Short Story / Abstraction
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TADA, the remote Warner Brothers’ cartoon theme rang down the hall, ricocheting off sheet rock, painted cinderblock and tile. At the end of the hall, the frenetically catchy tune managed to softly slip past the heavy double doors that strove to contain it.
“At first I just began to think that I recognized people, lots of people, people I’d never met before, almost everyone, then I realized some of the people I saw couldn’t see others. I started seeing ghosts. I heard the voice of god… Can I smoke?” Fingers shaking and voice wavering, the young man fumbled for the pack of Winstons in his shirt pocket. The nurse objected tersely.
“There is no smoking in the hospital.”
“I thought that mental patients did nothing but smoke. That sign over there even designates this as a Smoking Area.”
“It says nothing of the sort.” She turned her head needlessly towards the familiar sign that expressly prohibited smoking, both symbolically and linguistically. “If you are admitted, you will be allowed into the courtyard for supervised cigarette.. breaks.” As she finished speaking she returned her gaze to the prospective patient, who heedlessly drew off a lit Winston. Exhaling with satisfaction, his focus was carried up by the departing smoke. He did not look at her once: neither while she stood up tugging sharply at the front of her stiff and sterile, uniform skirt, nor when she walked around the folding table between them, not even when she snatched the cigarette from his mouth, though she bent down to let him see her irritated expression.
“I knew these were all signs of schizophrenia and I was scared to be diagnosed. I just kept hoping it would go away.” His eyes drifted down from the dissipating smoke to the empty chair across from him. More serene now, but before his lips the man continued to hold up his index and middle fingers as if still gripping between them the Winston which the nurse extinguished with a hiss in her own cup of cold coffee. After speaking, he pantomimed a drag.
“Is your name Helen?” He inquired, provoking her to squint at him over her thick-framed glasses as she sat back down. When she resumed her position across the folding table, he continued his level, casual glance as if she had been there all along.
“How did you know that, Mr. Atman?” Helen had to look down at her form to remember his name.
He just shook his head demurely and said, “This is the kind of stuff I’m talking about,” but then as Mr. Atman leaned forward to ash his imaginary cigarette in her cup of coffee, he smiled at her in a way that made her blush.
“Well,” she responded decisively after looking Mr. Atman up and down, “I suppose you at least warrant an interview with one of the doctors.”
The rec. room was on the left-hand side of the hall, a short walk down from the double doors that separated the lockdown wing from the rest of the hospital. Outside the double doors a security guard was asleep at his desk. Helen slapped her palm against the desktop as they passed, to wake him up. The click of the nurse’s heels echoed in the hall. Along the right-hand wall were regularly spaced doors, some of which were open, exposing individual sleeping spaces for patients. Each contained a single bed in the middle of the room with the headboard pushed up against the right hand wall facing in. In the unoccupied rooms the beds were made up with crisp sheets tucked into hospital corners. Looking into the rooms, he saw the far walls included big windows made of thick glass with a view of a courtyard shaded under one wide willow. The entire wall shared between the rec. room and the hall was made of stronger shatterproof glass, reinforced by wire webbing. Through it Mr. Atman saw a group therapy session that seemed shrouded by shadows in the opposite corner. To his right a small window opened into the nurse’s station. The center of the room was filled with orange benches facing a television in a cage against the wall opposite Atman. It blinked amicably at him through the bars. All of the patients wore pale blue pajamas. Everywhere the walls were pale green.
As Mr. Atman was escorted through the rec. room behind Helen, he glimpsed Crow hovering a moment above the nurse’s window before he crossed over into shadow. Helen stopped at the window and gave some directions to a junior nurse who called her Nurse Turzlee. While Nurse Turzlee was conversing with the younger woman, Atman shuffled from one foot to the other and waited for her next instruction. Finally, she returned her attention to him. “You can see Dr. Caerlazi in just a minute. He’s with someone right now.”
Mr. Atman fell to one knee clasping his hands before him. “As you command, fair lady of the lake.” His face expressed rapture, beaming up towards Helen. The junior nurse snickered a little because to her Helen had always seemed bitter and off-putting. Nurse Turzlee only tersely mm-hmmed.
Dr. Caerlazi was just finishing up with a woman who had tried to take her own life three times with OTC medication. Most noteworthy was an attempt to commit suicide by means of Alka- Seltzer, because she had heard that it worked on seagulls and Mikey from the Life cereal ads. Nurse Turzlee noiselessly opened the door to his office and crept over to his desk where she unobtrusively lay the forms regarding Mr. Atman by his elbow, and then retreated as she had entered. All the while, the woman before him recalled highlights from the repetitive downward spiral that had carried her to her current state.
“Well, after my first husband left me I put on a lot of weight and, I kept gaining after I remarried. (Tom always wanted me to be fat, but I didn’t figure that out right away)… and then.., you know, I just felt so ugly and bloated already, that it just seemed like.. appropriate.”
Dr. Caerlazi could see that she must have put on a lot of weight, enough so that her skin had stretched irreparably and now that she had lost a substantial portion of that weight, her skin hung loosely from her chin and the backs of her arms. In order to fork his stream of consciousness before it coursed into thoughts of the woman’s sagging breasts, he diverted his concentration to the admission forms newly arrived at his elbow.
... patient voiced concern that he may exhibit signs of schiz.”
Schizophrenia was at the heart of Caerlazi’s
personal research into the distinctions between physical and mental illness. He was secretly writing up some of his findings into a book of what might be considered popular psychology. Dr. Caerlazi was able to follow the thread of his patient’s story, while the greater portion of his mind was absorbed with his book, until he felt obliged to cut her off.
“.. and then I was just belching so much, and this white foam started to come up…” Her upper lip quivered and her eyes glistened wetly as she recounted the story of her second suicide attempt, which the doctor was completely familiar with, for he had been in residence at the same hospital two years ago when she had been previously committed for a short time.
“This has been good, Grace…”
“My name’s Gretchen.” She interrupted.
“Sorry, Gretchen, but next time maybe we could concentrate more on why you’re back here with us this time.” Dr Caerlazi smiled because he knew what came next.
“Can I go to my room now, Dr. Caerlazi?”
“Sure you can Gretchen. We’ll meet again on Tuesday.”
His smile was magnanimous, without a trace of sarcasm. Gretchen smiled back and exited gracefully. He meant to take a moment to read over the new patient’s slim file but Nurse Turzlee was at his door with Mr. Atman almost before it closed. She deposited Atman in the chair that had so recently been occupied by Gretchen and introduced Dr. Caerlazi without looking in his direction before exiting. In fact, she did not look at the doctor for the entire time she was in his office, but when she bent down to address Mr. Atman, Dr. Caerlazi found himself fixated on a lock of raven black hair that had worked loose from her customarily tight bun; it rested just inside the brilliant white collar of her uniform. He watched her from behind, bemused as she strutted efficiently out of his office and shut the door without looking back at him.
