A middle-aged suburbanite with a wife, a kid and a career was sent to a mental institution. He hadn't killed or hurt anybody. In fact, he had done nothing at all. There was one thing that made him different enough from all the other suburbanites to be deemed insane. He could hear inanimate objects talk.
He told people that he had deduced that since the inanimates (as he had begun calling them) could talk, they therefore must be self-aware, conscious and intelligant lifeforms, who were in the unfortuneate position of not being able to move. The person who he was speaking to, being human, and therefore insatiably curious, then asked him what the inanimates had to say. "Oh, complaining mostly. You see, they used to be inside of trees, or buried under miles of rock. They don't seem to like the shape they have been molded in." The curious entity he was speaking to would then ask why they themselves could not hear them. Why was he able to hear the inanimates, when nobody else could?
"I don't know," would invariably be then answer. Then the conversation would turn to a more traditional topic, such as the condition of their houses or Sunday's football game.
He wasn't brought to the mental institution in an ambulance and a straight-jacket. He drove there by himself. His wife had gently requested that he go there to see a psychiatrist and get some help. He did.
When he arrived, he was lead to the office of the head doctor at the institution. There was a large, oak desk, a bookshelf and a doctor sitting at the desk. The doctor looked up from some paper work and invited the insane suburbanite to sit down.
"I've been looking over your dossier. Yours is a very interesting case."
He did not know how to acknowledge this, so he thanked the doctor.
The doctor chuckled in reply.
He could spot right away the practised ease of the doctor's manner. This was a man who was used to dealing with irrational people. Had he, for instance, deficated on his desk, the doctor may have raised an eyebrow, and then asked calmly why he did that.
But it was not something he was likely to do.
The doctor leaned back and looked him in the eye.
"Why do you think you are here?"
"Well, my wife asked me to come. She thinks I am suffering from some kind of neurosis. She may be right."
The doctor raised a questioning eyebrow.
"You see, doctor, I can hear inanimate objects speaking. All the time. The chair you are sitting in doesn't like being a chair. It wants to be a tree again. It especially hates supporting your weight. It is complaining to the desk, which also wants to be a tree. Your desk can't stand holding papers and pens and such. Your books hate having letters and pictures printed in them. Your windows hate people looking through them all time. The bricks hate supporting the roof. The roof hates sheltering you all the time. And that, sir, is why I am here."
"Can you talk back to them?"
"No. I've tried. They don't answer."
"Do they keep you awake?"
"No. I just ignore them and fall asleep."
"Do you think you are insane, sir?"
The suburbanite paused at this question. He drew a deep breath, and answered:
"I feel I am not. I don't know why I hear what I do, but dammit, I really do hear them. I don't believe it is in my mind. I believe my mind is healthy."
"I'm afraid I am going to have to keep you here for a while."
"Until when?"
"When you stop hearing voices."
"You mean, when I start lying about hearing them?"
The doctor pushed a button under the desk. Two large men in white clothing entered the room. They smelt of fermeldahyde and sterility. Each one took one of the suburbanite's shoulders in his paw. The suburbanite turned to the doctor. His eyes were suddenly ablaze.
"You have no right to tell me what is real."
And with that, they left.
The doctor sighed and turned to some paperwork.
The suburbanite was not at all insane. He did, in fact, hear the woes of inanimate objects all around him. So did the doctor, but he lied about it. Humans are curious creatures. When someone suggests something even slightly out of their ordinary, they spend so much time trying to prove that that person is insane or lying that they don't look at what they are saying. This particular aspect of the human condition is of special interest to me, because, I, your narrator, was the oak desk in the doctor's office...