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    The Kirkbride
    The Kirkbride
    The Kirkbride
    Ebook42 pages35 minutes

    The Kirkbride

    By T. S. Murphy

    ()

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    About this ebook

    A stand-alone short story.

    The Kirkbride is an iconic landmark that was erected over Fergus Falls, MN to provide therapy for the mentally ill. 

    Andrew Korpi has resided at The Kirkbride for three years. A veteran of World War II, he began to see things others claimed were not there. Blamed for the death of his mother, he is committed to The Kirkbride to be cured, yet the visions continue. 

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherT. S. Murphy
    Release dateOct 11, 2018
    ISBN9781386135753
    The Kirkbride
    Author

    T. S. Murphy

    T.S. Murphy lives in Louisiana with her wonderful husband of many years, a herd of cats (2), a pack of dogs (also 2), and a sweet bunny rabbit named Jim. When she isn’t tending to her animals or husbands, she is working in her garden or chained to a computer writing. In her spare time, she likes to donate forty hours per week to the anonymity of corporate America in exchange for a paycheck to fund writing related expenditures. She originally hailed from a tiny town in Oklahoma that most people have never heard of.

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      Book preview

      The Kirkbride - T. S. Murphy

      Part I

      FERGUS FALLS, MN

      April 1947

      They call them Kirkbride Buildings. These architectural feats erected by men at the turn of the century. There are dozens in the Midwest. My fear of all things... or most things... was birthed here in this magnificent and endless place. They were designed to cure us of illness. To bring peace to those afflicted, as if the antidote for insanity is a careful arrangement of bricks displayed by the ingenuity of a mortal.

      I am not insane, but this place has surely brought me to the brink.

      It is never perfectly quiet nor perfectly noisy. There is no music. The laughter is of madness. At night the desperate cries of those still learning or unable to conform cast my soul into hell.

      Yesterday a woman died in the baths.

      Her name was Dolly.

      My name is Andrew Korpi. I am twenty-four years old and a veteran of World War II. After leaving the Army I began to see things that my father and brother said were simply not there.

      Harmless things, really.

      The light radiating from within another that tells me they are good. I can see wickedness in another’s soul. I witnessed an angel or a demon, I was never sure which, take the pain from my mother and carry her somewhere far beyond it.

      I spoke to it, this being. Neither male nor female. Dressed in shadows.

      W-who are you? I asked in awe and fear of their ethereal beauty.

      It did not speak. It gazed at me and then I heard this sound like the wind rushing through winter trees and I was alone with my mother’s body.

      They say I murdered her, but it was not murder.

      And it was not me.

      I’ve seen it again, this creature. I have no fear of it. Each time it happens I ask it again, Who are you?

      There is never an answer.

      It stalks the halls of Fergus Falls State Hospital, and I have begun to call it Death.

      Part II

      WORKING IN THE GREENHOUSE comes with a certain amount of freedom. I think they are lenient with me because of the way I look. My mother always called me angelic because of my blond hair and oceanic eyes. The people who work here are generally kind but intolerant to some of the souls who make incessant noise. They like me because I rarely speak and because I learned to obey orders both from my father and later in the military.

      Lenore is a resident of Fergus Falls and lives nearby. She is beautiful and ageless. When I see her I think of Musidora, the French actress who starred in silent films twenty years ago. She is ever curious about the hospital’s garden and when no one is around she visits me. Her home

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