I thought I had left the door slightly ajar when I entered the place. I found it while I was wondering the South-East desert. The way its golden towers and domes shone with the sunlight grabbed my attention and made me deviate from my endeavors to explore this magnificent fortress. As soon as I opened its main door, I was welcomed by a palace-like construction, with large corridors and beautiful gardens. The main garden was at the center, decorated by a fountain, and was surrounded by a four-story block of chambers. Everything seemed calm. Suddenly, I heard a quarrel. Five men were arguing in the middle of one of the corridors. I couldn´t understand what they were fighting about, but, as soon as I approached them, they seemed to forget the motive of their dispute and, after pointing at me, they pursued me.

I ran through several corridors trying to find my way out of the place, and when I finally reached the main door I found it closed. The five men began laughing out loud about my desperate attempts to open the door. I would swear I did not close it when I stepped inside. However, it was locked and the five men trapped me. I tried to resist arguing that they were kidnapping me, but they laughed even more. They introduced me to a nurse who congratulated the men for having captured “another mad man” and I was put to sleep.

The following morning, I could not believe that I was still in the mad house. It would have been an amazing place had it not been for the forty mad men that lived there. I was forced to wake up at sunrise and follow the orders of all of them. Every morning, around the fountain, they gathered to read the list of pending issues and assign duties. The list of issues ranged from cleaning the chambers, catching rats or repairing the ceiling to memorizing past newspapers or writing letters to the rulers of non-existing countries. The thirty-nine mad men seemed to agree with their leader that everything was of upmost importance and maybe to stress out the need and urgency of every chore, a special squad sneaked out of their rooms every single night to destroy whatever was advanced the day before, so that the list of pending issues, every morning, accrued.

Once the leader pointed out the need to have the house repaired or the “external affairs” taken care of as soon as possible, they assigned groups, and I was forced to work till midnight. Every now and then some doctors and nurses walked through the corridors, surveilling their patients. However, every time I approached them, deeming them the authorities of the place and with the power to assess my sanity and set me free, they locked me in a black room and injected me substances that made me suffer nightmares.

The first days in the mad house I could not believe that I was being treated as the slave of these forty insane individuals. Whenever they ordered me to “jump”; “dance”, “stand still”, “make coffee” or “chop the wood”, the doctors watched, at a distance, my capacity to follow orders and took notes. I did not follow the ridiculous things they demanded from me. But the more I resisted, the more they insisted in having me locked up in the black room in order to reconsider my behavior. Soon I learnt that the only way to open the mad house’s door from the inside was with a key that the leader had hid somewhere. 

I remember I cried for having locked myself in such a nightmare and that no one listened to my screams. Then I decided to look for the key and escape. The list of pending issues waxed with incredible speed. Within three weeks, it took the leader forty minutes just to read the items. Two weeks later, it took the leader one hour and a half to read it for all the issues that were still marked as pending. I did not understand why everything that was advanced during the day was undone by night. The worst thing was that nobody talked about the squad that destroyed everything during the night time. It was impossible not to notice how they tore down everything that was constructed, how they damaged everything that had just been painted or how they changed the journals or destroyed the letters that had been written. Absolutely nobody talked about the topic. It was as if the squad did not exist. Therefore, every morning round the fountain we all were treated as if nothing had been done to solve any of the issues listed. The doctors and nurses in the perimeter nodded as if they had before their eyes a group of apathetic and useless individuals. The leader came up with a new deadline and the thirty-nine mad men agreed, promising that they would do their best to complete all the tasks by dusk.

How frustrating it was to paint the same wall over and over again, to fix from scratch the same wooden chair or to write the same correspondence one more time but just changing the date. Nevertheless, solving the “urgent exceptional issues” made my mission to look for the key fairly impossible. Every now and then, the giant bell of one of the towers jingled and the leader announced the urgent and exceptional matters to which we had to devote our entire attention. When exceptional matters arose, the entire medical team doubled their surveillance. It was extremely annoying to have so many pairs of eyes hooked on one’s back to check how every activity was performed. 

