I had been waking up in this same room for the past three years. Every morning when the pale yellow light on the ceiling shone into my eyes, I knew another tough day began. The room had one tiny window, but most of it was underground because my roommate and I lived in a basement. Sometimes I was able to see the rats, running away from the cats, fleeing down the narrow, noisome alley. Their squeaking sound and the cars kept me awake during the nights. The only light source in the room was an old-school lamp which was only able to generate pale yellow light. It was dark, but enough to lighten this narrow, tiny room shared by two. With all that being said, my room wasn’t the worst in this hospital.

I couldn’t stop wondering what would happen if I hadn't been here. Before ending up in this hospital, I had a family somewhere far from here. Despite the fact that other than my mom and grandpa no one else liked me, I still did everything I could to help the family out. My brain wasn’t capable of doing complex tasks, so I helped collect corn and prepared meals.

Even though my brain was a little off, I could tell that they never accepted me like a man because they let me sleep with the sheeps. They told me I was a curator, and the funniest thing was I used to believe in that.

Enough being a nostalgist, I quickly dressed up and met my “cellmates” at the hall.

“Hey Dequavion, how were you doing last night? What do you think about yesterday’s game? Kobe scored 81 points!” This is a benevolent old man who keeps asking me about the Lakers’ game that I have no idea happened when.

“No sir, my name is not Dequavion, and I did not watch the game you are talking about.” My face went down quickly because I feel annoyed that he keeps forgetting my name but also feeling guilty by never remembering his.

“Move it, idiot,” Doctor Richard berates me with his eyebrows twisted together, he’s always in a mood, then I see his ironic smile: “today’s your visit day, haha!”

“Sorry sir, yes sir.” I, alone with other people at the hospital, were taught to say sir or ma’am whenever a doctor or nurse speaks to us.

Soon, after taking today’s medicine, they put me on the movable bed and pushed me to a much larger, much brighter room than I had. Compared to my room, this room was colossal. After getting used to a nasty room like mine, it was hard to get used to a bright and large room. I sat up and crossed my arms over my chest, and looked around the room. This room made me uncomfortable and privacy-less. The bright white LED light glowed and reflected on the white walls, they hurted my eyes. The fear of this new environment made me dizzy and scream inside me.

“Yo, the visitors are about to come in. They are the highschoolers here to see you. COOL. Don’t scare the kids.” it’s doctor Richard again, he rarely appears with a friendly face.

“Yes sir.” I have absolutely no idea who he is talking about. Before the bus left, my mom promised, with tears dripping down from her face, to see me every once in a while but she never came, hence I don’t expect it anymore. Grief comes in waves as I ever think about her.

People’s chatting brought me back, I looked up and they were standing behind a window wall on the second floor that I did not notice, and was looking right into this room. The light on the ceiling was too bright, I couldn't see their faces. But I did feel their eyesights were on me, it made me squeeze myself even more tighter.

“Good morning future doctors, I am Doctor Richard, but feel free to call me Taylor. I am here to take you guys on a tour of doing research on the mentally disabled,” Doctor Richard's voice became as friendly as he could, he then pointed at me and said, “alright, let’s get him fixed!”

What a chameleon! 

The assistant doctors came into the room. They stretched my arms and legs and tied them to the bed. So was my head. I could barely move, so I might as well just lie back. Some kind of ingredient was injected into my vein and soon I became sleepy and my brain slowed down even more. The group of few entered the room, surrounding my bed. I felt the eyesights were on me again, I wanted to put myself together but sadly I couldn’t.

“Alright guys, this is a patient with Down’s Syndrome, this kind of person is born with flaws, and although we’ve been working hard on fixing them, we have made little progress,” it’s Doctor Richad speaking.

“Aw crap, look at his face! Things are all twisted together up there!” a woman speaks with astonishment.

“Oh yeah you are right, just as what y’all’ve learned in your textbooks, people with Down Syndromes do look different, and again that’s why we make sure that they are here and don’t scare random kids on the streets.” Doctor Richard says it, sounds like he’s making fun of me.

In fact, I had noticed a difference in my appearance a long time ago, the terrified face on my neighbors made me ashamed. That day was a perfect sunny day, and me as a child was on my way home with my mom, the sun shined into my eyes when I tried to look at my mom and smile at her. Then the girl screamed, the crowd put their eyes on us, mom looked at me nervously, and I was confused.

The white LED light dragged me back to the hospital. The nurses untied me and gave me the huge bouncy ball so that I could put my weight on it. I started to do the moves that I was directed to. I put my elbows on the floor, leaning the weight of my upper body on it. Then I gradually raised my left leg onto the ball, tryed the best I could to maintain balance. I bet it looked funny since how shaky and unstable I was, but again, this was the best I could do.

“Put your belly strength together!”

I did that, which did help maintain my balance, then I slowly put my right leg onto the ball as well.

“This is the muscle and balance building process, this kind of people are not good at this, y’all see how hard he tried to do a plank on a ball?” Doctor Richard speaks, smiling to the crowd, “now get him some rest and let him take his medicine.”

I layed down on the floor, breathing as if I’ve been holding it for hours, something blurred my eyesight and they all got hazy. It could be sweat, or it could also just be the shame arising in me because I was different from other people, at least that was what the doctor believed. I felt the visitors gathered around, watching me breathing my lungs out.

“Look at his face, it’s red like an apple!”

“That’s right, feel free to take pictures,” says Doctor Richard. He says it like I am a giant panda in the zoo, the only thing is the tourists and the curator don’t treat me like that, they treat me like a rat running down the narrow alley.

The chitchat of the visitors were incessant, surrounding me, the nurses injected something and they all became blurry shadows, hovering over me. I didn’t know what was exactly happening, but I heard the visitors praising Dr. Richard and the nurses. Nobody was looking at me anymore.

I had no idea how I ended up in my room, on my bed, but apparently it was near lights-out. Then when my roommate precipitously ran into the room and stumbled up the bed, I realized that today’s shows were over. I'd better go to sleep because another day was after me.

The light went off, I fell asleep watching the rats running down the alley and listening to the cars speeding down the boulevard.