Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep “gahh, its so early.” she says as she rolls over to smack the alarm clock, but her arthritis shoots her with sharp pains. She sits up in bed and slips on her pink slippers and stands up to go get her kids up for the day. Hobbling through her home to the kitchen to gather things for breakfast. She pulls the old wooden step stool over to the cabinet to grab the pancake mix. After she got out the eggs, milk, batter, water, and waffle maker and starts mixing it all up. After pouring the beige batter into the waffle maker she heard her kids starting to wake up. She paces around her kitchen as she had to decide weather to go check on them, risking burning the waffle, or finishing the waffle then checking on her kids. She finished making the waffle then ran to her children upstairs who were crying oh so loudly. Once she got to them they stopped howling, and she brought them downstairs for breakfast. Downstairs she placed glasses of milk in front of all of them and gave them their waffles.
Leaving her kids to eat their waffles and drink up their milk, she went up stairs. She rummaged through her closet searching for her favorite sweater- pink and blue and fuzzy. Once she was dressed and brushing her teeth the doorbell rang. She stopped, rinsed, and went to the door. “Ahh hello Meredith! How are you today? Oh good good! I’m running late, the kids decided to sleep in!” she said.  “Oh no umm its okay, I’m on time! It is only 9:45 Ms. Orange.” said Meredith. Ignoring Meredith,she let her in and and walked her into the kitchen to the kids playing with their food. She looks at Meredith and they laugh hysterically at how the children were playing. She told meredith she had to finish getting ready and to stay with the kids while she did so. Up stairs she went back to the bathroom and pulled the smooth white chair next to the mirror so she could do her makeup. Slowly patting on the nude powder, then smoothing the purple eyeshadow over her shaking eyelids, patting pink powder on her cheeks, then a couple strokes of mascara on her eyelashes. She brushed her hair and shakily stood up.
Once down stairs, she picked up each of her kids and told them to be good to Meredith and that she would be back later on. Then went to Meredith and told her to have fun with the kids but to not ever leave the house, ever. This was a common rule for her, she didn’t want her kids outside, its too dangerous out there for such sweet kids. She grabbed her leopard fur jacket as well as her purse and slung it over her frail shoulders and was gone.
Strolling down main street she slowly made her way to the park where she would sit and talk to strangers until they were no longer strangers. Passing by hundreds of other people walking to work, all of them staring at her as if something was wrong with her. She didn’t feel compelled to look down to see what they were looking at so she continued on while people continued to stare. The snow was falling gracefully down onto Ms. Oranges eyelashes and sticking to her hair. Massachusetts, Boston can get cold but if you ask Ms. Orange, it never gets so cold that you can’t go to the park.
Sitting, staring, aimlessly. Ms. Orange sat there, in the snow, for hours on end waiting for someone to walk by. But no one came, but she would not leave until she made a new friend. A strong willed woman like herself would never let go of her dreams. After sitting on the bench for three hours she was freezing. Shaking vigorously with the snow piling up on her frail body. She had no one to talk to, and she had not talked all day, she began talking to herself out loud. “Oh hello” “Oh my, you are gorgeous, but you look so cold!” “Oh I am cold, but its okay.”“Would you like a coat because I do have an-”
The sweet sound of crunching snow under foot stopped her mid sentence. She looked up from the ground to see a grumpy looking man, with a grey beard. He wore a big jacket, a big red, blue, and orange jacket. With torn up jeans but underneath there were blue looking pants. For shoes he had cowboy boots, not just any boots. Hypnotic boots. The boots were pitch black leather, with black embroidered flowers and twists and turns. Going every which way in a beautiful mesmerising pattern. Her eyes followed the pattern of the stitching flowing endlessly. Her eyes stopped following the stitching when the man began to speak “Hello mam.” said the strange but familiar looking man. As if she had seen him before, but she knew she hadn’t. His voice was smooth and deep, strong and unbreakable. Bold yet shy type of voice, a voice that you would want to read you bedtime stories every night.  “Oh hello, I’m Ms. Orange, please call me Ms. Orange.” she said to the man. “Hi yes, um, hello. How are you feeling today?” he said in return. “Oh well I’m quite alright, and how about your self?” he mumbled something under his breath then said “I see, I am fine thank you. Will you come with me? It is awful cold outside and you are shaking far too much.”
With snow piling up on her shoulders and head she agreed to go somewhere warmer with the homeless man. Although she got the sense he wanted to talk about his problems, she was no therapist, she was only out to talk about her kids. She couldn’t care less about other peoples interests and worries or loves. She only cared to talk about her kids. As they walked through the snow she began to talk. “Oh my goodness, I have the best kids in the world, they are sweet and kind. My kids, oh my kids are the very best kids. My kids always do their chores and listen to me. When I come home everyday they are always excited to see me, and we never fight. I feel so terrible when I leave them with Meredith! Oh yes Meredith is my babysitter, she works everyday, you see I do this everyday. I find new friends and people to talk to about my kids, so sometimes Meredith works long days like today, or on nice days, she works for me for only one to two hours. Isn’t that a nice gig for a young lady?” Ms. Orange rambled on and on and on about her kids to the old man. But the old man never stopped her from speaking, he just walked along and listened.
