelchairs if too sick, carefully walking along walls if able, or being carried by staff members if too weak. Most of them sat alone in corners, staring blankly ahead into empty space, ignoring whatever conversation might be going on nearby. This included their own unless spoken to directly, assuming anyone cared enough about them to engage in a heartfelt conversation. Katherine, however, continued to display her vibr