“Prove it to me.” Don’t you all have people in your life who demand that you prove it to them, whatever “it” might be? Kevin’s sister was impervious to all the usual methods of proof. Kevin could send her the article from the New York Times that showed what he said was true, and she would talk about the fake media. Kevin could send her an article by a respected scientist showing exactly how the astronauts made it through the Van Allen belt, and she would send back a you-tube video that claimed they could not. Conversations with his sister were becoming ever more difficult. The last time they had spoken, she had started talking about a sign she had received that told her she needed to paint her house green. Now, Kevin had no objections to his sister painting her house green, or yellow, or whatever color she wanted. But he knew the fate of this project in excruciating detail. First she would paint part of the front green and then part of one side, and then the entire project would come to a complete standstill and her house would look even more haphazard than it did currently with its half dug flower beds and weed-choked vegetable garden and the dead remains of all the unwatered trees she had planted during a tree-planting phase in which she had ordered 500 1-foot bare root trees and managed to plant about 50 of them before that project’s energy ran out.
She was his sister. He loved her. He was at his wits’ end. He knew she had stopped taking her anti-psychotics, so he knew from past experience that her craziness would escalate until she did something so whacked out that someone gave her treatment. The last time, she had gone to Wal-Mart, and started playing with play dough in the toy aisle. Soon enough, she was completely naked and an arrest for public indecency led to a few days under doctors’ care. Medication then returned her to a semi-normal state, though if the doses were too high, she didn’t demand proof for anything because she just didn’t care enough.
He knew that interventions led to a shadow version of the sister he knew best, that exciting, opinionated and infuriating character whose ideas spouted like water out of a faucet. She would tolerate living with medication for a while, maybe even a couple years, but inevitably would crave living in a world filled with excitement and strong feelings. She would stop taking the medications and the whole cycle would start again. He didn’t know precisely at what stage she found herself now, just that when she was medicated, she never received signs. How come she didn’t demand proof of her signs the same way she demanded proof from him? Kevin didn’t understand how she could be so certain that a blade of grass lying in the middle of the sidewalk, pointing directly towards the model lighthouse lawn ornament meant she should paint her house green. Even if it did, who was sending these signs?
No one could force her to receive treatment unless she presented a danger to herself or others. How much danger was there in half-painting a house? He was caught between wanting to set her off so that she would be forced to receive treatment and wanting to treat her with kid gloves so that she would be able to live for a while longer without the dulling of treatment. He opted, for the latter, of course. He always did. They would just have to hire a house painter at some point. Wouldn’t it be great if he could receive signs?
And this shot is quiet and lovely ....and green!