THE CUBICLE
Michael has severe OCD isolating himself from the world...
CHAPTER THREE
Three years ago...
“Okay, Mr. Murdock. We’re going to begin the ECT—Electroconvulsive Therapy—procedure. You shouldn’t feel a thing,” said the doctor in a flat, clinical voice, adjusting the sterile white coat draped over his shoulders.
Michael’s eyes widened with panic. “I didn’t sign up for this!”
The doctor didn’t blink. “According to your psychiatrist, this procedure is mandatory.”
Michael’s heart pounded. He took a shaky step back, glancing toward the door—but before he could react, a towering male nurse, dark-skinned and built like a linebacker, blocked his path. His face showed no emotion.
“Restrain him,” the doctor ordered calmly.
Two more nurses stormed in, gripping a straitjacket. Michael thrashed as they grabbed him, his screams echoing off the padded walls.
“Help! Help me! I don’t give my consent!”
Then—a sting. A needle in his arm.
His vision blurred instantly. The world around him melted into black mist.
When he came to, he was strapped to a narrow table, cold wires pressed against his skull. He blinked, sluggish and confused. A monitor beeped steadily behind him.
“Doctor, he’s awake!” one of the nurses said, alarmed.
“Impossible. We gave him a strong sedative,” muttered the doctor, eyes locked on the screen.
Michael writhed in his restraints. “Please… stop… get me out of here!”
Without warning, the voltage surged—blasting through his mind like a storm. His body convulsed violently, muscles tightening in every limb. It felt like his brain was being torn apart from the inside.
“He’s seizing! Sedate him again!”
His legs kicked uncontrollably. His chest bucked off the table. Another jab in his arm—and slowly, mercifully, everything faded into sleep again.
Present Day
Michael jolted awake in his cramped apartment, gasping for air.
Sweat clung to his skin. His heartbeat thundered in his chest. The nightmare still danced behind his eyes—wires on his head, burning electricity in his skull, the cold faces of strangers forcing him into silence.
It took him a minute to realize it was over. Just a dream. Just memory.
He lit a cigarette, the tip glowing in the dim room. The smoke curled upward, soft and comforting. The nicotine grounded him.
Outside, loud voices drifted in through the window—protests. Angry crowds marched down the street, shouting into megaphones.
“End medical corruption!”
“We are not experiments!”
“Stop drugging patients!”
He watched them pass with tired eyes. He understood their anger more than anyone.
His phone buzzed.
Voicemail.
“Hi Michael… it’s your sister. Just checking in. The kids were asking about you today. I hope you’re doing okay…”
Sharon. Always trying to keep the bond alive.
She lived upstate in Buffalo now—couldn’t take the chaos of New York City. Too loud, too fast, too dangerous. Michael didn’t blame her. They’d been inseparable as kids. She raised him more than their parents ever did.
But after she had her own children, things changed. Slowly, the calls became less frequent. The visits faded. Now all that was left were voicemails like this one.
Michael put out his cigarette in the ashtray beside him.
He sat in silence.
The door banged with urgency.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
It was the landlord again—reminding him about the rent. Michael didn’t move. He didn’t answer. Eventually, the knocking stopped.
Outside, the sky turned a deep, bruised purple, streaked with orange and gray. Dusk was swallowing the city whole.
Michael lay down again, dragging the thin blanket over his chest. Sleep was the only place he could disappear—his only escape from a world that never seemed to let him breathe.
CHAPTER FIVE
Michael woke from his deep sleep in blind belief that life had changed—that he was in a new home, with a loving family and a steady job. But that was only a dream. The Sandman had duped him again.
The craving hit him hard. Cigarettes. He dragged on a black hoodie and grey sweatpants, stepped out for the first time in three days, and made his way toward the corner store. The sky was gray and dull, the sun held hostage behind thick clouds. A cold wind sliced through his clothes like ice. He rubbed his hands together, trying to warm himself as he descended the steps of his building.
Seagulls strutted along the curb, scavenging scraps from tourists and pedestrians—an odd sight in the city. Traffic snarled, horns blaring like a circus gone mad. Taxis weaved through, rushing clients to airports and hidden corners of New York. Above it all, the skyscrapers loomed like silent guardians.
He passed a basketball court alive with shouts and sweat. Teenagers battled in a four-on-one, gasping for air between plays. Vendors hovered around the fence, hawking burritos, shawarma, and burgers. The smell was exquisite, and Michael’s stomach growled, but he turned away. Street food always cursed him with sickness by morning.
Families strolled by, mothers pushing prams, savoring the thin break of sunlight that trickled through gray clouds. Michael kept his hands buried in his pockets—a habit he thought made him look weak, submissive, but he couldn’t stop. Life had beaten confidence out of him long ago.
By the time he reached the corner store, anxiety chewed at his chest. He pushed the door open, the bell announcing his entrance louder than it needed to. Behind the counter stood a short Indian man, turban tied neatly on his head like a bullseye.
“What can I do you for?” the man asked.
“One pack of Marlboro Reds,” Michael muttered.
The clerk groaned as he climbed onto a stool and fetched the cigarettes. Michael paid reluctantly—his government checks were late again.
“And a lighter,” Michael added.
The man slid him a neon-green Bic. Michael pocketed it and stepped back into the polluted air.
He tapped the pack with his left hand—his ritual—before lighting up. The first inhale burned, the smoke heavy in his lungs, but the rush came quickly. Dopamine spiked. For a moment, he felt weightless, euphoric.
But peace never lasted. His apartment meant shadows twitching at the corners of his vision, things moving when he wasn’t looking. Maybe paranormal, maybe madness. Either way, he was stuck in a cycle of debt, paranoia, and betrayal.