“Well Mr. Atman I haven’t had a chance to do more than glance at your case but it appears that you’re delusional,” he frowned at the file and murmured aloud, “but no indication of paranoia… How about that, Mr. Atman are you frightened of anything in particular these days?” The doctor looked up at the frank open face of Mr. Atman, who confessed,
“I’m afraid that I might have schizophrenia.”
“Yes, because of your delusions and hallucinations..” he looked down at the file and trailed off for a minute, “hmm.. ghosts.. voice of god.. What’s this about recognizing strangers? Do you recognize me, for instance?” He peered over his file at Mr. Atman who nodded.
“I do but I don’t know where from. Your name is Nestor.” Mr. Atman could see that Nestor was dubious.
“Sorry, my name is Frank Caerlazi,” but Mr. Atman insisted, “I know you are. I’ve seen you before.”
Frank’s look became more penetrative. “What do you know about me?”
Mr. Atman grinned appreciatively, “Just what I can see now, that you are both old and wise.”
Middle-age had overtaken Dr. Caerlazi in all of its hairiness, but his beard was untouched by gray and his hairline was low. “I’ll have you know I’m forty-five, and if I were wise I’d have my own practice. You seem very coherent for a schizophrenic.” Dr. Caerlazi scrutinized his patient, and noticed the two fingers he held by his mouth, “no motor disturbances, you don’t have fits or anything do you, Mr. Atman?” Mr. Atman expelled imaginary smoke as he shook his head. The doctor continued, “I notice you’ve got a nervous habit with your fingers there…”
Mr. Atman shrugged. “Filthy habit, I can put it out if you want.”
Dr. Caerlazi squinted. “Put out.. your cigarette. Please do.” Mr. Atman pulled his right foot up onto his left knee and twisted his fingers a couple of times over the sole of his shoe before removing the real pack of Winstons from his pocket and replacing the non-existent butt. “Well, the first thing to do is run some tests for physical symptoms.” Caerlazi was going to catch hell for authorizing more cat-scans, but one of the opinions that his book would substantiate was that schizophrenia is a physiological disease with structural and chemical effects on the brain, and that other dysfunctions that get grouped along with it should be diagnosed and treated separately. Dr. Caerlazi had a feeling about this case. ‘And besides,’ he noted to himself glancing down at the file, ‘he’s got good insurance.’
The next morning a giant, head and shoulders above anyone in the hospital, crashed through Mr. Atman’s door, bathed in blood. He dragged behind him the mutilated carcasses of two cattle, which he strapped to the foot of Mr. Atman’s bed and commenced to savagely lash with a flay. He screamed in the pitch of his fury. “Up and at ‘em Mr. Atman! You’ve got an appointment with Dr. Caerlazi this morning!” Atman sat bolt upright in bed and rubbed his eyes. Crow was perched on his windowsill chuckling at him. He circled about Mr. Atman’s head squawking derisively all the way to Nestor’s office, while Atman plodded though the trail of gore left by the dead cows that his guide was dragging. ‘I really hope I’m not schizophrenic,’ he thought, optimistic about his test results.
The giant voiced his heart’s torment in guttural cries as he floundered, slipping in the blood that surrounded him. With a roar he burst through the door of Dr. Caerlazi’s office, lashed his corpses to the doctor’s desk and flailed them hysterically. “Thank you,” the doctor said flatly. In response the giant untied his victims and turned to leave, wrenching inarticulate lament from the innermost recess of his soul as he went.
“I have good news.” Dr. Caerlazi opened, gesturing for Mr. Atman to take a seat. “The cat-scan didn’t turn up any structural abnormalities or tissue deterioration, and your dopamine levels are normal.”
Mr. Atman slid into the doctor’s office on the slick blood of cattle and stopped himself with both hands on the edge of the doctor’s desk. “What does this mean?”
“It means you don’t have any of the physical symptoms associated with schizophrenia.” Therefore, to the doctor’s way of thinking, Mr. Atman didn’t have schizophrenia.
“So, I don’t have schizophrenia?” Mr. Atman appeared hopeful.
“It doesn’t matter what you call it, you’re delusional.” Crow landed on Dr. Caerlazi’s shoulder. Mr. Atman’s face fell.
“Can I smoke?” Mr. Atman raised his eyes and saw Crow mimicking the doctor’s appraising glare as he hesitated.
“Yes, go ahead.” Dr. Caerlazi assented and watched with diagnostic anticipation as Mr. Atman reached into his shirt pocket and withdrew the same pack of Winstons from yesterday. Dr. Caerlazi saw his mistake when Mr. Atman took out a very real cigarette and lit it with equally real matches. He exhaled, filling the office with real smoke. Dr. Caerlazi stumbled, unaccustomed to being caught off guard. “Uh-What happened to your butt,.. that you stubbed out yesterday?” Technically smoking in his office was at Dr. Caerlazi’s discretion, but he had quit smoking while still a fairly young man and detested the smell of it ever since.
“I smoked it after dinner. Say, do you always come in this early.”
“Not when I can avoid it.” Dr. Caerlazi resignedly set out a never used ashtray for Mr. Atman. “I thought that they took that sort of stuff away from you?”
“Helen didn’t watch too closely while I changed into my hospital PJs.” The madman winked conspiratorially. “I think she’s shy.” This allusion struck a note with the doctor, or rather he noted that it did not strike a note, because before yesterday it would have seemed odd to think of Nurse Turzlee as feminine in any way, but after he noticed that lock of her hair against the nape of her neck, the insinuation seemed oddly commonplace.
“Helen, I don’t know anyone else she lets call her that,..” Dr. Caerlazi shuffled the papers in front of him. “.. but the quest for the right approach to your therapeutic needs continues, Mr. Atman. I was thinking towards that end, and something else struck me as odd from our meeting yesterday. You live surrounded by all these hallucinations and you know it. Personally, I’d get paranoid, but you say you’re not. Aren’t you frightened by any of your delusions, Mr. Atman?”
“The four horned dragon.” Mr. Atman dropped his head to look down at his feet in front of the desk. Dr. Caerlazi urged him on. “I can’t see him in here. He’s usually out on the horizon, especially at dawn.”
“Mm-hm, and you seemed frightened by Jack as he was leaving, why?” The doctor jotted something down on his notepad as he spoke. Mr. Atman exploded with excited relief.
“So, you saw it too? I thought I was hallucinating again, but all this blood…” Dr. Caerlazi finished up the visit listening to Mr. Atman’s reaction to the carnage he believed to have preceded him into the office. Nurse Turzlee returned to escort Mr. Atman to his first group therapy session when his time was up. The doctor noticed that her hair hung to her shoulders, free of its accustomed bun. It was long, straight and very fine. She smiled at him before she left.
