The pupil constricts as the arc of a rainbow hits it in the sunlight. The pupil dilates in the night devoid of moon, stars, and city lights. The schizophrenic rattles the pills around in the bottle. The attendant watches her take one out and put it in her mouth. She shoves it into the side of her cheek with her tongue. Water slithers down her throat. The attendant leaves satisfied.
The schizophrenic spits out the pill. The mind shimmers with all the colors of the visible spectrum like an opal stone. The dragon breathes fire at the knight who blocks it with his shield. The last unicorn is alive walking man’s road. The phoenix flies, fire sparking off the tips of its tail feathers. The schizophrenic follows a leprechaun to a pot of gold. The pupil constricts as the arc of a rainbow hits it in the sunlight.
The schizophrenic swallows the pill. Blackness as sure as an onyx stone envelops the mind. The knight spears the dragon in its throat, cutting off the fire, whose corpse then falls into a gorge. The witch cuts off the unicorn’s horn to mix a potion of immortality. The phoenix burns alive, leaving nothing but soot and smoke. The schizophrenic tests the gold, finding out that it is fool’s gold. The pupil dilates in the night devoid of moon, stars, and city lights.
The schizophrenic rejects the injection. The hospital is cold. The windows are blacked out with paint. Every room in the ward is so crowded with people that they are crammed three to a cell. The inmates stare at the blackened windows, swirling with paint, forcing known images onto them as though picking out pictures in the clouds. The schizophrenic sleeps to dream herself away to freedom. The pupil constricts as the arc of a rainbow hits it in the sunlight.
The schizophrenic accepts the injection. The apartment is warm. Windows open onto a field of flowers of all colors, red to violet. There are no people save one. The schizophrenic lies down unable to dream in the harsh sunlight that warms the bed. Her lip twitches uncontrollably, keeping her awake. The pupil dilates in the night devoid of moon, stars, and city lights.
The mind is like a gemstone, sparkling with colors sometimes, black as pitch others. Opal. Onyx. The schizophrenic closes her eyes. Darkness swirls around her. She catches fragments of imagery, a dragon’s eye here, a unicorn’s lion-like tail there. She opens her eyes to the sunlight. The fragments fade. But she continues to search for her lost imagination in every dark corner, devouring every scrap like a starving lion. The phoenix rises, alive, from the soot too young to fly. The pupil constricts as the arc of a rainbow hits it in the sunlight. The pupil dilates in the night devoid of moon, stars, and city lights.
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