I was just like a million others, a two bit washed up hack who dreamed of making the New York Times best seller list. Last I checked the sales rank of my latest book at Amazon.com was 6,702,758 meaning I only had about 7 million more guys to beat before I got to the top.
The problem for me was, my next book, The Adventurers Of The Vegetable Stalker had landed me in the nut house.
Don't ask me the name of the institution, I was carried in under sedation, blindfolded and bound in a straitjacket. At the time I didn't even know what state or if it is even located in a state-- at least in these united states. As to how I got out? All I know and all I can prove are in the pages that follow. You'll just have to follow along to find out the answers.
Today's insane asylums don't cure the mentally ill. My guess is they never have. Probably the best that can be hoped for is to house the mentally ill patent until the symptoms pass. I'm no shrink but I'm guessing despite all their suggestions to the contrary, the shrinks know this to be true. I base this on my time inside watching patients come in, obviously insane, so much so that even the insane recognize their symptoms, and leave there weeks or months later still every bit insane but changed in such a way as to make them more easily accepted by society. You know, like the bag lady or the homeless guy who stands on the corner but never crosses the line into breaking any laws or causing anyone to feel intimidated. Accepted, not cured. Trained to be socially acceptable like the dog you finally trained not to jump up on guests when they come to your home or hump your girlfriends' legs.
Those of us who behaved ourselves were allowed to spend most of our time in common areas inside and outside behind the stone walls but seeing beyond the walls was impossible. One on one time with other inmates was forbidden but it sometimes went on. There were any number of attractive young women who went one on one with hospital staff. I stayed there long enough to see several of those young women readmitted with more issues than when they came in the first time. The same happened to a couple of young men who could have passed for boys. From what I can tell, inmates really do run the asylum only the inmates in charge work eight hour shifts and draw regular paychecks for being there. Show me a shrink and I'll show you a mental health patient incognito.
You see, the problem wasn't that The Adventures Of The Vegetable Stalker was so crazy that it could have only been written by a mad man. Yeah, a half human, half plant superhero who travels the world attacking fields of GMF plants in an attempt to destroy Monsanto and other global corporations bent on monopolizing the world's food supply might seem a bit far fetched, but time eventually proved that was exactly what Monsanto and the others were up to. And if the word actually spread that someone was doing something about it and getting away with it... Suddenly they'd be facing a million vegetable stalkers all around the world.
They had no choice but to lock me away in the hope that The Adventurers Of The Vegetable Stalker would never be made public...