Group therapy was fantastic. As Mr. Atman approached several tables pushed together in the rec. room and his eyes pierced the shadows, he felt the familiar dull twinge of deja vu that caused him to think he recognized everybody. A menagerie of civilization’s discontents already surrounded the table. A middle-aged divorcee with snakes writhing from her scalp sat with her back to Atman. Her snakes uniformly wriggled towards a man who tore at his eyes across the table. One hand was clenched in a fist whilst the other, above his upturned face held his eyeball with a short length of optic nerve attached. Blood dripped down, spattering his face and intermingling with his tears in rivulets that ran down from his empty socket and stained his beard. Directly beside this horror sat a plump and kind faced counselor, her arms crossed tightly across her huge pendulous breasts. She interceded cautiously.
“Yes well, we discussed Ed’s guilt problems on Tuesday? Perhaps someone else, should start off today’s discussion… Ah, I see our new patient, Mr. Atman, is going to join us today. Perhaps you can start us off.” Atman dragged from a hallucinatory Winston as he took the empty seat beside the divorcee. He shook his head dismissively and averted his eyes. He did not want to engage the counselor while he feared the hideous woman beside him who intently eyed Ed. At the same time Atman was repulsed by Ed’s display. He found his best option was to lock his eyes on the table before him. The counselor smiled beneficently.
“That’s ok, Mr Atman.” The breath that bore this phrase was a stifling effluvium of calming estrogen. When she spoke, she leaned over the table resting her ponderous mammaries thereon. It seemed to Atman that she loomed larger and more imposing in this position. He felt smothered by her presence, and hunched to make himself smaller before her sight. She went on. “Maybe you’ll feel more comfortable after listening for a while.” The counselor turned on Joe Blow who sat on the floor in a heap of ashes, his chin resting on the table. Joe Blow sat at the opposite end of Mr. Atman’s side of the table, allowing Atman a clear view of him without including the monster beside him, the advancing shadow of the counselor’s plentiful form, or the sight of Ed squishing his eye between his fingers and wailing before the stony expression of the snake-headed woman. Joe smeared ashes on his torso under the table as the counselor asked, “Joe, we haven’t heard anything from you in a couple weeks. Tell us how things have been”
When Joe opened his mouth a pitiful moan seemed to precede and then coincide just under his speech. “I don’t know where I am anymore. They keep me so drugged up that I don’t know how long I’ve been here.” The counselor took on a sterner air.
“Mr. Blow, you know that the last time we reduced your medication you cut your wrists. Now it’s hospital policy, and I’m sure Dr. Caerlazi knew what he was doing when he prescribed you anti-depressants and tranquilizers until we can get to the root of your suicide attempts.” The moan rose to nearly drown out Joe’s response.
“I lost everything!” Joe Blow demonstrated how sharply his memory still penetrated the haze of his medication with a detailed account of his bereavement. His farm was seized after his harvest was lost in a barn fire. His children died in that same fire, then his wife had left him after that. All of this loss howled painfully about Atman’s ears. He perceived that Joe’s smudged skin was also blemished. The sea of the counselor’s scent was churned and swirled by Joe Blow’s moan, howling above it like wind. Mr. Atman took a drag from his Winston and exhaled it slowly, watching the turbulence carry away his smoke. The counselor’s aural inertia proved stronger, absorbing the force of Joe’s lament after a moment’s tension.
“We’re all very sorry for your loss, Joe. It can be hard. I know it can be hard sometimes, but you have to keep trying. We’re here for you Joe, until you get back on your feet.” Her munificence shined about her like a blue halo as she lifted her beatific eyes to the congregation. “All of us. Isn’t that right everybody? We’re all here to help each other.” A variety of half-hearted affirmations went up from the group. She continued sincerely, “That’s the whole idea behind group therapy.” Then suddenly, Mr. Atman interjected, blowing his smoke against the current of her fragrance.
“Mr. Blow, what do you believe will happen if you die?” You could have heard a pin drop. The counselor’s scent coursed back towards her, retreating from Atman’s exhalation like the out-going tide. Joe’s howl died down and he was silent for a moment while he considered the new inmate.
“I just know that it’s got to be better than this.” His whisper blew in Atman’s face like a stiff breeze.
He posed, “Do you think so? Do you really think that the exchange of individual suffering for your shared portion of all eternal experience could be to your personal advantage, or lessen your load? Are you sure?” He leaned across the table, still studiously avoiding the stony glare of the divorcee as well as Ed’s antics, and issued a puff of fanciful smoke. This provided a long enough pause for the counselor to gather her forces for another wave of femininity, still very assured of her ability to regain control.
“Mr. Atman, Joe is not going to burn in hell or anything for trying to commit suicide. It’s very understandable that he might not want to live after what he’s been through. What we have to do here is show him reasons why he might want to live.” Her glowing face dimmed like the sun setting behind the horizon at sea.
“I didn’t mean to say he’s going to hell.” Atman clarified. “In fact, I agree with you. This man isn’t ready to die.” Joe Blow hung his head in silent endurance. The counselor had the last word.
“Good.” As just before the setting sun submerges completely into the sea there is sometimes a momentary flash of green, a ray of aquatic blue-green shone from the counselor’s eyes through the rising fumes of Atman’s fantasy.
Mr. Atman was less put off by the way Jack carried on, after he had a chance to wake up. Like most smokers he had also always been a heavy coffee drinker, and he felt out of sorts before his first cup of the day. Coffee was not provided to the patients for a variety of reasons but when Jack led a small group including Mr. Atman, Joe Blow and the gorgon out to the courtyard for their smoke break, he stopped in the hallway and strapped his cow corpses to a vending machine. He flogged them again, drawing from the fiery passion that also escaped him in animalistic grunts so desperate that at times Mr. Atman mistook them for tortured lays of the very objects of this wrath. Amongst this ruckus Jack could be heard to offer a round of Cokes.
Mr. Atman liked Jack from that moment on, and for the next several minutes especially. The caffeine eased his headache, while the stimulation shook him out of the state in which group had left him, and inclined him to talk. In this new light, Jack seemed a much better candidate for conversation than Gorgon or Joe. Mr. Atman did not know any of the others. They all stood together in the shade of the willow. Mr. Atman did not ask Jack about the grudge he bore those dead cows because that aspect of Jack still frightened him, but in every other capacity Jack proved himself good-natured and easy going, though of course he was loud and by the end of the smoke break Mr. Atman suspected that he might be just a little dumb.
The next day was Saturday and Jack did not come for Mr. Atman until after breakfast. This time Mr. Atman had at least had a sweet-roll, a carton of orange juice and a phenothiazine, if no coffee, before he was visited by Jack’s fury. Right after morning meds, most of the patients sat down on the vinyl-cushioned benches that were bolted to the floor in front of the TV in the cage. Nurse Turzlee turned on the morning cartoons for them upon request. As she bent over the television cage, Mr. Atman saw the perfection of her natural curves draped in the white fabric of her uniform but he felt in his soul no stir of the sort he had become accustomed to feeling when he looked on the form of Helen. In fact, he realized that he could feel almost nothing but dry-mouth.
