When Griffin sat down, growling, Esther tried to ignore him. She usually ignored patients unless they seemed to spark her long-term interest, the way fifty-two year old Patricia had. Patricia had reminded Esther of a childhood friend, frame, height, love for coloring... Griffin seemed scary, but interesting. He reminded her a bit of Michael a 36 year old man that had only been admitted for two weeks! He used to pace back-and-forth the common area. He also screamed himself to sleep at night. She tried to avoid him because he seemed scary. One time he drew on one of her drawings. Secretly, she kept that drawing because she was madly in love with him. She only spoke to him three times during his whole two week stay, but she daydreamed about those three conversations daily.

All of a sudden, Esther felt a rush of excitement overwhelm her body when Aiden sat down at the table. She was not sure if this heart fluttering was a lack of medicine or maybe hidden emotions for the young man. She was hesitant to make any real connection with him, as she was hesitant to make a real connection with anyone in the facility. She had even put a wall between Patricia and her. Nonetheless, she was happy to have company, albeit, she was nervous, as usual. 

Esther paused her coloring, looking across the table at Aiden, "Oh, why, hello, Aiden. I am coloring a delightful beach scene. Would you like to see?" She smiled gently at him. She did not want to scare him away, especially due to her unkept appearance. Esther generally tried not to care too much about her appearance--it seemed so [i]vain[/i], and vanity was one of the seven deadly sins. 

Esther was an Orthodox Christian. She tried to just Stay Calm and Keep On Praying, but these tactics wore thing with her. She just was not that good of a Christian, which led to much of her grief--and sometimes episodes--she was so afraid she would go to Hell. She just knew her problems stemmed from spiritual problems. But with a blessing from her parish priest (who visited once a week to serve Communion), she was told to seek psychiatric help. She actually sought advice from three different priests before being exiled into the asylum. Esther wishes she had acted sooner, but she was so skeptical that anything was really wrong with her.

Could the visions she saw right before bedtime [i]actually[/i] mean something? Was their a hidden puzzle that only select people could see? She could not be [i]all[/i] crazy, right?