Words on Bathroom Walls

A few weeks have passed. Adam’s family went on vacation and celebrated the holidays. They return to the news that there was a school shooting in Connecticut. The shooter supposedly had some kind of mental illness, which makes Adam nervous. He believes it’s only a matter of time before people find out about him and shun him for being a potential threat.

At Adam’s school, everyone attends mass to pray for the victims. Afterwards, when Adam’s class discusses the incident, someone anonymously wonders why the shooter didn’t just kill himself rather than shooting children. The comment enrages Adam—he knows something that the speaker obviously doesn’t: Hallucinated voices are so insistent that it’s very hard to resist doing their bidding. People with schizophrenia experience the “mad desire to make the voices stop even if it means doing what they tell you to” (126).

Adam leaves class understanding what people would really think of him if they knew about his illness. Later, Ian corners Adam in the bathroom and makes general statements about how all people with mental illnesses should be shot.