Mr. Atman returned to his room to stare at the wall and periodically to fill a paper cup with water from the fountain outside his door and immediately drain it in a gulp. When Jack arrived, Mr. Atman had little reaction to his gruesome procession. Crow slept in the corner of the room but roused himself to stumble on foot behind Mr. Atman as he was led through a haze to Dr. Caerlazi’s office. Once there, Crow curled up under the chair where Mr. Atman sat. Atman stared blankly at the doctor, the same way he had stared at the wall. The doctor shifted his disapproving glare from Atman to a note stuck on Atman’s file.
“How are you feeling today?” Frank felt he had little choice but to run Mr. Atman through the standard gauntlet of medications that had been found effective against delusions and hallucinations, but he had less than no faith in them. He secretly hoped they would not work, thus providing further proof that Mr. Atman was not physically dysfunctional and therefore the perfect case subject for the doctor’s purposes. Furthermore, Dr. Caerlazi’s experience with anti-psychotics had not disposed him to relish the primitive attempts at communication that passed for therapeutic or analytic sessions with doped up patients. Atman lit up an imaginary cigarette giving Caerlazi the first indication that this drug was ineffective.
The next three weeks passed this way for Mr. Atman, in a daze. Dr. Caerlazi grew more frustrated with the hospital regulations and scientific parameters that necessitated he reduce his star patient to a drooling, half-alive thing, useless to himself as well as to the doctor. At his daily appointments he watched for hallucinatory cigarettes, and listened for mumbled allusions to recent fanciful occurrences. The doctor’s impatience was facilitated somewhat by the fact that Mr. Atman had never demonstrated any tendency towards violence and required no sedation; hence as soon as his symptoms had demonstrated their resistance to a drug the doctor was fully justified in discontinuing his prescription. Dr. Caerlazi contented himself to speed Mr. Atman through prescriptions as quickly as their recommendations would allow him to test their effectiveness and schedule Mr. Atman a few days to dry out between treatments.
By the time Atman had recovered from his first round of chemotherapy the doctor was forced to go over his notes from their first few meetings in order to find anything to talk about with Mr. Atman. Although they had met daily for the past three weeks the meetings had been so void of content that this session seemed like a re-acquaintance. Mr. Atman called the doctor Theramene and bid him a good morning as he fished for a very real Winston.
“Tell me about the horned dragon.” Frank Caerlazi pursed his lips and flipped back and forth between two pages of his notes with his stubby fingers. He gestured for the patient to take a seat while reluctantly sliding the ashtray out for him.
“The four horned dragon,” Mr. Atman corrected, “flies at dusk and at dawn, when the shadows are longest. I never see him clearly but always like that. Usually I’m not sure if he’s a shadow himself or maybe a dark cloud moving across the horizon, and then I recognize him just a split-second before he disappears.”
“.. and you say you’re afraid of it. Are you afraid it will attack somebody?” The doctor rubbed the back of his neck vigorously and strained his focus on the response.
“No,” Atman answered and streamed smoke from his nose, “he’s more of an insidious presence, looming ominously on the horizon.”
“Do you communicate with it?”
“No, he’d probably eat me up.” The doctor then jotted some things down and changed the subject.
“Tell me about Nurse Turzlee.”
“You mean Mary?” Mr. Atman blushed faintly and began fidgeting with the snaps on his hospital PJ shirt.
“Her name’s Helen, Mr. Atman.” Dr. Caerlazi leaned forward spreading his arms out on his desk.
“I know,” Crow cawed as Atman spoke, “I know all of everybody’s names… Mary is my inspiration in this place, when I don’t think I can take it anymore.”
“You seem as though you’re bearing up all right.” Right on time, Jack strapped his bovine bodies outside the door to the office and thrashed them.
“I am.” Mr. Atman got up to leave. “We all get like that sometimes.”
“I guess we do. Say, what did you call me when you first came in here?”
“Theramene.” He turned the handle and released himself into the charge of the wrathful man outside.
That night, Frank got a hunch. He began to research more. He went over old college textbooks and he started reading Jung. By the time Atman revived from the next round of drugs, Frank desired to question his subject more directly on some points. Atman called him Prospero this time when he came in.
“Did you ever read any Shakespeare?”
“Can’t say that I have. I didn’t have a very classical education.” Mr. Atman replied as he sat down.
“No Sophocles? How about Homer?”
“Never.” Dr. Caerlazi looked perplexed at these responses.
“How about religion, was your family religious?”
“Not really, we went to a Unitarian church for a while when I was a kid but, not religiously.” He grinned at his own joke but the doctor was too distracted to notice. The line of questioning tapered off. There were several uncomfortable minutes of silence. Finally the doctor shook off his confusion and continued.
“Have you noticed any relief from your hallucinations on any of the drug therapies you’ve had so far?” Mr. Atman shook his head. “Well, there’s only a few more and after this next one, they should be a little milder without so many side effects. I’m sorry for all of this, we just have to try out anything that might help you.
“I appreciate it. They gave me a new kind of appreciation for Bea when I was on them.”
“Bea, that’s Mary-er, Helen.. Nurse Turzlee.” She happened to slip in at just that moment in her noiseless professional fashion, to slide onto his desk the file of a new patient who waited in the hall. Now her walk was so much more fluid then before. The doctor had never remarked her scent but when she bent down beside him it was unmistakable, intoxicating. His eyes followed her as she left.
During the next interim while Mr. Atman was too stoned to be of much help, Frank refined his hunch, continued his research and read more Jung. He became so excited about his emerging theory that he felt he must discuss his ideas with someone. He called up an old colleague and invited him over for dinner. Dr. Caerlazi was a good cook and well known for it. In college, he had often lured professors to his apartment with lasagna, only to force a second course of his half-baked undergraduate theories on them after dinner.
Once they had eaten, he opened another bottle of wine and brought the conversation around to his research while refilling his colleague’s glass.
“.. for example, I’ve gotta case at the hospital, no physical symptoms of schizophrenia, really he doesn’t have any behavioral dysfunction at all except he responds to some of the most vivid hallucinations I’ve ever seen.”
His colleague furrowed his brow. “Drugs?”
“No way, he’s the boy next door. No trauma to provide a psychodynamic explanation either.”
“I meant, have you prescribed anything for him?” The other doctor stroked his beard and looked penetratingly at Frank.
“Tried everything with no effect. Right now he’s on so much thorazine he can barely talk but when he does he talks about his delusions.”
“What kind of delusions?” Frank tilted back in his chair upon hearing this question and nodded with satisfaction.
