Pitter-Patters in the Sanatorium
A single mouse scurried down the hallway of the sanatorium, making pitter-patter noises on the polished tile. Noah looked down at his feet, encased in manila envelope-colored padded restraints. Upon realizing his predicament, he was overtaken with an uncontrollable urge to scratch his ankle. He shook his leg and a chain clamored against the metal bars that made up the footboard. A patient in a neighboring room let out a maniacal howl.
There was a tapping on the door, and then quiet. Noah stopped and held his breath. The door creaked open, and two nurses walked in with a cart holding a single metal plate. Without a word, one nurse propped Noah up while the other spoon fed him oatmeal. Neither looked him in the eye. He quietly accepted the food without any protest, even as the flavorless meal dribbled down his chin and onto his pajama shirt. It felt like a transactional formality, like a routine that all parties had memorized and were playing out day after day for an invisible audience. Perhaps if he kept up the performance, he could leave one day. Or at least make it out of those damn restraints. Baby steps.
The nurses left as quietly and as suddenly as they had come. Noah stared up at the ceiling, watching the shadows in the cratered, stucco ceiling as they gradually changed direction. If he hadn’t been crazy when he got here, he was certainly going crazy now, and it hadn’t even been a month yet. Noah quieted down the thought. He laid there quietly, playing games in his head, and reciting the Greek alphabet, which he had been forced to learn as a freshman in college when he was rushing a fraternity. Alpha, beta, gamma, delta, epsilon…
He heard another understated tap, this time coming from the small, barred window in the corner of the room. He abruptly turned to look and a sharp pain shot up his shoulder, caught between his strained neck and manacled wrist. He made eye contact with a familiar face. The intruder held up a sheet of paper against the glass: I’m coming to get you. Hold tight.
Our in-house mistress of suspense. Piling the awards on you.
Can't help wondering why Dante didn't put Noah in his inferno. But that's my free-association going haywire, because what is Christ - stunning though his picutre here might be - doing at all in this post?
The reason is only that I took it the day before and liked it, and I’m multitasking by posting my photography and writing simultaneously! But I also think the vibe of decaying concrete Jesus statues and Joshua Trees fits in a story about madness, in some way. I could have probably found a better one, you’re right.
I didn't suggest it wasn't perfect for the piece!
Hello @malloryblythe,
I found you on one of the contest sites where you had commented that you would not want to resteem, so out of curiosity, I landed on this page. I am quite astonished at the things that you have achieved here. Amazing! Also, the steembasicincome contests.. Good show. I am not even 10% of what you have done here.
Just out of curiosity is it a matter of principle or something that you have not used bots? I was that way too but changed my perspective and use bots without much of guilt now, if you understand what I mean... :) So, I joined in August last year but became active only couple of months back. Enough of me. I would really like to know your views. After all, good Steem citizens are far and few.
Take care and all the best!!
Hi @oivas! Thanks so much for stopping by.
I don’t know why you would say you’re not even 10%! It looks to me like you’re doing quite well. But thank you for all the kind words!
As for the bidbots question—I’ve summoned a single bidbot precisely once just to see how it would go and it was pretty underwhelming, and I didn’t see the long term benefit. But there is an element of principle in it. An enormous percentage of SBD and STEEM goes to bots (and therefore bot owners) on this site—something like 40% of it—and that imbalance of money is not only unfair but also has the potential to crash the internal economy of STEEM. It would be my preference that the site would consider gaming the reward pool like that as abuse and put a stop to it entirely. I’ve read arguments for and against and all of the arguments for bots being okay seem really weak to me. But I mean no judgment toward the people who are using them because I know many are just using them because they think they won’t be able to keep up without them, and that’s a fair point!
Hey Mallory,
Hi again. So now let me tell you why I started using the bots and some of it is there in your views too. You want to see steemit do well and if you believe if you are writing quality content (which I believe you are) then you need to use bots. It is like this, if the spammers are going to use the bots to publish their spam, then guess where this platform is headed! After that, it really won't matter if you are a great writer or not, because people will only see spam on the trending page and that is an incentive for them to not join. Over a period of time, you and I, as good writers will lose the incentive to continue and the platform will indeed collapse.
Now about the bots, look at them as a small payment you are giving the site to host your article. Kind of an entry fee. When you look at it this way, it seems to be a fair ask. Of course, views may differ. :)
Lastly, on the bot that did not work for you. Looks like you tried the wrong one. Here, try these ones:
As you make more SBD and Steem, try these:
There are many more. But start with these ones and I will suggest some from time to time. Do suggest the same to your followers too who you think really do a good job in writing. :)
All the best!! May the best flourish!!
