The Wrath of Jeremy

by Stephen Andrew Salamon

  The doctor echoed her nails off of her wooden chair, by tapping it hard, forcing Jeremy’s ears to hear only that, and then her voice followed. “Jeremy, I don’t know a lot about your situation. With Doctor Andrews passing, his work with you became very important in finding a cure, or at least working toward one. His files offered me some relevant knowledge about your sickness, yet I don’t know a whole lot about it, like I said to your parents. I know what might possibly help you, which I spoke to your parents about, and they agreed, but what I’ll do right now is call them in here, so they can explain to me when this all began, and what I can do for you to help you. Okay?”

  He nodded his head slightly, and the doctor opened the door and his parents walked in. They sat on both sides of him, holding onto both of his hands, and waiting for the doctor to speak. They watched as she breathed, wondering which breath was going to be the one with the inevitable words of relief that they all waited for a long time to hear: a cure. She kept on breathing, like she was teasing them with each inhalation she took, but finally she started speaking with integrity, “Now, before we begin, I would like to tell you that there are others out there with your problem, Jeremy.”

  A smile, like Heaven’s aura of light showing itself for the first time to a child of angelic innocence, was shining in Jeremy’s eyes of brown, frolicking around his confused soul, and gliding toward his mind, that some hope would be possible to change his eyes, his perception of what he saw when his mysterious attacks occurred. The room seemed more comfortable now, with his skin blocking out the bitter cold of the air-conditioning, and the light from the window seemed more blissful to Jeremy, waiting with a smile for the doctor to go on with her words of importance.

  Maybe she can help me…. Chanting those words over and over again in his mind, Jeremy spoke to the doctor: “Really?”

  She smiled at Jeremy’s eyes, and replied, “Yes, Jeremy, there are. But first, before I explain or begin, I have to ask you some questions. These are for my own personal references on your sickness. Okay, Jeremy?”

  “Okay.”

  The doctor pulled out a pen and scratch paper, while Jeremy and his parents waited tolerantly, patiently, his mother stopping her tears by wiping them away with a pink tissue, while still holding onto Jeremy’s trembling hand, waiting for the trembling to lessen so she could feel a bit better about Jeremy’s own fear of what he saw, but the trembling only worsened. It grew stronger at every breath he took, even though he felt a bit better at the doctor saying there were others out there with the same issues. He still was frightened of the mysterious illness that he didn’t even know was an illness. His breath grew larger, wider, expressing his nerves through his trembles, taunting his dread through his sweat that glided off his face like water on ice. Finally the doctor questioned, “First of all, Jeremy, how old are you and when is your birthday?”

  “I’m, ah, seventeen, and my birthday is December twenty-fifth.”

  “When did you start seeing these… statues moving?”

  “He started seeing them on his seventeenth birthday. That was his first experience,” his mother interrupted, showing her tears to them all again, and the anger in her voice for the first time. She was angry toward the situation, her son, this room, and her impatience was revealed through her tone.

  “Mom, she was talking to me!” Jeremy screamed with a roar of confusion and a twist of fear. His mother gawked at him for a moment, not understanding the true confusion he felt, yet acknowledging his subliminal cry for help, and going on with her own words of tears.

  The mother cried, “He also started to get like this on his seventeenth birthday. He never used to talk to me like this before, never!”

  Jeremy stared subtly toward a holy cross of wood that hung on the wall by the doctor. As he stared, the doctor spoke. “Have these statues or objects ever physically touched you before?” Jeremy didn’t answer back, still gawking at the cross, she questioned, “Jeremy? Are you alright?”

  The cross fell from the wall it hung so gracefully upon and soared to the ground, with Jeremy shooting up from his seated position and fiercely running toward the door of the office, screaming, “You see, it’s happening again!”

  The doctor rushed and picked up the cross, holding it in her palms carefully, and said, “Jeremy, Jeremy, it’s alright—it was just a truck that passed outside. It always happens.” She grabbed Jeremy lightly and tenderly by his cold arms and guided him delicately back to where he was sitting, adding, “It’s alright, don’t worry.”

