Evaluation

K. felt it necessary to go to the police station. This wasn't out of anger or revenge, although she had every reason to be angry—the man who claimed to be single, with whom she had been involved for nearly a year, the gentle and well-spoken Mr. Z, turned out to be already married. She discovered this purely by chance, as jarring as finding a hair not belonging to her on a clean floor. This isn't anger, K. told herself, it's a confirmation of order, a necessary clarification of facts. Deception is deception, just as two plus two equals four; it was a fact that needed to be recorded.

The police station lobby was cold and empty. K.'s footsteps echoed on the smooth floor, sounding somewhat lonely. She stopped before a window marked "Reception." The officer inside was looking down at a document, not even raising his head. K. cleared her throat and began her statement, trying her best to keep her tone steady, objective, without any personal emotion. She detailed how she met Mr. Z, the specifics of their relationship, and how she found the wedding photo of Mr. Z with another woman hidden in an old book. She even brought the photo as evidence, carefully placing it on the counter.

The officer finally looked up. His gaze didn't land on the photo but lingered on K.'s face, with a scrutinizing, almost clinical look. "So," the officer said slowly, his voice devoid of ripples, "you are very troubled by this?"

"It's not a matter of being troubled," K. tried to correct him. "This is deception, a factual error. I believe..."

"You've suffered a significant emotional impact because of this man's marital status, correct?" the officer interrupted her, picking up a pen, seemingly preparing to write something down.

"Of course, I was surprised and... disappointed," K. admitted, "but this is mainly a matter of principle. He lied to me."

"Principle..." the officer repeated the word as if it were a rare specimen needing careful study. "Have you lost sleep over this? Lost your appetite? Or... found yourself unable to stop thinking about it?"

K. felt a flicker of unease. The direction of the questioning seemed to deviate from her initial purpose for reporting the crime. "I don't think this has much to do with the case itself, does it?"

The officer put down his pen, leaned slightly forward, his voice sounding closer through the glass: "Ma'am, we need to understand your state. Sometimes, strong emotional fluctuations can affect one's judgment of reality. Are you sure the wedding photo you saw is real? Is it possible... you imagined it?"

"Of course, I'm sure!" K.'s voice rose involuntarily. "The photo is right here! You can verify it!"

"Please calm down, Ma'am." The officer's tone became stern. "Shouting won't solve the problem. We need to conduct an evaluation of your situation."

"An evaluation? Evaluate what? The one who should be investigated is Mr. Z!" K. felt a dizzying sense of absurdity.

Just then, another officer who had been silent beside him stood up, walked to an internal phone, and spoke softly for a few moments. A few minutes later, two people in white uniforms entered, their expressions calm, even gentle. One held a folder.

"Ms. K., is it?" one of the white-uniformed individuals asked. "We've been notified and need you to cooperate with a simple mental health evaluation. It's just a routine procedure, please don't be nervous."

"Mental health evaluation?" K. was completely stunned. "Why? I just came here to report a crime!"

"Precisely because of the content of your report," the first officer spoke again, his tone like explaining the obvious, "it involves some... rather sensitive emotional entanglements. We need to ensure your statement is stable and reliable."

K. tried to argue, but her voice sounded faint and powerless in the vast lobby. The two white-uniformed individuals stood on either side of her. They didn't force her, but their mere presence was an intangible pressure. She felt like an insect that had stumbled into an elaborate trap; the more she struggled, the tighter the threads binding her became.

She was taken into a small, separate room and subjected to a series of questions she couldn't comprehend. About her childhood, her dreams, her color preferences, whether she often had strange dreams. She repeatedly emphasized Mr. Z's deception, but the questioners seemed uninterested, merely scribbling rapidly on forms, occasionally nodding and making understanding "uh-huh" sounds.

"We believe," finally, the person holding the folder closed it, speaking in a tone like delivering a verdict, "Ms. K., your current state may require a quieter, more orderly environment for adjustment and observation. This is entirely for your own good."

"For my own good?" K. almost laughed, but what came out was a sound somewhere between a sob and a gasp. "Where are you taking me?"

"To a recuperation center," the other white-uniformed person replied, their tone as soft as if soothing a frightened child. "There are professional doctors and nurses there who will help you calm down and sort out your thoughts."

K. was "escorted" out of the police station and into an unmarked white car. Outside the window, the city scenery rushed backward; familiar streets and buildings became strange and distant. She tried to look back, wanting to see the police station sign, but it quickly disappeared from view.

The place she was taken to was indeed quiet, excessively so. White walls, white bedsheets, people in white uniforms walking softly down the corridors. They changed her into a loose-fitting patient gown and took away her personal belongings, including that crucial wedding photo. When she asked about the photo's whereabouts, a nurse gently told her, "It's better if we keep things that might cause you emotional fluctuations for the time being."

Every day, a doctor came to talk with her, asking how she felt, whether she was still "fixated" on that "unpleasant thought." K. explained again and again that it wasn't a thought, it was a fact, Mr. Z's deception. But the doctor just smiled, nodded, and wrote terms like "fixed ideas," "detached from reality" in her file. She started taking some pills, supposedly to help her "relax." After taking the medicine, she did feel drowsy, lacking even the energy to think.

She was allowed to walk in the courtyard at fixed times. The yard was large, grassy, but surrounded by high walls. Most of the other "recuperating individuals" paced silently or stared blankly at the sky. K. tried talking to them, wanting to know how they got here, but most just looked at her vacantly or spoke rambling, illogical words. Occasionally, from someone's fragments of speech, she caught a glimpse of an experience similar to hers—sent here because of some trivial insistence, some action contrary to "common sense."

She wrote letters, trying to seek help from the outside world, but they seemed never to have been sent. She was told all communication needed to go through "review" to ensure it didn't interfere with her "recovery process." She didn't even know how Mr. Z was now, did he know she was here? Or, was this all his arrangement? The thought sent a chill down her spine, but she had no proof. Here, all her feelings and judgments were treated as pathological symptoms.

As days turned into weeks, K. found it increasingly difficult to clearly recall the determination and reasons she had for going to the police station initially. That belief in order and facts gradually blurred under the monotonous routine and the effects of medication. Sometimes, gazing at the patch of sky segmented by the walls, she would think in a daze: Maybe they're right? Maybe that "fact" about Mr. Z being married was truly just a hallucination born from overly intense emotions? The harder she tried to recall the details of the photo, the dimmer its image became, as if it had never existed.

The evaluation continued, in a silent, yet omnipresent manner. K. didn't know when this "recuperation" would end, nor whether, upon its conclusion, she would be deemed "recovered" or an "unstable element" requiring permanent isolation. The only certainty was that from the moment she first stepped into that cold police station lobby, her perception of her own identity, and the world order as she understood it, had begun an irrevocable collapse. And the question of whether Mr. Z was married seemed no longer important. What mattered was that she herself was being redefined and reshaped by this vast, formless evaluation system. The walls were white, the sky was blue, the pills had to be swallowed daily. Besides this, what else was real? She no longer dared to be certain.