by Kol Anderson
“It’s not crazy,” I say.
“Oh sure,” Jacob says. “A paranoid guy who thinks he got raped by aliens. If someone came to me with that story, I’d kick them to the curb.”
“Well I’m not thinking that.”
“Fine.”
“Jacob, can I ask you something?”
“Of course.”
“Do you struggle with suicidal thoughts?”
“Sometimes, I guess. Doesn’t everyone?”
“Not everyone. Have you always had suicidal feelings?”
“Well, sure.”
“Do you think you have them more now? After the incident?”
“Abduction, you mean?”
“Yes.”
“Say it.”
“Jacob—”
“I want to hear you say the word ‘abduction.’ Don’t treat me like I’m an idiot.”
“Since the abduction,” I say. “Would you say you’ve been struggling with suicidal feelings more or less?”
“More, I guess.”
I jot that down in my notepad. Then I take out a business card, hand it over to him. “Take this number,” I say. “If you ever feel like you’re struggling with those feelings, you can give me a call.”
He takes the card and stares at it. “Thanks.”
“So,” I say. “Tell me about your love life, Jacob.”
“What love life?” he says, stashing my card inside his jeans pocket.
“Don’t you have a girlfriend?”
“No.”
“Boyfriend?”
“I haven’t been in a relationship since I broke up with Anna.”
“Well then tell me about her.”
“Anna is this beautiful, sweet girl,” he says. “We met at a poetry meet up. I fell in love with her the first time I saw her.”
“How long ago was this?”
“About, two years.”
“How long did you two go out?”
“I don’t know,” he says. “Few months.”
“What happened?”
“What always happens,” he says. “She got sick of me.”
“What makes you say that?”
“I’m not exactly boyfriend material,” he says. “I don’t have a job. I’ve been on disability since—you know my overdose four, five years back. Anyway, so since then I just feel like I’m not myself. So I got it when someone dumped me.”
“When you say you’re not yourself,” I say. “What exactly does that mean?”
“Well, you know I’m just, kind of different now. I get tired easily. I can’t even fuck like I used to.”
“Do you feel like you lack the energy to do things, is that it?”
“I guess.”
“Even the energy to smile or have fun?”
“Pretty much.”
I note that down also. “Did you tell this to the doctors you visited?”
“Yeah.”
“Did they give you something for it?”
“They gave me all sorts of meds. I took them and for a while, they helped. Maybe two months. I thought it was great. But then, the same thing you know? So I quit taking them.”
“You’re not taking any medication at the moment?”
“None.”
I write down a note to find out more about this. There’s a knock on the office door, the assistant telling me that it’s time for the next appointment. Jacob looks a little disturbed when he hears it. By now he knows what it means as well. “Jacob,” I say. “I will see you Wednesday.”
Still uncomfortable, he gets up. “Doc,” he says. “I just…I wanted to thank you.”
“For what?”
“For taking this seriously. I really appreciate it.”
“Anytime, Jacob.”
***
Kirsten is just back from work when I reach home, already sipping her customary post-work glass of red wine. “Hi baby,” she says. “You look tired.”
I go over to the living room couch, sit next to her. “I’ve just been a bit preoccupied with this case,” I tell her, pouring myself some of the wine in the glass she has set aside for me. “I was doing some research.”
“That boy again?” she says. “The one with the alien abduction story?”
“Yes.”
“Well, what did you find?”
“I don’t want to bore you with this.”
“No, Evan. I want to know.”
“Here’s the thing,” Evan says. “He says he was gone and doesn’t have any concept of how long he was in the alien world.”
“Right.”
“Well, the cops claim the car crash happened on a Tuesday night. When they found him it was Saturday. He went all this time without food and water but he wasn’t as dehydrated as he should have been.”
“What’re you saying?” Kirsten says. “Are you starting to believe him or something?”
“No, of course not. It’s just, I’m curious where he was for three whole days because he couldn’t have gone back. His car was a wreck. The nearest stop was miles away from where they found him. Not to mention he had suffered serious injuries at the time.”
“Why is this important?”
“Feel like if I can crack this code, I might get somewhere with him.”
***
That night I’ve gone to bed when my cell phone rings. Not a lot of people have this number so I pick it up. “Hello?”
“Mr. Cunningham?” I can hear Jacob’s voice.
“Jacob?”
“I…I think I need your help.”
***
Jacob is at the coffee shop and as I go inside, he follows. I get decaf but he says he refuses to get anything. “Mr. Cunningham,” he says. “I’m so sorry to bother you.”
“Call me Evan,” I say. “And don’t worry about it.”
I notice he looks tense, wired. “Jacob what is it?”
“They want me to go,” he says.
“What?”
“They…they said it was time to go, I don’t get why they’re doing this! Why they won’t just leave me alone.” It’s obvious he’s petrified. His hands are shaking.
