Shoefiti: Urban art or something more?

By Tania M. Crespo

Diana, a young woman who had everything in her life, wakes up confused at a mental health facility and doesn´t remember why she´s in there, but rather her friends and family members, she thinks about Samuel and how everything has changed in just over a month. The psychiatrist who had been taking her case, found a better job. It was said that the new one was humane. She hadn´t met him yet, but she was willing to try with all her might to convince him. She needed to get out of there and it had to be before the next full moon.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tania M. Crespo
• Release date: Dec 19, 2020
• ISBN: 9781547531219

Tania M. Crespo

(Madrid, 1982) Madrileña de nacimiento y breana de corazón. Estudiante de Grado de Lengua y Literatura españolas, escritora en prácticas y lectora compulsiva. Inconformista y reivindicadora nata. Cocinillas y madridista confesa.

Book preview

To Sergio, who came to my life to make it easier.

REALITY OR FICTION

She woke up feeling confused. As she opened her eyes, it took her a bit to remember where she was at. The distant roof towered up like it could reach the sky. A truss plumbing system and air ducts were her substitute to the stars. The solid walls that made the building facade rose above four meters high. They fostered at the top big window panes connected in turn to the roof. Even though unreachable- and therefore a pathologic obsession to various inmates- they made the dwelling a bit less mournful. Besides them being the sole contact to sunlight.

A thick steel door separated her cold living space and the central hall. The door had a small bull's eye through which only the wall´s intense omnipresent gray could be seen. This construction was designed to avoid any kind of contact even visual among them. Though in her situation, she couldn't even try.

In the center of the room from the pipes-as if she were able to- she saw herself stranded to the bed. There were only three other elements that decorated her cell: a small sink, a metal toilet and a foam wedge which hung behind the door.

Every part of her body hurt. The hard leather straps that held her arms and legs covered in turn multiple scratches and wounds that she had done to herself while trying to escape. She felt physical pain, but it was even worse to feel her own desperation with every passing minute. Just then she remembered why she was there, even if she didn't remember how much time had passed by.

Just like every morning, two nurses heavily guarded walked over until they reached her cell door where the ward in turn kept watch while the women washed her up. Her bonds were loosened just enough to clean her wounds. They seemed like robots: they never spoke, never looked at her.

She understood she was at a maximum-security area, and that there was a protocol which the personnel must adhere to regarding inmates, but it still surprised her that no worker was allowed any kind of closeness or contact. They never weakened their resolve, never showed any kind of humaneness, even out of curiosity.

A few minutes later another nurse, also heavily guarded, brought breakfast and released her bonds. Cookies, a glass of milk and a cup for her medication. Always the same.

In spite of this cold approach, it had been three days since she felt all better. The same three days in which the psychiatrist who had been taking her case, had left the Center to accept an irresistible offer in the most prestigious mental health clinic in the capital. This meaning her case had been reassigned. She felt a lot better because, the first thing the new psychiatrist had done was to lower her sedative dose. Rumor had it —if you could call it rumor to what she heard out in the courtyard— that this new doctor actually liked to talk to his patients, even though they hadn't spoken yet. She also heard he had recently graduated and so she figured this was a typical case of a first-year intern who had not lost his empathy yet, and she hoped this new doctor would be her ticket out of there. It was what she wanted most.

As soon as she was dressed in the inmates´ uniform, a gray cotton tracksuit, her eternal guard made a gesture that indicated it was time for her morning stroll. She walked backwards so her jailer could shackle her wrists and ankles. It seemed humiliating, but at least it wasn´t a straitjacket. The handcuffs were similar to those in the movies. She also had a fine chain for her wrists and ankles, which circled her waist and worked as a leash for her ward. Time to let the dog out for a walk! —she thought—.

But that morning ironically, as soon as she got out of the maximum-security building where the cells could be found they did not go straight to the gym on the building next door, or to what had been for her up until now the patio. Both buildings were connected by a crystal hall found only on the first floor. The ward to her surprise walked towards the true patio located outdoors. It happened to be a green grass terrace, not very wide, surrounded by high fences and barbed wire on top. Not the coziest of places but to Diana it seemed wonderful especially because since arriving to the Center she had not seen the outside world.

It took her a few seconds to adapt to the sunlight, it seemed very difficult to focus, but when she managed to do so she was able to make out shapeless forms. She blinked a few times. On the other side of the terrace there seemed to be two wooden chairs, and as she got closer she made out a girl sitting in one of them. As soon as she reached the chairs her vision had adjusted, and she stared at the girl who had a friendly face and held a clipboard and a pen. A bit clumsily, probably because of being nervous, she got closer to the chair...

‘My name´s Paola’, she introduced herself while smiling. ‘Please take a seat’.

‘I´m Diana, nice to meet you’, the answered back, sitting down.

‘It's ok, you may remove the handcuffs off now’, she indicated the ward who, without saying a word freed her from her pain.

The young doctor observed her wearily but pensively, and her face showed she was impressed. Through the disadvantageous gray tracksuit Paola could see Diana held generous breasts, firm and terse, a thin waist and ample rounded hips. She was not very tall, but she seemed exuberant in spite of being so thin. Her hair was very long even when gathered up in a ponytail, the tips caressing all the way to the lower back. Her skin was dark and soft, her nose small and thin, lips full and bold. There was however a disturbing detail about her anatomy: her look. Even though her eyes were spectacular not only because of their size or Arabian shape, but because of that honey color, that made her pupils stand out over the iris as if they were two shiny gold medallions, with two black sapphires incrusted down the middle.