P.S. - Also, to make money initially, if you are not investing yourself on the platform, then try looking out for contests and participate in it. @originalworks hosts some good contests if that kind of writing interests you. There are many others like photo contests, poem contests. Try them.
Eh, I’ve been so outspoken against them that it would be hypocritical for me to use them at this point. If the site has major flaws infrastructurally (which I believe it does) which allows a few to profit off of abusing the system, I’m not going to consider it my responsibility to be the one to put a bandaid on it by participating in the exact problem that’s causing it. I’ve already made my preferences known to a few witnesses and bidbot owners and they’re the ones that should be taking it upon themselves to make improvements that would clear out the spam that is staining the reputation of the site and make the reward pool dispersed more evenly to retain good writers. But again, I don’t judge other people’s choices to use bots if they’re just trying to get their good content noticed.
I have other ways of trying to get my name out there. I do a couple of contests (this is part of the 50 day freewrite selfie challenge as part of @freewritehouse), and I held the one you saw, which brought in a lot of new followers. I also have a community I participate in, and I try to keep engaged with other people’s posts and upvote my comments. Many of the people in my circles consider bidbots unethical and I don’t think they’d be as supportive of my content if they thought I was using them, and there are curation projects which disqualify posts that have been upvoted by bidbots. I don’t think I’d necessarily be any farther along if I were using them. I think the power holders on this site, many of whom profit off of leasing to bidbots, tell us that so they can keep the system going without being accused of being greedy. There are major users on here that look like they’re killing it but you look at their wallets and all of their income is going to bots. I think you’re a lot better off in the long run making the investment in growing the sustainable way making your income from your supporters and supporting them back.
Hmm... Fair. I agree.
+1 to your conviction. And here's me following you!
Of course it’s easy for me to have convictions about it when I’m not a bidbot owner, whale, or witness. If I had the opportunity to make enough money to pay off all my debts and save up for a rainy day I would probably do it. But I would like to think I’d pick a path that was more fair. Like setting up something like @steembasicincome where the intention isn’t to make spammers more rich but to give users a way to sponsor others and distribute the reward pool to more newbies. Who knows though. I’m trying to keep an attitude in which this is a place that motivates me to explore my writing (I had never written fiction before this!) and if it starts to turn into an actual cash source one day that’ll be awesome, but I’m not going to get my hopes up.
Following you back. :)
Hey Mallory,
Success is a given, it is only the path which we intend to take which is different. It seldom so happens that a good author does not make it and that too on a writing site; very very odd odds :) ...
I am a published author and blogger on other sites too, so you know how much my self-respect would have been badgered when I came to know that the bots are something to be used to upvote our post. It is like giving money to readers to buy our book to read... Sad, isn't it? I, therefore, left the site for nearly 7 months before I came back.
Also, I make it a point to write articles which are good and interesting to readers and only then use the bots. If you look at my articles not all of them him upvotes (in STEEM terms). Why? Because articles which were lesser than the best, in my opinion, I avoided using the bots.
Quality had it own perks... Recognized by buildawhile curation digest for one of my articles, winning at originalworks.... So nothing beats quality..
Hence, I am happy with your conviction but if ever there is a change of perspective (which I think is perfectly fine), you know whom to reach out to.
P.S. You are doing a good job at steembasicincome too... :)
Enjoyed reading your story. Worrying my morning oatmeal might also be a routine ;P
And, LOVE your photo of Desert Christ Park! Looks like an amazing place to visit. I've never been.
Thanks! You should DEFINITELY go if you ever find yourself in the desert of Southern California.
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That's such a cruel thing to say to the poor guy. Are you going to write more of this story? The new prompt might come in handy:
https://steemit.com/freewrite/@mariannewest/day-221-5-minute-freewrite-monday-prompt-detective
I actually imagined that the person breaking him out of the insane asylum would be his gay lover and that they would have locked him up because they were trying to lobotomize the gay out of him, because in my mind this is like, a 1960s insane asylum that tortures people who aren't sufficiently normal. They'd beat up a lot of bad guys in the hallways in their dramatic escape, and then run away to the jungles of Central America and live out the rest of their days fishing and practicing survival skills out on the beach.
Excellent job of portraying the disgusting and depressing state of most mental health care! My uncle was schizophrenic, and it was horrid where he was.
I hope whoever it is at the window gets him out of there!!!
And what an interesting convo you had about the bots. Fact is that most don't know how to use them and loose money...