First thing every morning, without delay, Doug would go to the tall stone wall. He’d take a deep breath and inhale the sweet fragrances carried by the breezes coming from the other side. The scents reminded him of his youth and the aroma from the rose garden in the backyard of his childhood home. The smells would only increase his desire to know what mysteries lay beyond the thick wooden gate. Always locked, though, that gate kept him inside of the perimeter of the old stone walls.

Doug had spent most of his life within the walls of the asylum. Society had deemed him, and others like him, to be too great a burden. The accident when he was five had cost him his mobility and confined him to life in a wheelchair. He was taken from his mother and father to be “cared for” by the State. It was in his and society’s best interests, his parents were told. They would have to sacrifice their son to the care of the State for the greater good of society.

It had been nearly twenty-five years since his confinement began. He was completely shut off from the outside world. They explained to him that, given his special needs, he would be too much of a burden to others and to society to be on the outside. The handicapped and disabled had unique needs and requirements, he was told, that could only be accommodated behind thick stone walls in asylums like this one.

But the State had limited resources and the law required that those who resided within the walls and who could not function on their own as able-bodied members of society by the time they were thirty would be humanely transitioned to the next world, where their spirits were not broken, as their bodies were in this world. In all of his time inside the stone walls, Doug had never known of any other “residents” who were reintegrated into the world outside.

Doug took one more deep breath and then slowly wheeled himself back to the residence building. Today was his thirtieth birthday and Doug knew that he would never again smell the scent of the roses.

---

Written for this week’s Thursday Photo Prompt from Sue Vincent. Also for these daily prompts prompts: Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (delay), Your Daily Word Prompt (inhale), Ragtag Daily Prompt (rose), The Daily Spur (increase), and Word of the Day Challenge (sacrifice).