Even when no one else does, the doctor still remembers when they were an intern and the patient was first brought in, claiming to be sane… full of spitfire and rebellion.
They remember all of the months and years they sat across from the patient, playing cat and mouse… and both acting as if the mouse had any chance at all. The patient was always recalcitrant and headstrong. Unwilling to accept authority and determined that they did not belong locked up in their care.
The doctor had been patient however… even after scores of ill fated escape attempts and stubborn schemes to undermine their treatment… he had bided his time and worked slowly but resolutely to suppress his charge.
Now no one else remembers or would even believe any of the stories… it was so long ago…
… But the doctor still suppresses a grin when he passes that quiet cell late at night, where now only a man with vacant eyes sits crumpled in the corner, his mind long gone. Because even when no one else remembers—not even the patient himself—the doctor does. Only he remembers that once there was a bright, defiant young man that was in there instead.