After the little walk the homeless man said “We are going in here, its a little place where I can get things done.” Although when she stepped into the doors of what she thought was a cafe, a cold feeling rushed over her. Like she had been here before, it wasn’t a good place and a dangerous place. She started to cry because she didn’t know what was going on anymore. The homeless man told her it was okay and that she just needed to sit down and breathe. Struggling for air, gasping, she got a sudden pain in her right elbow pit. Like a needle was being pushed into her skin and into her veins unwillingly. Then, everything went black.
Ms. Orange woke up and felt extremely strange. Although she ignored it and soon attempted to do her daily morning routine: lean over and turn off an alarm clock, slip on pink slippers and stand up to go get her kids up for the day. But there wasn’t an alarm clock to turn off, nor slippers to put on, and no kids to wake up. She began to cry when turned to see that there was no alarm clock to turn off and that she wasn’t in her own room. She began to scream when she tried to look for slippers but was restricted by something attached to her right arm. In agony she sat and screamed for what felt like a century. Soon a little lady in scrubs walked into the white room she was in. The lady walked out and came back with three other people. A tall, but young looking woman, a short and round girl, and the homeless man.
These three strangers and the homeless man tried to calm her but ended up having to strap her hands and feet down to the bed because she would not stop kicking and punching. Once she was constricted she gave up. She stopped crying, stopped screaming, and stopped fighting. She just sat and stared at the plain white wall. “Mam, Hello?” said a familiar voice. “Hey, you gotta look at me. This is very important and I need you to listen and understand.” said the voice. She could hear the voice clearly but it was as if she couldn’t comprehend it. A hand waving in front of her face was what got her to break contact with the wall.
“Hi, do you remember me? I’m Dr. Franca Centorrino, do you know where you are?” said the tall woman.
“I-I- I uh, hum, I, yes. I want to go home Meredith is still with my kids, my kids need me.” she said in a shaky voice. Observing how the tall woman stood closest and behind her stood the lady who came in first, the homeless man, then the short round girl.
“She has gotten so much worse, I don’t know quite what to do…” Said Dr. Centorrino to the other doctors.Then to Ms. Orange she said “Well I want you to know who we all are, you already know who I am, this is your nurse Mary, this over here is Kyle Barry, and next to him is, Susan Anderson- our director.” Pointing at them in order of the way they were standing, the lady who came in first, the homeless man, then the short round girl.
“Oh, oh okay. Can I go home now that I know who you all are? My kids need me.” She said three times before anyone said anything to her. Her voice getting shakier and shakier as she said each word. By the end of saying it three times she was balling her eyes out.
“Okay Ms. Schiff-” “MY NAME IS MS. ORANGE!” She screamed at the lady.
“No, no it’s not. I’m sorry I have to be the one to do this,” Said the tall lady looking directly into her eyes. Her heart dropped. She looked up from the bed she was strapped into at the doctor, “You are not Ms. Orange. You are Ms. Andrea Schiff. You have a severe case of schizophrenia, you have been here, at McLean Hospital, for five years. We have tried everything we can and you cannot get better. If you can hear this, then this would mark the first time you have had a conscious moment of reality in three years.” 
“I’ve been here for five years? How- how did I get here? Why am I here?” She said as she lost eye contact with the doctor and went back to staring at the wall. A new different voice began to speak, she missed the first part of what she was saying but she caught on at “- neighbor brought you in because you don’t have kids. Your house smelled terrible because you had kept your dead cat for weeks and you talked to them like they were living children.” Then there was silence, unwilling to believe what she had heard she replied with, “No they are real kids! Meredith is real and so are they.”
“NO! NO! NO! Listen to me! You have made all of this up since you have been here! You do NOT have kids, Meredith does NOT exist, when you think you go on walks, you walk in circles around your bed and talk to yourself! NONE OF THAT IS REAL!” Said the homeless man. Then the doctors turned and talked, she could barely hear them whispering but she knew that what they were going to say next was going to be painful.
The small round girl broke their circle and walked over to her and held her hand while the other doctors continued to talk and said “I know you don’t want to be here anymore, and we can’t help you, we have tried everything. I am so sorry. You can’t go anywhere and all of your family is gone and theres no money left to keep trying different medications. I promise it will be painless.” By the end of what the little lady Ms. Orange was confused and lost. Just staring at the woman crying with the other three standing behind her, they took the short ladies hand and walked out. Once alone Ms. Orange began to cry because she knew what was coming next.
All four of them walked back into the room with a new person dressed in all black holding a needle and a small bottle. “Hi Dr. Centorrino, Marry, scary homeless man, and Susan. Bye Dr. Centorrino, Marry, scary homeless man, and Susan.” She said with tears streaming down her face. Then the man in all black came to her and took the long tube attached to her right arm off and sucked the stuff out of the bottle with the needle and put it in where the tube was before. With her sight going black and her body going numb she said “I don’t want to die.”