  “So it was a truck, right?” After Jeremy’s question, he noticed her smiling, knowing he could trust her. Jeremy knew that every time a cross fell it usually meant it only fell in his sight, not in reality, but since they saw it as well, he knew everything was fine.

  After the doctor sat down again, she smiled once more and said, “Yes, it was only a truck. Alright, Jeremy, I think it’s time to tell you about the other people who have the same problem you’re suffering from.”

  “How many are there?” Jeremy asked.

  “So far there are two others. You see, I run a mental institution in San Francisco. And a boy, whose name is Michael Netter, developed this problem about a month ago. He also has a brother named Gabriel, who also has the problem. But his situation isn’t as severe as Michael’s,” the doctor explained before the mother got up and ran out of the room, with the aroma of pure suffering left in her wake. Her sadness and melancholy toward her own son were too grand and large in mass to handle in this small, freezing cold room of sunshine.

  Jeremy’s eyes brightened with glee, a prosperous spin of faith in him, as he said with enthusiasm, “Wait a second, so that means that I’m not a schizophrenic?”

  The doctor nodded her head again with a smile. “Correct, Jeremy, you don’t have that particular sickness. I know that Doctor Andrews told your parents that he was almost positive you did, but it’s not true. I don’t even know why he told you that.”

  The father sighed in happiness, hugged Jeremy and asked, “So what does he have?”

  The mother returned to the room, sneaking her way in through the crack of the door, and felt the coldness of the room again flushing against her shallow, wrinkled skin of sadness. She heard her husband’s question, and asked herself, “What does who have?”

  The mother, with such a beautiful name, Grace, sat down next to Jeremy again, and listened to the doctor say, “We don’t know exactly, but the institution, called Grewsal, will help.”

  Jeremy was scared once again, knowing that an institution for crazy people would be his new home. Jeremy mumbled, “But isn’t a mental institution for people who are nuts, doctor?”

  “No, Jeremy, don’t worry, you’ll love it there.”

  Jeremy gazed out the window again, toward the cotton-like clouds, while listening to them judge his fate. He was too afraid to say that he didn’t want to go, but knowing that he had to. His father smiled a bit, and said, “When does Jeremy leave?”

  “Well, Mr. and Mrs. Daven, if you want, I could take him with me today. I was going to stay here for another two days, but I got an emergency call a little while ago. Since the institution is in San Francisco, we really should leave as soon as possible. With the tests they run on Jeremy there, and with prayer, he hopefully will be back here soon. Do you mind?”

  The mother and father shook their heads, with Grace replying, “No, not at all.”

  The father shook his head as well, while Jeremy still gazed out the window in anger, craving to defend his rights to stay here, but waiting for his father to answer the doctor’s question as well. The father spoke: “No, not at all.”

  Jeremy abruptly turned and faced them all, shouting with rage, “Wait just a darn second! I have school and friends here. I really don’t think it’s a good idea for me to go to a mental institution in the beginning of the school year!”

  “Fred, talk to him,” Grace said to his father, her husband. He took Jeremy by the arm and pulled him to the other end of the roo
m, and began speaking man-to-man with him. He looked at Jeremy with puppy-like eyes that showed the sadness and fatigue that weighed on his mind, the sadness that the father had never shown before, and the thoughts that Jeremy had himself.

  “Now, listen, Jeremy, don’t you want to get better? If you stay here, the sickness is only going to get worse and you know that. Ever since—,” said the father before a tear fell from his left eye. He stopped his words and wiped it away quickly, knowing that he never showed Jeremy, his son, his own tears before, not desiring Jeremy to think he was weak. Jeremy saw his father’s tears, trying to study them, being that this was his first glimpse of them. The father then continued. “Ever since you turned seventeen, this sickness has been getting worse every day…. Now, this nice doctor is offering a chance for you to get healed.”