“That’s the really interesting thing about this guy. His signature is that he thinks he recognizes people. He assigns us names, they change around from time to time but I think that there’s a consistency throughout.” Frank had hooked his audience. If he played his line out, he could talk about his theory all night.
“Us? You? What does he call you?”
“He’s called me: Nestor, Theramene and Prospero and he calls one of the nurses Helen, Mary and Beatrice, and once he called her the lady of the lake; the wise old man and the anima respectively. It makes perfect sense, I’m his therapist and he said she inspires him. Hold on, I want you to see something.” Frank stood up and took a book down from the shelf. “The only delusion he said he was afraid of was a four horned dragon..” He flipped attentively through the pages of the book as he spoke. “.. here,” he shot abruptly and slapped the open book down on the table before his guest. The left-hand page contained no text but the reproduced cover of an antique book of alchemy. On it was a crude illustration of a serpentine dragon with four horns.
Dr. Caerlazi scrapped the book he had been working on and began an exclusive examination of Mr. Atman’s peculiar case. At work he more eagerly cut corners to disprove drug therapies until Mr. Atman was his old slightly too lucid self again. One morning after the pharmaceutical fog had lifted, Atman came across Ed and the gorgon in the rec. room. Her arms wriggled out from her sockets like the snakes from her scalp. Her fingers each terminated in a long curved fingernail painted fire-engine red. She lighted the outstretched tips of her fingers first on Ed’s forearm, then his leg, in the course of gesticulating like a seated belly dancer.
“.. then after that, the cheating bastard tried to leave me with the kids. I said I ain’t taking care of your brats. No way.” Ed responded by plucking out his remaining eye with a dramatic cry.
“Sounds like a real bastard, Meredith. I’m really sorry things didn’t work out, but there’ll be other guys.”
“Do you really think so, Ed?” Meredith looked up into Ed’s ruined face, and batted her eyes. Her lashes were long. Mr. Atman thought he saw them squirm like her snakes. At that moment an older woman of considerable girth approached the couple.
“Why, Ed, I thought you knew I was coming. If I had known you’d have company I wouldn’t’ve…”
“It’s alright ma’, this is Meredith. She’s a patient here.” The fat old woman leered at Meredith. The hairs that strayed from the kerchief she wore over her head began to writhe like Meredith’s. The younger woman extended her hand with stilted grace and it was accepted into the fold of mother’s cool moist palm.
“They told me at the desk that you were free, and I only came out here to bring you some of my cream puffs because you’re always complaining about the desserts here.” Mr. Atman had never noticed how fat Ed was, and it occurred to him that he should doubt his own perception of Ed. For example in the ward it probably was not unheard of for a patient to wear his bed sheet toga style, but Mr. Atman wondered how Ed supplied himself with ivy wreaths. Crow’s shadow fell on Ed’s face, obscuring the runny wounds in his skull, but pink liquid dribbled down from the shadow and off his jaw when he addressed his mother.
“Thanks ma’.” There was tense silence for a moment while the women exchanged smile/snarls and Ed nervously stuffed his face with cream puff. Finally Meredith conceded.
“Well I’ll let you two get caught up. Ed honey, stop by my room later, ’k?” Her hard eyes remained fixed on Ed’s mother rather than Ed. Once Meredith had left, mother took the place on the bench beside her son and took his arm in both of her sweaty white hands.
“Ed, this is no place for you to be meeting women.” She hissed. Ed clawed at his empty sockets in futility with his free hand while the other brought another cream puff to his mouth.
“I know ma’.” He gave up marring his face and hooked the elastic waistband of his PJ pants with his thumb to stretch them open in front. Mr. Atman left. He did not want to see what came next.
“It’s good to have you back among the living.” Dr. Caerlazi had developed an affection for this patient. Mr. Atman stood out in a ward that (in the doctor’s secret opinion) housed mostly very selfish and malicious people. “The pill they gave you this morning was just a half a prozac. I prescribed that to ease you out of any residual funk after the haze you’ve been in. Are you feeling more clear headed?”
“Yes, much, thank you, Dr. Caerlazi.” Mr. Atman got up from his chair and took down the ashtray from the shelf behind Dr. Caerlazi’s desk and Dr. Caerlazi. He lit a Winston and returned to his seat.
“Do you understand why we tried you on all those medications?”
“Because they’ve all been proven effective against my sort of hallucinations.”
“Well, not exactly your sort; none of them worked on you.” The doctor was coming to a point. “The point I’m coming to is that you don’t show any physical abnormalities, either structural or chemical. So we must examine your hallucinations themselves more closely. Tell me about some of the other people you recognize. A couple of weeks ago you were mumbling something about Ed having no eyes.”
Mr. Atman countered, “Yeah, tell me about him.”
“Do you like Ed? He actually might not be with us much longer. We’ve been talking to his mother about releasing him into her custody.”
“You shouldn’t. He’ll tear himself apart.” The madman’s manner was frank and unassumed as always.
“You think we shouldn’t release him to his mother? That’s very perceptive. I’ve been thinking the same thing as it happens. Every time we send him to his mother he winds up right back with us in a few months, but do you remember what you said about his eyes?”
“No, not specifically, but I’m sure it had something to do with the fact that he’s torn both his eyes out now.” Mr. Atman could see the doctor become thoughtful.
“Are you sure you never read any Greeks?”
“No, but I’m really concerned about this plan, Walt.”
“Who’s Walt?” Frank Caerlazi paused to assess Mr. Atman. “What plan?”
“Ed and his mom.” By the end of the interview, Walt was even less inclined to release Ed to his mother.
“I suspect he’s gotta fascination with the Greeks, but maybe that’s just me.” The recent heat-wave, and the smoke from his colleague’s pipe combined with the two bottles of wine they had finished between the two of them inclined Dr. Caerlazi to unbutton his shirt collar and relax his posture on his living room couch after they had both had their fill of Frank’s meatballs. “His allusions are all over the place, western literature, eastern religion, Native American folklore… You know he called me Walt yesterday?”
Frank’s colleague scratched under his chin whiskers and gave his pipe a contemplative suck. “What’s that? Walt Whitman? Walt Disney?”
“I don’t know!” Frank spilled a little wine on his pants in his exasperation. “Could be Walter Cronkite.” He giggled. “It’s like some kind of code with this guy.”
“If he’s so random, how are you so sure of your analysis?” The interlocutor interjected.
“I’m not but I’m sure of him. His delusions are psychological type indicators. I even got some insights into another case from our last interview… Naw, Atman is just a puzzle I’ve got to piece together.”
