I felt a Funeral, in my Brain
And Mourners to and fro
Kept treading—treading—till it seemed
That Sense was breaking through
A girl is walking down a hall in what looks like a hospital. There is a man and a woman on either side of her. They turn, and are in a room with a couch, to chairs, and a large desk, with an imposing looking chair behind it. The girl sits down on the couch, and the man and the woman take the chairs. The chair turns around, and a balding man with round glasses sits. Speed up; the man and the woman are standing and pacing, stopping and yelling at each other. The girl puts her face in her hands, as if she had a headache.
And when they all were seated,
A Service, like a Drum—
Kept beating—beating—till I thought
My mind was going numb—
Then the girl is sitting, in a white room, on a wooden chair. She is facing a one-way mirror. People in other room, push a button, and talk into a microphone, asking her questions. She sits silently, with a blank expression. The lights turn off, and then back on again quickly, and the same girl is sitting there, but her head is shaved, and many wires are attached to her flesh. The people in the room push another button, and a loud drumming sound filled the room. On a screen in the observation room, a green line goes across the screen. With every beat of the drumming, the line jumps. They turn a knob on a board, and the drumming speeds up, as well as the peaks on the green line. They increase the rate till the girl finally stands up, ripping the wires off her skull. She collapses onto the ground, curling into a fetal position. The drumming continues, and she digs her fingernails into the flesh of her skull.
And then I heard them lift a Box
And a creak across my Soul
With those same Boots of Lead, again,
Then Space—began to toll,
A door slams. The girl wakes up in another white room, devoid of windows, mirrors or doors. Only walls. The is a loud click, as a key turning the lock. It emanates around the room. Then heavy footsteps, which grow silent as the time passes. The girl is sitting on the bed. Then passing the room. Next lying on her back on the floor. Then doing sit ups. Finally she crawls under the bed, and lies there crying.
As all the Heavens were a Bell,
And Being, but an Ear,
And I, and Silence, some strange Race
Wrecked, solitary, here—
The girl is in another room. This one has a door, with a small square window she can look out of into the hall beyond, if standing on her tiptoes. A bell sounds through the building, and as the girl stands looking out the window, people walk past. All of the, heading in the same direction. Some talk to each other, some are silent, staring at the floor, others are wheeled past, by men in white suits. Then a flap closes over the window in the door, from the outside, and can no longer see. The girl goes over and sits on her bed, the bell stops, and the silence closes in around her in a suffocating blanket. She starts to talk to herself, muttering under her breath.
And then a Plank in Reason, broke,
And I dropped down, and down—
And hit a World, at every plunge,
And Finished knowing—then—
Then she is sitting in the room with the white walls and the one-way mirror again. The man and woman, who brought her there, are in the room, along with the doctors, in their white coats. She sits on the wooden chair, now wearing a strait jacket. Her hair hangs around her face, greasy and tangled looking. She stares at the mirror with a blank look, her eyes sunken into her skull. The woman gets on the microphone, and tells her that soon they will get her on the right medication, and she can come home. The girl does not respond, but closes her eyes and slides off the chair onto the floor, pulling her legs as tight to her chest as possibly. The microphone still on, the sound of the woman crying fills the room. The green line on the monitor is flat.
I did this for an english assignment, for which we were to describe the visuals we got from one of Emily Dickinsons poems. I chose, "I felt a Funeral, in my Brain".