"Quit your hollering," he said and cuffed Mr. Doe between the shoulder blades with the flat of his hand. A troll had been washing the floor and Mr. Doe skidded on the wet tile. Big Red hung on, and the two tumbled together in a heap.

"Sorrrreeee!" said the troll in his rolling accent. "Sorrrreeeee!"

"It's all right," said Red, righting his stunned patient. The troll dabbed at Mr. Doe's split lip with a dirty rag. Mr. Doe jerked away, spitting blood. He tugged at his handcuffs again, but they were made of solid, dwarf steel and held fast.

"We should report you," Skipper berated the troll. "You could have killed him." The troll bowed and mewled and wrung his hands, but Big Red was already dragging Mr. Doe down the corridor to his new room.

A wraith hurried by with a clipboard clutched to its chest.

"There are no fairies! There are no fairies!" screamed Mr. Doe again.

Big Red brushed one of the tiny creatures out of his face and sighed.

They paused at the door to a cell. The hospital had been hastily refurbished from an old college dormitory and the walls were still plastered with posters for sorority parties and self-help classes. Mr. Doe concentrated on these to block out the buzzing of the fairies. One of the posters, as cracked and faded as his own certainty, advertised a Halloween masquerade, sponsored by a vodka maker. For a few precious moments, Mr. Doe barricaded himself inside his memories of a gentler time--when folklore was a means of defining human history, not a way of life. A time when a man could offer a girl a vodka martini without checking for pointed ears.

"There are no fairies!" he cried again.

"Yes, Mr. Doe," said Big Red. "Of course not." It wasn't his job to rid patients of their delusions.

"If you don't believe," sneered Skipper, "then why did you run into the street screaming that the fairies were in your pants?" The police had stopped Mr. Doe as he ran shrieking through a downtown intersection, tearing at his clothes and hair.

"I was having a nightmare," said Mr. Doe. "Damn things were in my pajamas." Embarrassed, he looked down at his shoes. "But I'm okay now, really."

"Sure you are," said Skipper with a grin. He trapped a fairy as it fluttered by, and dangled it by the scruff of the neck in front of Mr. Doe.

"If there aren't any bloody fairies, then what the hell is this?" The tiny creature squirmed like fish on hook and made a soft keening sound. Mr. Doe's eyes widened and he looked away.

"I'm sure I don't know what you mean."

The orderly snorted.

"I'm sure you don't."

The cell was padded and empty but for a white jacket folded neatly on the floor.

And a small dragon that snoozed in the corner.

"Don't mind him," said Big Red with a reassuring smile. "He won't hurt you."

"Who?"

Skipper grinned and made a twirling motion with his finger to indicate what he thought of Mr. Doe's sanity.

"You've got to put this on for the night," Big Red said, holding up the straight jacket. "House rules."

Mr. Doe didn't fight when they slipped his arms into the long sleeves and tied them around his back. Several fairies buzzed around him, tucking in the material for a snug fit.

"There are no fairies," he said.

"Yes, Mr. Doe. Someone will come to see about your lip." Big Red frowned and shut the door with a finite click.

"No fairies, no fairies," sang Mr. Doe.

He was propped up helplessly against the wall facing the only window. As he watched the fading light from the barred window, a wee little man in a blue work shirt appeared. He waved at Mr. Doe and then began to wipe the outside glass with a rag.

He had pointed pyxie ears.

Mr. Doe closed his eyes to shut away this vision, but he could still hear the gentle snore of the dragon and the fluttering fairies, like mosquitoes in his ear.

"There are no fairies. There are no fairies," he chanted. "I am all alone. I am all alone."

And he was.

Delusions of Faerie

© 2006 By Kim McDougall

"There are no fairies, I tell you!" Mr. Doe pummeled his fists against the orderly's chest. His hands were cuffed, his wrists bruised and swollen from straining against the metal rings. Big Red grasped him by the forearms and contained his outburst. Several fairies twinkled about their heads, making soothing cluck-cluck sounds while Mr. Doe squirmed in Red's grip. Skipper waited, swinging his enormous ring of keys in an aggressive arc.

Delusions of Faerie was first published in Tri-Studio Ezine