The research and writing went well. In college Frank’s professors had told him he was pursuing the wrong field, that he should go into journalism, creative prose or at least theoretical psychology, anywhere that he might better exercise his gift. Now however, the subject matter beckoned him. The material was endless and endlessly yielding. He continued to consult with Mr. Atman about Ed and these meetings provided most of his evidence as well as aptly demonstrating the therapeutic applications of their insights. However, the meat of his book concerned concrete images such as the four-horned dragon and Crow. When he began to extrapolate from Atman’s account of seeing the dragon in the shadow of a blimp, behind a crowd of people at the opening of a mall, Caerlazi allowed himself to launch liberally into social commentary. When he wrote of Atman’s fear of shadows and Crow ever flitting about, he waxed poetic. In the concluding chapter, where Dr. Caerlazi gave himself the freest rhetoric reign he wrote, ’... Mr. A’s vision of the world is as real and sane as the reader’s or the author’s in terms of its universal relevance and comprehendibility. He also called Mr. A a ..’ quixotic character in the sense that Cervantes intended.
Dr. Caerlazi finished his book astoundingly quickly and because he had a small publisher, his book was out on shelves with equally astounding expediency. He was very hopeful despite his publisher’s size because they had deals with bookstores at several influential universities as well as some major mainstream distributors.
Crow flapped about the counselor’s head as she spoke to Joe, who sat on the floor in his ashes: legs splayed, hands fallen carelessly between his legs, and his head, neck and shoulders seemed about to follow his limp arms downward. She sent up a powerful column of her scent but this time Mr. Atman was not disposed to confront it, he lit a real Winston and watched the interchange. “How are you feeling today, Joe?”
“m’k” The wail of Joe Blow’s defeat seemed to rumble from deeper inside Joe, like a fart.
“Is that new medication making things any easier for you?”
“… m-hurz lez” Joe was barely conscious. Mr. Atman watched the old man crawl from his place on the floor into the counselor’s lap and begin nursing at the enormous breast she withdrew and offered him. She conducted the rest of group with Joe Blow securely cradled in her chubby arms.
She asked Ed, “Do you have anything to share with us today?”
Ed looked back at her with vacant cavities and quavered, “I don’t want to stay in the hospital forever just so I won’t have to live with my mom.”
“Well, that’s a very brave thing to admit this way. Of course you still need some supervision, but we’ll talk to the doctors and see what we can work out.” When the counselor finished speaking, her sentiments were punctuated by the blissful slurping of Joe Blow. After the session, Meredith waited around for Ed but he sought out the counselor as soon as everyone got up and she had put Joe down to crawl back to his pile of ashes; then she enveloped Ed in a musky female mist.
At his next meeting with the doctor Mr. Atman seemed mollified regarding Ed and instead wished to discuss Joe Blow. “You should reduce his medication.”
“He’ll try to kill himself again.” Dr. Caerlazi warned, though he was anxious for further evidence of the psychological utility of Atman’s delusions.
“He hasn’t managed so far.” Mr. Atman pointed out. Crow landed on the doctor’s head and bent over to chortle in his ear.
“I see your point. Tell me how Joe appears to you.”
“Pock-marked.” Dr. Caerlazi said nothing while he tapped his middle and index fingers against his lips. Mr. Atman went on. “There’s no salve for those scabs. They’ll have to rasp off painfully over time.”
“I understand,” Dr. Caerlazi said, “and once again you’re very perceptive, Mr. Atman.” In fact, the doctor did later wind up reducing Joe’s prescription.
Meanwhile, the book’s reception was staggering. From college campuses all over the country, Frank started receiving letters announcing the formation of clubs for self-proclaimed Caerlazians. Frank’s colleague reviewed the book for a university magazine/newsletter. In the review he wrote, from a single case study, Dr. Caerlazi has drawn a universal index for diagnosis and classification of the soul.
Group was cancelled for a while with no explanation but Atman saw Rumor walking behind the ranks. When Rumor reached Meredith he bent low to whisper in her ear that an arrangement was made by which Ed was released into his own custody rather than his mother’s; all because the counselor had accepted some kind of homecare-providing position. Meredith rose the roof, and up from the hospital she flew, borne off in a chariot drawn by four dragons. Helen explained to Mr. Atman that she was here by her own request and free to leave when she liked.
Joe Blow came to Atman’s room a few hours later. “They tell me that you see ghosts.”
“I think I do.” Atman looked down on the prostrated Joe Blow.
“How?” Joe Blow looked up to Atman and gathered ashes from the floor to sprinkle on his head.
“Look there.” Atman pointed out the window to the courtyard where they took their smoke breaks. Joe rose to his feet. Atman continued, “There’s a whale out there, a humpback, leviathan. He’s dehydrating. Do you see how he flops about, the havoc he’s wreaking?” Joe looked hard with uncertain eyes. For a while he saw nothing yet, he almost thought he could, a vague outline in the air, an impression on the grass. Atman kept asking, “Do you see how the lawn heaves? Can you feel the ground shaking?”
“I think I can feel the ground shake,” said Joe and he did. Thud-rumble went the earth beneath Joe, thud-rumble until his skinny legs faltered and he fell but as he fell, he could have sworn he caught a glimpse of it. Joe Blow struggled to stand upright and look out on a brave new world. There she was, blue and magnificent, fully thirty yards in length. The leviathan swiped his tail once and knocked over the willow tree that Joe used to lean on while he smoked.
“Come with me, Joe.” Atman led Joe out of his room and down the hall to Joe’s own room. Along the way they passed the shatterproof window looking in on the rec. room. Inside, Joe Blow could see Crow tormenting Jack, who appeared taller and more fearsome then Joe remembered him. The black bird swooped and dove at Jack, pecking at the enormous man’s head and shoulders with each swipe. The enraged giant loosed his anger on the bodies of two long-dead cattle. In the center of the room, and seemingly raised above everyone else, stood Helen.
“She’s beautiful.” Joe’s awe forced him to comment. Atman displayed his top row of teeth in innocent appreciation and approval.
“Perfect” he said.
When they arrived at the door to Joe’s room Atman opened it for him and revealed his wife waiting inside. His children were there too, younger than they had been when the barn burned, the way they were when Joe could still relate to them. His mother, dead twenty years now, was also there. She had just churned up some of the buttermilk that he had hated so much as a child, and missed so strangely after she had died. Joe Blow entered speechless. His eyes brimmed with tears. As Atman shut the door on them Joe’s children were crowding around to greet him and chanting, “Daddy’s home. Daddy’s home.” The next day Joe Blow’s scabs began falling off.
*
Frank’s book sold out the first issue in record time and his publisher had to scramble to get out the second. A group calling themselves The Discipleship began to send informational pamphlets to Dr. Caerlazi. In the pamphlets they announced their devotion to him and their efforts to.. see the world in the universal terms of Mr. A’s example. The pamphlets angered Dr. Caerlazi. He wanted nothing to do with what he deemed a cult; that sort of thing frightened him. Then a man declaring himself the leader of the Discipleship began writing the doctor to request an evaluation for admission to the hospital. At the end of his letters he signed the name Orpheus. The doctor wrote him one damning refusal and then ignored his letters completely. Still, Dr. Caerlazi could not stop the man from trying to commit himself at the front desk, though he refused to see him and with as little explanation as possible, managed to get him turned away at the door time after time. However, during one of these attempts Nurse Turzlee gave him an initial interview before bringing his case to the doctor. From that interview Helen first learned that Dr. Caerlazi had written a book and she decided to check it out for herself.