By dusk he returned to his building. On the landing, trap music thumped from Dante’s apartment. Dante spotted him and grinned wide.
“Neighbor! Still not sleeping well? I’ve got something for that—or are you gonna keep being a little bitch?”
Michael’s jaw tightened. I’m sick of your shit, he whispered under his breath, too soft for Dante to hear.
Dante swaggered closer, palm open. A tiny plastic bag glinted in the hallway light—two pills inside.
“On the house,” Dante said with a smirk, disappearing back into his apartment, bass shaking the walls.
Michael froze, staring at the bag. Then he pocketed it and went inside.
He lit another cigarette and sat on his sagging waterbed. The little bag lay in his palm, innocent yet dangerous. LSD, he thought. Curiosity won. He placed one tab on his tongue. Hours passed. Nothing. Impatient, he swallowed the second.
Darkness closed in.
When he opened his eyes, his LED lights blazed brighter than ever, shifting from red to blue to green in hypnotic rhythm. He rose to his feet, spellbound.
Suddenly, he was at the corner store again. The clerk’s turban had detached, circling his head like a belly dancer in sacred ceremony.
A blink later, he stood on a beach. Seagulls wheeled above in perfect formation, their beaks clicking in unison as if speaking in a language he understood.
Michael laughed. First softly, then louder, until hysteria consumed him. Passersby threw him wary glances, but he couldn’t stop. He laughed until the world itself collapsed into black.
When he woke, he was strapped to a hospital bed. Ancient words poured from his mouth, words even he didn’t recognize. Nurses looked on, baffled, as he ranted about the end of the world and presidents enslaved by alien masters. A needle pierced his arm, and the world blurred again.
The next time his eyes opened, he wasn’t home. Four beige walls closed around him—no window, no mirror, no escape. His arms were locked tight in a straitjacket. The truth cut deep: an asylum.
Panic surged. “Oh my God! What have I done?!” His cries echoed off the walls.
A male nurse stormed in, face blank, eyes cold. His fist drove into Michael’s torso, pain blooming sharp and merciless. Michael gasped, curling into himself, tears burning down his cheeks.
“This is the beginning of the end,” he whispered, writhing in despair.
THE CUBICLE
CHAPTER SIX
Michael woke up in the asylum feeling groggy and tired. He had spent the last few weeks in the wretched place being tortured by the male nurses giving him vile potions and injections. He became delirious and weak. The air inside the confinement smelt of dead bodies and human urine a ghastly smell.
He would always make sure to cover his nose whenever eating meals for he was sure he would throw up. The small chamber resembled his room back in Harlem. He almost kind of felt at home despite his current predicament.
There was a huge metal door with a small window attached to it, a surveillance camera and a small window high above where he slept. There on the floor was a small worn-out mattress of which he slept on.
There below the window at the corner of a concrete wall was an electric outlet. He had tried to short circuit the door but there was no current. Shit he thought. He would have to try another way to break free.
Every six hours he was given a bathroom break where he would use one of the washrooms from the ward. There he saw other patients some playing checkers other chess while some were completely drugged out, drooling from the corners of their mouths like zombies.
He had a bad taste in his mouth out here: metallic and chemical.
After careful scrutiny by the nurses, he was let go from the cubicle and into the ward. There he interacted freely with the rest of the patients. The asylum was dark and it looked ancient, as if in a long-lost dream.
Some kind of dark pungent mist lingered in the air. In every ward was a stationed small room for one of the male nurses. These nurses were diabolical, they would fight the inmates sometimes beating them into a pulp if they did not comply with the rules.
The biggest commandment one would break is to refuse to take medication, if one had not followed the rules. Brute force would be made and hell would rise. In each ward there were almost ten beds but the patients were far less.
There was no outside time for fresh air. Just pure horror in doors. One could not tell from day and night, within the cursed asylum, everything seemed to have one palette and the only way they could differentiate between night and day was through the meals.
In the mornings they were given a cup of tea, bread and some oatmeal, during the day for lunch was mashed potatoes with some beef or white rice with some bean stew on special occasions it was spaghetti with meatballs, at night it was a thick vegetable soup with hard bread or some cauliflower with rice.
Michael hated the food but he had no choice but to comply. Every fortnight a medical doctor would come and examine the inmates giving him new prescriptions, if need be, also some injections.
And how are you feeling Mr. Murdock?
Are you hearing voices Mr. Murdock?
Are you sleeping well?
Those questions were always the same, mundane and seemed to vex Michael. He knew no better than to lie unapologetically. That was his only way out of here. His ticket. It didn’t matter what he said, he had been in this position way too many times. As long as he kept a cool demeanor, he would be out of there.
Out of all the inmates there was one in particular they called the Joker, a mad chap, that all the patients avoided. He always wore a straitjacket to restrain him from fighting other inmates and also a grilled mouth guard. He looked horrific like something out of a horror flick.
He would always speak in some kind of ancient tongue laughing hysterically in between pauses. The other inmates were frightened by him. Especially after he bit off an ear of one of the male nurses.
He was flogged so bad he couldn’t walk for two weeks as the rumors were told.
A couple of days later, Michael was released and his freedom was given back to him.
A bag filled with his clothes and belongings were handed to him begrudgingly.
Finally, he thought.
He took the subway train back to his apartment. Only to find it was locked from the outside. Damn he cursed under his breathe while holding the keys. He peered over the corridor and saw Dante his drug dealing neighbor had moved out. On the door was a foreclosure notice that read that the apartment was up for rent.
Michael was bewildered and shook. He took out his phone and called is sister, straight into voice mail.
He had nowhere to go…
Nowhere to call home
Will this be the last of him?
Pain and misery crushed his soul and the weight of the world rested upon his shoulders…
Is this my final reckoning?
He asked himself.
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