  Jeremy then began crying, watched his mother from a distance, gazed at the doctor for an instant, and then, looking directly into his father’s eyes, he said, “I know, Dad, but I don’t want to go to a mental institution. I want to stay here in Viewpoint with you and Mom.” Jeremy showed his words were that of pleading, but his father gave him a tight hug, one to say “goodbye,” an embrace that’s meaning was known even in silence.

  “Jeremy—I want my old son back—is that a lot to ask?” Jeremy pulled away from the hug of deep meaning, confusing his own meaning of staying with the feeling of not wanting to go to the institution. He didn’t know if it was because he was afraid to leave his family, or he was afraid to see that place with the frightening name of “Grewsal”. Maybe it was both, but some instinct in him told Jeremy that it was something more that wasn’t exactly clear to him, and he would have to go to Grewsal to discover it.

  Jeremy turned his head toward his mother and then the doctor. He tried to figure out if he could trust this doctor again, and then she smiled toward him. Her smile shone from her face, with trust glistening through it. He turned his face toward his father again and said, “Alright, Dad, I’ll go, but only for a month.”

  Fred grasped onto Jeremy again, hugging him tight, his embrace showing to Jeremy that he was trying to say “thank you”. It was a different hug this time, not a hug of “goodbye” anymore, but a hug of love and trust, hope and faith, and that made Jeremy give a small smile of liberation from his panic.

  Later on that day, before Jeremy went home with his parents to pack his belongings, the doctor went for a walk with him near a park. The doctor told his parents she would drive him home after their walk, a stroll to open up more of Jeremy’s trust toward her and get to know Jeremy more. So they went for a slow stroll in the beautiful weather and the angelic park of nature, yet it was a dragging walk to Jeremy, due to the fact he really didn’t want to go at all to San Francisco with the doctor and sought only to forget about his sickness; but he knew that was impossible. As they walked through the park, with grass of green and sky of blue, Jeremy explained his life story slowly, leaving out some details, but still explaining it.

  “So, do you have any siblings, Jeremy?”

  Jeremy replied, “No, ma’am, I’m an only child.” They both sat down on a park bench and gazed out into the distance.

  This is happening so fast…. As he thought those words, the silence became deafening and uncomfortable, waiting for the doctor to speak again. Should I trust her…?

  He stared at her beautiful face for a second, with her saying, “Listen, you don’t have to call me ‘ma’am,’ my name is Mary—Mary Callahan.”

  “Alright, Mary.”

  Jeremy showed a smile, but still was a little hesitant toward her kind character, a character who showed true friendliness and caring; a character trait that a person would show only if they sought something.

  Mary glanced down at Jeremy’s wrists and saw a single scar on each of them, with a bit of make-up trying to cover them up, as if he placed make-up over them before and it was now coming off slowly. “So, Jeremy, do you want to tell me about your scars?”

  Jeremy’s mood automatically changed to fear, stress, a sudden bit of terror, knowing the scars were a passageway to some secret he had hidden in him for years, and thought the make-up that he has been wearing to cover them would have been enough to do just that. But he looked down and saw them showing, one scar on each of his wrists looking like a dot, as if someone, or himself, jammed a pencil into them, only to leave behind the reminiscences, memories of that experience by this dot of burnt red. So he looked up slowly and answered, “Oh, you mean my bicycle accident. Yeah, I cover it up so people won’t think I jammed a pencil into my wrists.”

  “Oh, really? Because according to your grammar school records, in seventh grade your teacher and class said you were attacked by something not there; I like to call it … stigmata.”

  “Yeah, well, it happened quickly, so it’s out of my mind.”

  Suddenly, Jeremy had a memory of his stigmata: flashes of light came with his thoughts, showing him sitting in class reading out loud, when suddenly blood pierced through his hands, feet, and all around his head, causing his body, with the pain and agony, to shoot toward the blackboard of the classroom, and turn it blood red. With the blood pouring from each of the wounds and developing a puddle that his eyes couldn’t forget, the sounds of classmates’ screams could be heard. Jeremy then pushed away that memory by force, and said to Mary, “I don’t really want to talk about it, Mary. It was a long time ago, at least to me, and my church didn’t rule it to be anything of the sort!”

