[ WP ] A man that works at an insane asylum realizes he has the ability to enter the dreams of others .

The beginning of the shift is the easiest part. You're still thinking about all the normal things you did last night, with all the normal friends you have. You're fresh from the drive in, where you listened to the radio and thought all those normal thoughts about where you're at in life and what you're gon na do after work. You know what you do, but it's still an abstraction. It's a job that's hard the same way lots of jobs are hard. And you're not gon na do it forever, but you've been doing it a long time and you know it well enough to keep doing it until you do n't have to anymore. 
 
 You still feel like yourself, the version of yourself that you prefer, as you're walking in the door. Just yourself in a stupid uniform that is n't you, but is who you need to be right now. And it is n't until you're walking down the hall, until your body's acclimated to the room temperature, and you hear the familiar sounds of your own sneakers on the linoleum, that you start to forget. 
 
 I know why I forget. When a middle-aged man is yelling horrible nasty things and ending every sentence with `` Daddy!'' and the man roomed next to him just cries and cries, you just ca n't think about yourself anymore. There's something human about that. 
 
 There's also a deep helplessness. Give me overwhelming problems that I have no power to fix and I'm gon na do the same that anyone does, anyone that does n't want to break down in tears anyway; I'm gon na follow my training. There's something comforting about going through the motions. I may not be doing the best thing, but I'm doing what no one else could blame me for doing. And let's face it, they do n't know what I should do either, so doing my job is all they can really expect anyway. 
 
 So what the hell am I doing here now. Being inside the patient's rooms is wrong, I know it, and I've got no business doing it. The poor guy in front of me knows it too. God, he's terrified. He's terrified of everything though. He's always terrified. Maybe it's kinda nice that he has a minute to be afraid of something outside of himself for once? 
 
 He's afraid, but he does n't run from me. I walk up to his bed, where he's hugging his knees like a child, and I grab his throat. He does n't fight me like I'm a threat, he just cries like he's already been beaten. And as he dies, and I lower his body to the bed, I feel something like peace. And I feel it again when I go next door. Like an angel of death, they waited for me, and I saw them all. They dreamed that I'd come one day, and here I am.
