The smell of boiled eggs wafted to Caroline from the common dining room, making her stomach churn. She hadn't been able to eat any breakfast, and the glass of orange juice she did manage to get down now churned like acid in her stomach. Fighting the urge to throw even the juice up, she took several deep breaths through her nose until the queasiness passed.

She'd hardly eaten or slept since she learned yesterday that, after nine years in here, she was being released on Monday morning. Just the thought of walking through the big oaken doors of Bayshore Mental Institution (formerly called The Lunatic Asylum) and out into a world that no longer knew her, nor she it, struck terror into her heart. It made her hands sweat and her throat feel like someone had their hands around it, choking the breath from her. Yet at the same time a small part of her was excited at the thought of freedom. Could you be happy and terrified at the same time? Yes, you could. She remembered that you could.

Through the bars of the long window, she watched the men below, in the yard, shuffling about, aimless. After a moment, her attention was drawn to the high reddish-brown fence to the world on the other side, to the wooden houses in their greens and browns, climbing hills. Higher up, the church with its clock steeple, and beyond the church the blue water of the bay.

From here, the people looked small to her, like the ones she'd read about in Gulliver's Travels. But she could see them well enough, scurrying in different directions, going about their daily business, oblivious to her here in the window of the mental institution, watching them.

It's not so bad in here now. Not like it used to be, at least according to some who had been in here far longer than Caroline. Olga Farmer, one of the old ones who had been here forever, said it was a thousand times better than in the early days. Warmer, for one thing, since the central heating went in, and the food was edible most of the time, and there was more variety. Meat and cheese were often served at meals, for example. That wasn't always the case. Olga remembered when a patient had to have specific doctor's orders to be allowed such luxories as an egg or a glass of milk.

Olga turned eighty-five last month and they had a cake for her in the big hall, and Mrs. Green, who'd once been a school teacher, banged out Happy Birthday on the out-of-tune piano the way she did for all their birthdays, even those for whom birthdays meant nothing, and moreso their own.

Her gaze still reaching beyond the high brown fence to the world outside these walls, a fresh wave of apprension washed over her, causing her to shiver, and drowning all anticipation of leaving here, filling her with a terrible sense of foreboding.