The second edition had hit the shelves that week so she was shocked at how easy it was to find. She read it over the weekend in a state of complete absorption. A couple of pages into the chapter devoted to Mr. A’s perceptions of her she set down the book and went to the mirror in her bathroom. She looked at her face set against the pink and cream colored tile, lit softly by the light fixture she had selected for its flattering effect. ‘Beautiful,’ she thought, ‘I never noticed how beautiful.’ For some time she had felt the eyes of men on her like never before. She had recognized envy in the voices of women. Gradually, she had begun to see herself differently but now the change was abrupt and radical. She removed her clothes and stepped back and up onto the rim of the bathtub so she could see all of herself. In the mirror, behind her own image, the tub morphed into a clamshell. She took a towel down from the curtain rod and held it demurely over her breasts with one arm. It twirled about her in an inexplicable breeze, there being only one closed window in the bathroom. Helen saw cherubim fluttering over her in the mirror.
When she returned to work her absent-mindedness was so inexcusable that the junior nurse felt she would certainly be reprimanded if the predominately male staff had not suddenly become so taken with her. Helen kept the book with her to read over passages until, in keeping with her new manner, she misplaced it at work and it fell into Atman’s hands. Around the time that Atman was starting his drug treatments, Dr. Caerlazi had once casually asked him whether he would mind if the doctor cited his case in a book he was working on, with the understanding that he would take pains to conceal Mr. Atman’s identity. Atman had assented and signed one of the standard release forms the doctor had kept in his office since he had begun his book. Atman only dimly recollected this after finding the finished book between the cushions of one of the benches in the rec. room. The doctor had never mentioned his decision to shift the book’s focus. Mr. Atman marveled at his thinly veiled identity thus presented like a pair of opera glasses to be passed around for everyone to look through, down upon the choreography of life.
Crow sat in judgment on Atman’s shoulder throughout his next interview with Dr. Caerlazi. It was late afternoon when they met, which was counter to their custom but Frank’s schedule had recently become encumbered by meetings with his publisher, book signings, and even a photo shoot for the jacket of the third edition. Sunlight came in low through the western window casting long shadows on the carpet. Crow’s beady eyes trained on the doctor as Atman lit a phantom cigarette before he made known his discovery.
“I found a copy of your book.” Dr. Caerlazi squirmed a bit upon hearing this. In his revelatory enthusiasm he had never considered whether there might be ethical considerations involved in changing his project after the release was signed. He had told Atman that he planned to draw on his clinical experience in general, which might include Atman. He did not say he intended to write a book about Atman. Of course the doctor was certain that the release was still binding, but for the first time he began to feel like he might have misrepresented himself.
“I assume you recognized yourself. What did you think?” Frank spread out his palms receptively.
“I liked it. I didn’t realize you granted such validity to my perceptions.” Crow shook out his feathers and crouched lower on Atman’s shoulder.
“The validity is in their universal nature, Mr. Atman. Your misperceptions manifest particularly vividly, themes which can be found throughout human psychology for all of history.” Frank tilted his chair and leaned back from the desk so he could rest his ankle on his knee. Atman looked different. The flash in his eyes contradicted the image Dr. Caerlazi had of him as an idiot savant.
“Is that universal aspect like the agreement we have about the color of the yellow pencil in your shirt pocket, like the agreement we would find we shared regarding the color of that same pencil with a woman from ancient China if one were here? She’d have another word for it.” Mr. Atman paused thoughtfully for a moment but the doctor sensed that he was not through. “Is it like a mathematical truth, though different mathematicians may have different proofs for it?” The doctor had not offered the ashtray so Atman tapped imaginary ash off the end of his smoke onto the carpet. Dr. Caerlazi was greatly taken aback. His mouth gaped wordlessly in uncomprehending amazement. Atman went on. “To be brief, my point is that my ideas, my perceptions and the products of my imagination are my intellectual property. Just because you’re crazy doesn’t mean you’re stupid, Dr. Caerlazi, and it also doesn’t mean that you’re without resources. I prefer to have my lawyers handle this sort of thing and I think it’s best if we don’t meet until you’ve had a chance to talk things over with them.” With that Atman rose from his seat and departed sententiously. Frank stared after, slack-jawed. After a long moment, the doctor shook his head and took the pencil from his shirt pocket to jot down some notes. It was then that he realized that his pencil was green.
Orpheus must have had influence because Dr. Caerlazi’s superiors sent him a memo informing him that Orpheus was to be admitted. When he got the message he immediately cancelled his next appointment and dashed off a disgruntled letter that explained his reasons for refusing to treat this patient.
The doctor’s week continued along a downward slope from its inauspicious beginning. On Orpheus’ heels came Disciples in droves. Dr. Caerlazi’s job became entangled in screening these zealots out of the regular nuts. On Tuesday he had three applicants; on Wednesday, five. By Thursday they were getting sneakier and it took extensive discussion for the doctor to confirm his suspicions and reject them. Nurse Turzlee’s interviews were worthless lately, but then Helen was Helen. By Friday Frank admitted two men because their stories left enough doubt in his mind that he could not in good conscience refuse them treatment. Anyway, he figured that it would behoove him to keep an eye on this developing phenomenon.
Frank had other reasons to feel defeated by the end of the week. When Mr. Atman’s lawyer called, Caerlazi gave him the number of a lawyer his literary agent had recommended. Later, when he met with this attorney, who had seemed so slick and composed when they were introduced, the man looked frightened and he was much more pessimistic. By the end of the week, his lawyer’s fear had passed over to Frank.
With no group therapy and no intention of making his appointments with Dr. Caerlazi, Atman spent most of his week in the rec. room, reading over the book, watching his fellow inmates, smoking cigarettes. On one such day there was an altercation between Jack and Joe. The fight had already begun when Joe raced into the rec. room with Jack in pursuit. Jack called after him. In his hand he held a small paper cup.
“Mr. Blow you have to take your medication. If you think it’s not helping, you should consult the doctor.” Joe dashed about the room keeping at least one piece of furniture between himself and the lumbering giant at all times.
“I don’t want it! I can’t even talk to my kids when I take that shit!” Joe was surprisingly fast for his age and the difficulty of catching him vexed Jack. He snorted in exasperation.