“When did they tell you this?”
“Voices,” Jacob says. “I hear them, I don’t know, like a…like a scrambled signal. I hear them talking to me. And they’re…they’re talking in another language but I can understand them. I don’t know how but I just do!”
“What did they say exactly?”
“Simply that I had to go.”
“Maybe they’re trying to scare you.”
“No,” he says, biting a fingernail. “No! No they never just scare you! They…they…oh god! I don’t want to go! Please, can you help me?”
“Jacob,” I say. “Would you try taking medication?”
“No!” he says. “I’m not taking any drugs until I figure out what the hell is going on! If you push pills on me, I swear I’m going to leave and never come back!”
“Fine,” I say. “Look, we can’t do anything about the voices, right? But if they show themselves, or say something important, you’ll let me know?”
“Okay.”
“You promise?”
He thinks this through. “Okay, I promise.”
“No matter what happens Jacob, you can’t go with them now do you understand that?”
“Okay,” he says.
“Are you getting any sleep?”
“Some. I get nightmares.”
“Will you let me give you something for that at least?”
“You don’t understand,” he says. “They…they gave me something. I don’t know, I can feel it inside me like a potent drug. What if the medicines interact with it? I could die, right?”
“Right.”
“I’m sorry I’m being so stubborn.”
I get up and pay for the coffee. When I come out, he’s standing there, as though waiting for me to say something or waiting to say something to me. I shake his hand. “Goodnight, Jacob.”
“Goodnight, Evan.” He says
and turns his back to me.
***
When I’m getting in bed, Kirsten wakes up. “Where were you?” she says. “I was worried! You left your phone here.”
“I’m sorry,” I say, getting under the covers. “It was sort of urgent. Thought it might be an emergency but it’s okay. Everything’s fine now.”
“What kind of emergency?”
“Can we talk about this in the morning?”
“Was it him?” Kirsten says. “Evan, did the boy call you up?”
“Yes.”
“Is he in trouble? Shouldn’t you call someone?”
“He’s not in trouble,” I say. “He just needed someone to talk to.”
“That’s not standard procedure, Evan.”
“I know that.”
“So why did you do it?”
“Kirsten, he’s just a lonely kid in need of someone to listen to him. What’s the big deal?”
Kirsten rolls her eyes and turns the other way. “Goodnight!” she says and turns off the bedside lamp.
JACOB
Just when I think I can be safe again, it appears.
The same symbol, the one I saw on those creatures’ walls, the one they used to place their palms on to open doors, it appears out of nowhere, on one of the walls in my room, the one that’s across from my bed. The same odd geometry, like no other I’ve ever seen before. I try touching it, try placing my palms on it, nothing happens. And then, the symbol starts to glow.
EVAN
“Another Jack and Coke,” I yell at the bartender to be heard over the throbbing music. There are women there, extremely pretty, young things who are dancing and I know Kirsten will hate me for this. When I get my drink, I see a familiar face looking at me from across the room. I wave to Jacob and he comes over to my side and orders shots. He sits there, downing one shot after another as I nurse my second drink.
“Don’t you think it’s a bit loud in here?” Jacob says.
“I think that’s kind of the idea,” I say.
“I thought you were married.”
“How do you know?”
“I did my research.”
“Right.”
“I’m not judging you,” he says. “I’m just curious.”
I wish then Jacob wasn’t my patient, but some guy I came to the bar with who I could unload to. “We can talk about that some other time,” I try to dodge the question.
“So,” Jacob says. “I’m going back to my place, you want to come?”
“I don’t know. Not sure if that’s a good idea.”
“Right,” he says.
The look on his face says he’s disappointed but I know it’s more than that.
He needs this.
“You’re my patient,” I say, trying to convince the both of us.
“Of course, I know.”
“Tell you what,” I say, finishing the Jack-and-Coke. “Maybe tonight I’ll make an exception.”
***
“Didn’t take you for the strip club type,” I say when we get outside and start walking toward his place.
“To be honest, this is not something I usually do.”
“No?”
“I saw you here once,” Jacob says. “And I was kind of hoping I’d run into you again.”
“Were you stalking me?” I say as a joke.
He gets serious. “No,” he says. “Look, I’m not…I’m not some crazy stalker…”
“Jacob, I was only joking.”
“Oh, okay.”
We walk in silence for some time. “It’s just,” he says. “When I talk to you, I feel…I feel like myself again.”
“Is everything okay?”
“No.”
“Tell me what is it?”
“They…they’re watching me now.”
“What? How?”
“In my room,” he says. “There’s this…this um…this thing…like a…like a pattern you know, like a geometric design but like nothing you’ve ever seen. I’ve seen it before when they, you know, when I was there. And now it just appeared in my room. That’s how they’re keeping an eye on me, I know it.”