  “The reason why is because they didn’t witness it themselves and your parents wanted to cover it up. I am just trying to tell you, Jeremy, and prove to you that I know a lot about you, and you can trust me. I don’t know why this is happening to you, or why you had those stigmata before, but I am here to help you. So, to get off of that horrid subject, let’s go down the list of the things you told me. Now, you already told me that your father is a lawyer and your mother is a housewife. Let’s see, you are an only child. Oh, I know, tell me more about Jennifer. How long have you two been dating?”

  Jeremy covered up his wrists by putting his hands in his pants pockets, allowing him to forget the last conversation about one of his terrible secrets, and move on to a more cheerful and normal subject, his love life. He liked Mary’s character, feeling comfortable with it, like talking to an old time friend. So he smiled and gave out a laugh, and replied, “Well, we’ve been dating for a little over six months and we’re not having sex yet. Um, she broke up with me last week because I’m a freak. You see, I went over to her house for supper with her family and I began to see a statue of Jesus that was on her supper table moving about. But she called me up yesterday and said she wanted to talk. So hopefully we’ll get back together. Is that enough for you?” Mary began laughing at his last words, while Jeremy giggled as well in the cheerful melody of humor.

  “I think that’s sufficient. Except, Jeremy, you are not a freak.”

  As she said her words, Jeremy started to stare at six little children on the green grass next to two beautifully filled oak trees, all holding hands and singing “Ring around the roses”. Mary began saying something else, but Jeremy went into a trance, still gazing at these children laughing and spinning about, feeling his own sweat beginning to form as fast as a hummingbird’s wings could flap, and his eyes widened toward this scene so that he could feel a bit of pain from his lids stretching past their normal point.

  “Jeremy, what’s wrong?” Mary asked, seeing this abrupt change in behavior and not liking it.

  Jeremy got up slowly from the bench and walked toward the children, with the singing going through his mind as he said in softness, “I’ve seen that before.” Jeremy realized that a memory was coming back to him, a memory he never knew he had. As he watched the children spinning in what seemed to him was slow motion, the children dropped to the grass and began laughing. Mary got up as well and stood behind him while he watched, and then suddenly Jeremy passed out and found himself in another part of his mind that separates dreams from reality.
It was like he was in between.

  The children’s singing went through his mind still, with him seeing clouds and the children who were holding hands. A sudden flashback commenced for Jeremy, with one child saying, “Come on, I’m tired of this game!”

  One of the children asked, “Well, Michael, what else do you want to play?”

  Jeremy gazed around at this new landscape, waiting for his eyes to come into full focus, and realized he was standing on clouds, with green valleys and trees of wonder and delight, with miniature fairies and other mythical creatures frolicking about this world. Ice-capped mountains and a summer’s breeze swarmed together as one, with lights of gold and blue that were fairies floating about, running all through the sky. He smiled and began walking closer to the children, realizing they were angels, with wings of beauty hanging from their backs and mystery of a heavenly wonder sitting in their eyes. His confusion grew rapidly. The young child angel named ‘Michael’ sat on the ground of heavenly clouds, asking the angel that wanted to play another game, “I don’t know, what do you want to play, David?”

  Where am I…? Jeremy’s mind questioned over and over again, while he walked closer to the angel children, listening in on their conversation, hearing the angel named ‘David’ ask another angel out of the six, “I don’t know. Hey, why don’t you think up something, Lucifer? You have the most powers.” The question David asked was in sarcasm, and the other angels laughed toward the angel Lucifer, picking on him through their giggles.

  Jeremy stood his distance, seeing their beautiful silhouettes but not having their faces in focus, and only having their voices in perfect volume to understand them. He saw the angel they called ‘Lucifer’ shrugging his shoulders in sadness, and hearing him say in defense toward all the angels, “That’s right, I do have the most powers!”