I tried to finish my tasks as soon as possible so I could resume looking for the key. However, after having been punished several times in the black room, I understood that something opposite to common sense governed the place and that the only way to survive was to fake being insane.

The day I simulated a panic attack, the nurse gave me a smile and I overheard the medical team whispering something about improvement. I then simulated to faint out of stress and to have a memory lapse. I could not believe that the more insane I was pretending to be the better they treated me. Doctors smiled and began to call me by my name. The rest of the mad men started to recognize me as an equal and called me mate. I soon learnt through conversation with them that we had a similar story. The thirty-nine of them had also entered the fortress by accident and had been trapped. Some of them had been locked up for fifty years and, secretly, they were all looking for the key.

I thought that these men were faking insanity just like me so I opened my heart to them. But I soon noticed that when I was being honest, they opened their eyes widely, they shook their bodies, covered their ears with their hands so as to not hear me speak and they accused me with the nurses. They did not want to hear about the real world or sincere feelings. They did not want to use the words friendship, love or hope. They did not want to discuss the midnight operations performed by the squad, or the reason why we were all trapped in the mad house to begin with. None of them wanted to discuss how we could break out of the prison or overthrow the leader. The mad men just wanted to complain. They complained about the food, the bed sheets, the noise of the fountain in the garden, voices in their heads, the need to speed up the reconstruction of the place or finish the list of pending issues.

Whenever I talked about the key, the mad men sighed; some of them with their gaze lost in the past or in the future and others with a brief but blissful smile. However, as they noticed the doctors approaching, they said it was impossible and they resumed complaining. Soon I understood none of them was serious about finding the key to freedom. They talked about it as if it was the mythical lost grail. Maybe, deep inside, the key did not exist.

Laying in my chamber one night when I had just woken up from a terrible nightmare, I refused to believe that there was no end to my captivity. The key had to be found. The best place to start was in the leader’s chamber and that entailed being moved to the upper floor by the medical service, so I committed to my mission. I sat down in the hospital-type bed and I looked at the bare wall in front of me. I swore to myself that I would descend to the limit of sanity in order to find the key to freedom. I would abase myself. I would stop thinking about real possibilities, real feelings and real concepts and I would assume a complaining and negative attitude. I would be terrified about the prospect of not finishing the daily endeavors. I would be rude to the mates that did not see the point of painting the same wall or repairing the same piece of furniture one more time. I would fake to be involved. I would pretend that the mad house was my life and that all my dreams and aspirations revolved around it. 

I would buy the doctors favor. I would point out anyone who had traces of being honest or anyone who dared to mention a conspiracy. I would fake epilepsy attacks in the middle of the main garden. I would complain about the noises of the fountain and the voices in my head. That was the only way to be safe. I could not afford to have more nightmares. I had to use the nighttime to find the key. Maybe I could even join the midnight squad.

I took the lamp that was beside my bed and I threw it to the floor. With one of the crystal pieces I cut my hand in order to seal my secret pact. The nurses came up to my room and found my hand covered in blood. I said that the lamp had been rude to me and I decided to punish it. She smiled. After a couple of nights of similar behavior, I received a secret note inviting me to be part of the midnight squad. I was thrilled. I was making headway through my acting. I joined the midnight squad the following night and I received license to wander through the corridors and destroy absolutely everything I found.

I could not believe the pleasure that pervaded my body when I took the chair and tore it to pieces or when I faced the same wall that we had been trying to paint every day for the last five years and I washed the fresh paint off again. It was quite a feeling to tear the handwritten letters that had been carefully prepared the day before. Just to think that someone else, the following day, would have to re-do it made me feel powerful. Maybe all the members of the squad experimented the same thing because we all brutishly destroyed every single item of progress that we encountered.

Power turned out to be an addictive feeling. I could not wait for the sun to disappear to turn into the lord of the place. During the daylight I was treated as a slave, but at twilight I had the power to destroy and make someone else suffer the following morning. It was strange to find pleasure in inflicting pain to others. However, the midnight squad had no time to reflect on this. They were told that they had to destroy everything and, according to them, they were not being driven by evil but only obeying orders. In my case, I had no time to reflect upon the appropriateness of my actions. I had bought time to find the key and at the same time found a way to cope with my misery and vent my feelings of despair. 