“Can I see it?”
EVAN
I stare at the ‘symbol’ Jacob has brought me to see.
We’re in his tiny apartment which is too small for the both of us to even be in there.
“Do you see now?” Jacob says. “Unreal, isn’t it?”
I stare again at the crack in front of me, tempted to tell him what it really is but I can’t do that. People who are so far gone in their delusions generally don’t do well with this sort of thing. “Yeah,” I say, unsure what I’m even supposed to see in a wall crack.
“What if they see you? I don’t want you to get into trouble because of me. Maybe you shouldn’t be here.”
“Jacob,” I say. “I don’t think you should worry about that.”
He takes off his coat, sits on a chair and I settle on the bed. “You never told me why you were at the strip club?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “I guess sometimes I need to be myself without someone telling me how to be myself. Don’t get me wrong, I love my wife but sometimes our whole thing exhausts me.”
“How long have you been married?” he asks.
“Let’s see,” I say. “We got married when I was thirty-two and I’m thirty-five now, so three years give or take.”
“I thought you’d know that by heart,” Jacob says. “But you had to think about it.”
“Yeah, well. I guess I’ve become so used to it I’ve stopped keeping count.”
“Sure,” Jacob says. “But you remembered how old you were. Do you think maybe it’s because you wish you weren’t married? That you think you made a mistake, maybe that’s why your subconscious doesn’t like to think about it?”
“You ask the toughest questions sometimes.”
“Do you love her?”
“Yes.”
“You paused.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“You did.”
“I didn’t come here so you could psychoanalyze me.”
“But you psychoanalyze me all the time.”
“Jacob?”
“Yes?”
“Did you hear the voices again?”
“Some.”
“What’re they saying now?”
“They’re quiet.”
“They are?”
“I mean I still hear them once in a while but mostly it’s just quiet nowadays.”
“That’s a good thing, right?”
“I have no idea.”
***
I wake up in Jacob’s bed, with a hangover. “Fuck,” I say when I realize I haven’t gone home all night. My cell phone has like fifty missed calls. Jacob is standing by the stove, cooking something and the whole place smells like eggs.
“Your phone’s been ringing all night,” Jacob says.
“How did I…?”
“You passed out while we were talking,” Jacob says. “Seemed rude to wake you, so I let you sleep.”
“Kirsten’s going to be pissed,” I say, picking up my coat. “How the hell did I pass out on two drinks!!”
Jacob brings the breakfast over to the bed. “Why don’t you have breakfast and then you can go?”
“I can’t,” I say, rushing out the door.
But then I see Jacob’s face, and the two plates of breakfast and the two cups of coffee. “Maybe just a quick bite,” I say, going back to the bed and reaching for a fork.
JACOB
They strap me in.
It’s not like one of the rooms I’ve seen before, this time it’s some cold, brightly lit room. They stuff something in my mouth and force me to lie still. They’re talking amongst themselves and in the beginning I don’t understand but then they force a probe through my arm. It hurts and I scream but they won’t let go of me. And then everything goes blank.
EVAN
“You could be screaming at the top of your lungs and no one will hear you,”
Jacob says. He’s in my office again, and he looks terrified, worse than when he came here first. “They’re angry you know? I can feel it. I don’t know their language but I can feel them ever since they implanted that thing inside me.”
“Jacob,” I say. “Are you saying you had another encounter?”
“Yes,” he says. “That’s exactly what happened. Look,” he lifts his arm to show me a wound and some serious cuts and then he shows me the other arm which looks pretty much the same. “They tortured me.”
I have to make an effort to keep my voice down. “Jacob,” I say. “When did this happen?”
“I don’t know,” Jacob says. “Yesterday I think.”
“What was it like?”
“Horrible,” he says. “I was scared. So scared and I…I kept thinking about you. I was afraid they weren’t going to let me come back this time. I kept thinking what you’d think of me, if that happened. If I suddenly disappeared. I didn’t want to do that.”
“What do you think they want?”
Jacob shakes his head. “I don’t know,” he says. “But they’re angry. They’re…they’re really angry.”
There’s a knock on my door, which means it’s time for my next appointment and I know this isn’t standard behavior but I tell Jacob to meet me after work and he agrees.
***
I buy us both coffee and donuts and we’re at the park, sitting on a bench. It’s getting late so there are not a lot of children left but there are still some families roaming about and couples, walking, running, having fun together. Jacob looks at a couple sharing an ice-cream cone. “I know why you brought me here,” he says.
“You do?”
“Is this the part where I’m supposed to have an epiphany?” Jacob asks. “The part where I realize I’m having delusions or hallucinations or whatever and I’m supposed to quit this whole thing? So you can go home and be free of me?”
“Jacob, that’s not it.”
He stands. “The aliens,” he says. “They tell me things.”