‘Could you leave us alone?’ The fragile doctor ordered once again. The ward walked off ten meters, the maximum distance allowed; all the while Diana massaged her pained wrists.

‘Do they hurt?’ The doctor asked.

‘Quite’, she answered shyly.

‘May I?’ She asked leaning to have a better look at her bandages. Diana answered by nodding.

The doctor removed the bandages with intricate softness but even though she tried she could not dissemble her horrified face once she was aware of her injuries.

‘I need a nurse with a first aid kit’, she indicated the ward in a demanding tone all the while getting up.

Diana watched her pace around anxiously not taking her eyes off of the door. She didn't seem scared with the ward absent but rather worried about Diana´s wounds. The ward returned with a nurse and a huge orange first-aid kit. Paola approached the door, grabbed the kit, smiled at the nurse and walked back alone towards Diana.

‘I have to register your wounds, so it´ll be easier to get them to take off what's causing this’, she explained calmly.

‘No problem’, Diana answered. The doctor then took out her cell phone and took a few pictures of her lacerations, then proceeded to heal her in a different way nurses did. In the end she placed an antibiotic ointment.

‘This will help with scarring, preventing infections as well’, the wounds near her ankles and wrists were very deep. The doctor finished her healing by changing the bandaging. Diana was impressed; her short stay in this place had made her forget manners towards other people.

‘How can this be?’ She asked angrily out loud. Diana answered by looking at her. The fact that her injuries were not getting any better had nothing to do with the healing method, as she always healed better than most. It was the fact that every single second she spent alone, she used it to try and free herself from her binds.

She couldn't take her eyes off of this woman who gave off an air of warmth. Paola was a small woman, thin, red-haired and brown-eyed. Her skin was as white as her smile, but what impressed her most was her scent, like honey. Even her scent was sweet.

‘How much time have you had these?’ She asked, taking her mind off of her analysis.

‘I´m not sure, practically a day after I got here’, she answered skillfully.

‘Twenty-one days, I cannot believe it’, she whispered, almost unheard. Diana's face showed a gesture of anguish which meant she only had five days left to escape, starting the countdown today.

‘Are you ok?’, asked the kind doctor.

‘Yes, thank you’.

‘Well, I have a few questions for you, I have read your file, but it is full of contradictions —she augmented— Do you know your full name?’

‘Diana Herrero Castro’.

‘Date of Birth?’

‘July 28th, 1987’.

‘Are you aware of... Why you are here?’

‘Yes’, she said out loud.

‘Could you elaborate? Please’.

‘What everyone wants to hear is that I'm crazy, that I suffer from personality disorder and that I´m a dangerous psycho and a murderer’.

‘And the truth?’

‘You told me you read the file’.

‘Yes’, the doctor confirmed.

‘Then you know my truth’, Diana stated.

‘Your truth?’, She asked with her face brightly as if she had gotten to the gist of the question. Diana smiled but didn't answer. 'I asked you a question’, the doctor insisted.

‘And I have decided not to answer. I don't want my answer to lead to me not being able to go out for some days, locked up in my room’, she answered sincerely.

‘Why would you think that I might lock you up because of your answer?’

‘Because that's what he would do’.

‘Who?’, The doctor asked incredibly

‘The other doctor’.

‘Alright’, she said moving the head from side to side disapproving the way the way the other doctor handled things. ‘I won't ask you any questions that might make you feel compromised. It's true that I´ve read your file, but I would like to know your entire story’.

Diana took a deep breath. She had said all of this before and no one had believed her, but something told her this small woman could actually change everything, maybe if she told her all exactly the way she had lived it.

––––––––

‘It all started on my birthday, Saturday July 28th —she remembered— the sun was shining so brightly that it was almost blinding, and according to the meteorologist we might reach historic temperatures. The whole country was in orange or red alert, in spite of us having surpassed any temperature from previous years. Madrid was a swarm and as you know, on days like this we from Madrid escape from the great city as if the asphalt were to turn to lava and destroy everything in its place. It really seems that way sometimes. As soon as we get out of the house every single one of us at some point while wearing sandals —and after walking through the city— has noticed how the soles stick to our feet giving the sensation that with each step both are fusing into one. This is why it doesn’t matter if our final destiny is: the beach, the mountains or the town. It doesn't matter if we are going to a hotel, a hostel, if we´re camping, going to a second housing or to a friend or relative´s home who one day decided that the city was not for him —Paula smiled slightly inviting her to continue—. My parents ran off early to visit a couple who´s a friend of theirs. They had decided Madrid wasn't for them 5 years ago. They lived now in Cartaya, Huelva. It took me a bit to convince my mother. I told her that it didn't have to be the exact date and it didn't matter if the three of us did not eat together, even if it was tradition, even if we had done it for 22 years. I finally convinced her by stating that my 23rd birthday was just another day and that we had the rest of my life to continue with this tradition. But on the contrary, they wouldn´t have another 15 days during the summer all four of them together and without children to disconnect from everything and to have a great time being who they really were. Now I regret my decision, but no one could have known that in just a few days my life was to end, at least the way I knew it’.

Paula gave her a look of curiosity.

‘I was like you’, she went on, an incredible human being traveling the world oblivious to everything, even more so, since in our case we were born in a small country, Spain. The movie industry has made us believe that all has to or should occur in the great powerful nations, the clearest example being the USA. And we then forget that a country like ours belongs to the old continent, whose title of old is no mere coincidence. During this last month I have learned that history in some of its variables has only one name, it’s called Europe. —The doctor never stopped taking notes in her immaculate white notebook—. For some reason mothers detect such things, which is why that morning mine woke me up at 5:45 so I