Perhaps So

Nelly Bly entered an insane asylum to write the truth. 300-word flash.

Perhaps So

“Am I the only sane one here?” Nellie Bly asked herself softly.
“Of course not, we all are on one level or another,” Freud told her. He tried to urge her to lie down and tell him all about it.
“As Napolean, I decree myself sane and those who object are asking for war!” shouted a short balding man with his hand inside his gown.
“Tea?” asked a curly headed man in a top hat. He is definitely mad as the Hatter, Nellie told herself
“Where’s my fiddle?” wondered one who saw himself as Caligula. Nellie had hidden it, for his playing was truly excruciating.

Nellie scribbled notes and hid them in her hair bun. Insane asylums were cruel, dirty places where the patients were treated as inhuman. She was determined to get the truth out to the world.
“Better watch yourself, insanity is catching, miss,” said a wobbly voice. She looked up from her lap into the rheumy eyes of an old woman. Nelly started back at the thought.
“Are you saying that if you aren’t insane when you get here, you become insane if you stay?”

When the old woman nodded, Nelly knew it was time to get out. She ran to the door and banged on it. Orderlies and a nurse with a needle, came in and subdued her.
“Where is my rescue! They promised to get me out when I had all I needed!” she murmured as she drifted away from reality.
It took a long time for her editor to arrive to get her out. But not as long as it took her to recover her normalcy. Some said she never truly did. Nelly Bly the intrepid newswoman went on to write greater stories, but one wonders how she managed through it all.