“Your kids are dead, damn it!” Jack surveyed the room. For a long time his eyes rested on Helen who hesitated indecisively and returned his stare with large round eyes. The junior nurse was also there but she was so conditioned to take her cues from Nurse Turzlee that she too was effectively paralyzed by the senior nurse’s uncertainty. Jack saw her eyes dart for an instant to Atman and he turned to face him. “This is your fault. You put this crap in his head. You’ve got everyone all screwed up so they can’t tell lunatics from normal people.” He glanced back at Nurse Turzlee for a moment, “I guess that No Smoking sign doesn’t apply to Mr. Atman.” The nurse followed his finger to a sign just like the one she had pointed out to Mr. Atman herself in the course of his initial interview, but she said nothing. The sign no longer looked the way she knew it always had. In the center of a circle it clearly read Smoking Area. There was no slash across the words. When she looked closer she realized that the circle was a serpent biting it’s own tail. Jack returned his attention to Atman. “I know what you’re up to!” Atman watched unblinking and smoked. Joe stepped out from behind the bench.
“You don’t know shi…” Before he could finish Jack connected a right hook with the older man’s chin. Jack caught him as he was falling and forced open his mouth to accept the pills and then held it closed until he was satisfied that Joe had swallowed them.
“I’m keeping my eye on you,” he said, pointing at Atman and left dumping Joe to the floor. Joe began to weep. Helen remained rooted to the spot she had occupied when Jack had originally chased Joe into the room. Atman recommenced his reading unperturbed, until three patients, whom Atman had never met, approached him.
“Are you Mr. A?” asked the one in front. Mr. Atman continued reading without looking up but he raised the book a little for them to see and said,
“So I gather.” The threesome adopted various submissive postures before the seated Atman.
“We are your Disciples, Caerlazians.” Mr. Atman finally lifted his head to see the small prostrate group.
“My name’s Atman.” He presented a generous grin to all three after speaking. They looked to one another and nodded. The one in front spoke again.
“I am called Orpheus. I guide your Disciples in their efforts to see this world in your universal terms. That is why I have made this pilgrimage to hear your teachings, but after what we have just seen I fear for your safety. I am afraid that that man would obscure your vision. He persecutes your follower Joe Blow.”
“Who, Jack?” Atman asked with surprise. “He’s just flailing his cows. He doesn’t know what he’s doing.” Once again all three exchanged appreciative glances.
“I see,” said Orpheus.
Atman continued to talk with his Disciples for the rest of the week, at the end of which Dr. Caerlazi had Atman brought to his office. Jack seemed to still hold a grudge against Atman and beat his cows in silence while he waited for him.
The doctor was persuaded to capitulate but in his own office he expected an advantage so he planned to start off by offering Atman a small percentage of royalties and see what kind of deal he could work out. He had altered his perception of Atman considerably in the last week and when this man, whom he had once considered so quiet and demure, was escorted into his office, he scrutinized him with fresh eyes.
“You’re not crazy.” Dr. Caerlazi stated.
“I never said I was, and beside which I certainly don’t need your advice on that. I’m the goddamn psychological index.” Atman saw Caerlazi’s brow furrow.
“Where did you hear that?” There was anxiety in the doctor’s voice, which he himself did not understand.
“From your colleague.” Atman leaned back and again Frank noticed that gleam in his eye, so discordant with what the doctor knew of his character.
“What colleague? Where?” Frank leaned across the desk. His eyes scanned Atman frantically.
“Orpheus. Here in the hospital. Don’t you even..?” Mr. Atman did not finish his question because Dr. Caerlazi flew from his chair, out the office door, and down the hall to the room that he knew had been assigned to Orpheus. He threw open the door to find the room empty. Helen passed by just then and explained.
“Most of the patients are out on smoke break with Jack.” The doctor crossed Orpheus’ room to look out the window on the courtyard. There were several patients clustered under the shade of a willow tree. At the center of them Orpheus puffed his pipe and stroked his beard. The doctor returned to his office near shock. He wound up agreeing to concede fifty percent of his royalties and co-authorship to Mr. Atman.
He had already been asked to appear on several talk shows. Some part of himself he regarded as juvenile relished this prospect but after his settlement, most of his interviews became explanations about the change in the book jackets of the last issue and then a more personal description of Atman than the one in the book. In one of his last interviews he announced that Mr. Atman and he were working together on a new book, but he could not say when it would be out. From these appearances and his fan mail he noticed that, slowly at first, people talked less and less of the Caerlazian movement and more and more they referred to the Atmania in which everyone seemed caught up.
One night Jack came into Atman’s room to kill him. He stole a paperweight from the nurse’s station to bash in Atman’s head. He left signs that the station had been broken into and he wore dishwashing gloves so that the guilt could be pinned on any one of the many likely candidates to be found in the lockdown ward. He had checked the hinge during the day to make certain it would not squeak at night when he cracked the door open admitting a wedge of light which he instantly blocked with his large frame as he sidled through the narrow aperture and closed it silently behind him. In the dark he advanced with remarkable stealth for his size, accompanied only by the whispered chuff of his sneakers. He sneaked past the foot of Atman’s bed to the side by the window and bent over him blocking the moonlight that shone upon him. He gloated over the helpless form engulfed in his shadow. “Did you think I’d let you pull it off right under my nose? Did you think I’d fall for it like the rest of them?” He hissed.
Jack lifted the paperweight above his head and grimaced with rage, and then before his eyes the man became a white stallion with a black streak down his nose. Jack faltered. He dropped the paperweight and rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. “No.” He said. Though he shook and gritted his teeth from the effort to suppress them, tears ran hotly down his scarlet cheeks and hiccuping sobs escaped him. “No!” He bellowed and fell upon the horse pummeling him. In the heat of his malice he pulled off his belt and lashed the beast out of bed. Jack chased the frightened horse about the room for a minute and then cornered it and beat it mercilessly before he stepped back to open the door and drove the braying beast before him into the rec. room.
All the ward inmates were already out in the hall to find the cause of the crash, clatter and cries that had awakened them. Jack drove the horse into the rec. room and turned on the crowd brandishing his belt. “You want to see your guru now?” He demanded and spun on his heel towards Orpheus. “Come on,” he sneered, “let’s try to see this in the universal terms of Mr. A.” Jack grabbed Orpheus by the hair and dragged him into the rec. room after him.
He flung Orpheus to the floor and locked the door behind him. All of the other patients pressed against the shatterproof glass and watched through the grid of wire reinforcement with voiceless astonishment. The only other person on duty was the security guard, lost in the pages of Dr. Caerlazi’s book, in the chair behind the desk outside the double locked doors to the ward.
Jack approached the frightened horse carefully, quickly moving to intercept if it tried to break left or right. As they rounded the room, they passed through the darkened corner of the group therapy table. In the center of the table, Jack saw a long curved knife with an ornate gold handle. It glinted in a light that appeared not to shine on any of its surroundings. He picked it up and snarled with sinister satisfaction. He tested the edge against his thumb and raising his thumb to his mouth, licked away the blood he had drawn.
He was driven by forces beyond himself. He lunged and stabbed the horse between the ribs. The stallion’s blood flowed
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