The only way I could vent my energy during daylight was through complaints and quarrels. I soon began to pick up fights with everyone. The doctors, acknowledging the change in my behavior, moved me to the upper floor in order to be under stricter observation. I was thrilled with my new room. I soon realized that the more aggressive you were in this place, the better they treated you. My new room in the upper floor was full of luxury. This place was critically insane! Rudeness, impoliteness and disloyalty were rewarded. During the sixth year of my captivity I suddenly began to enjoy the status that my acting had secured me. 

Now I was very close to the leader and every time he yelled, I felt excitement and yelled as well. It soon became natural to make brutish comments and treat everyone else as a servant. Humiliating everyone was the only freedom I enjoyed during the daylight hours. However, at night, following my mates from the squad, I let my true nature go wild. My humanity rebelled against the strict authority and the ridiculous place. I destroyed with water, force and fire. I delved into every corner of the fortress trying to find the key to a reborn life. I was not proud of the person I had become, but I acknowledged that it had been my only option. 

Nevertheless, I was not the only one looking for the mysterious key, so I had to resort to all kinds of techniques not to let them cross my path. I had suffered immensely and I felt in every part of my body that I was the one who deserved the key the most. I was true to myself and I was a real person. If I acted otherwise, it was because of the circumstances. The rest, however, were not faking their insanity. They entered every skirmish with deep howls and genuinely believed that the newspapers from days before had to be memorized, the letters to non-existing persons had to be written and the place had to be transformed. The mad men believed some sort of king would pay a visit and hence they justified the need to formally reply to the king that he was welcomed to come any day he pleased, the need to keep everyone updated with the latest news from the journals and the need to have an impeccable palace in which to receive the royal guest.

But I knew no such king existed. No such royal visit would take place. Everything in the mad house was upside down so, in order to protect my own survival, I played dirty tricks on others. I will not say I committed murder, for what crime is it to lead a mad man to his grave sooner than later. After all, the rule and order of the place privilege the ones who have the guts to impose their way. Newcomers should be forced to work without rest, everyone should be under strict surveillance and perform as expected, the midnight squad will turn everything to ashes while nightmares hunt the sanity of the men who sleep in the lower decks while I shall look for the key to free myself once and for all.

I thoroughly kept my promise and finally found the key. It was a little golden key that was buried in the garden, beneath the fountain. When I saw it glitter under the moonlight I could not believe my eyes. My sight is not as good as it used to be. I have lived almost twenty-five years in the mad house and the doctors all agree that I have lost sight because of age. However, I am not afraid of aging. I am more afraid of being stabbed in the back by the old comrades of the midnight squad or the other mad men in the house. Some have died and some new patients have come throughout the years. Yet, for some strange reason, there are always forty mad men in the house. 

The key was so precious I could not dare to take it to my chamber. Now I live in the pent-house and the doctors seldom bother me. They are more interested in keeping the new ones within the framework of the logic that rules this place. But I know it would be foolish to walk through the corridors with the key in one of my pockets.

In any case, the relief of having found it after so many years is incredible. I can barely describe the inner joy that the prospect of real freedom inflicts on me. I could stop pretending to be insane and to care about all such nonsense. I could go outside and keep walking through the desert resuming my former ways. I could quit my privileges here, leave my cozy room, my efficient room-service, my hot water bath each morning, the way I shout to everyone that they should move their butts and work, the way I move as a scavenger through the premises at night to destroy every single ware and the way I complain, the following morning, about absolutely everything, especially the lack of improvement in the reconstruction of the place that will accommodate the royal cohort. 

Yes. My plan worked out marvelously. I am so proud I decided to pretend to be insane all these years for now I have found the key to freedom. However, the voices in my head have wisely warned me not to use the key just yet. Maybe it would be more sensible to wait for the royal visit, for my absence will be noticed. In any case I know where the key is now and I can use it to escape anytime I so desire. How lucky I am for remaining healthy after such a terrible experience with these mad men. I deserve to have one more day of fun and destroy absolutely everything tonight. I might use the key tomorrow.