M in the Abstract

by Douglas Davey

  As Mary and Nate enter class together, she notices that her teacher is still wearing the same cords and sports coat.

  Nate whispers to her, “See the pants? Told you!”

  The teacher strokes his goatee and observes the class as they enter. Mary can’t escape the feeling that he is passing judgment on everyone he sees. She finds the same seat she had last time. With a thump, Nate settles his bulk into the chair next to hers.

  As Mr. Woods begins class, Mary glances over at Nate. Having caught her attention, he begins stroking his large chin in mockery of their teacher. Mary is unable to suppress a giggle. He laughs in return, looking pleased with the response he elicited.

  “Can I help you, Nathaniel?” Mr. Woods asks with exaggerated exhaustion.

  “No, I’m all good,” Nate replies, earning him a wave of mild laughter from the class. The teacher begins the lesson but Mary’s mind wanders. She is preoccupied by the thought of what happened in the bathroom, of how she was able to gain a small amount of control over the shadows. The harsh sound of chalk on the chalkboard brings Mary to her senses and she glances forward.

  “SYMBOLISM,” Mr. Woods says as he writes the word on the board. “It is the art of taking a concrete example and drawing forth from it the essence of a less tangible concept.” He turns to face the class. “A rose, for example, is an object without meaning in and of itself. It is just a flower. It can be touched. Love, on the other hand, is a concept, and, unlike a rose, it cannot be touched. However, a rose can stand as a symbol of love, although I find that to be a trite and overused example.” He pauses, waiting in vain for a response from the class. “Who can give me an example of a symbol of something in the real world that stands for an idea, like freedom, or peace?” He scans the room, selecting his target.

  Not me, not me, not me

  “You need to think in the abstract to do this, which, I realize, is impossible for most young people to do.” The entire class stares blankly. A few students begin to check their notebooks in an attempt to avoid being chosen.

  Nate leans over to Mary and whispers in an imitation of their teacher’s voice, “What’s impossible is me getting laid.” Mary giggles again and the unexpected noise draws their teacher’s attention.

  “Mariposa, you seem to have something to say. What would you consider to be an example of symbolism?”

  Oh no

  She freezes, not knowing what to say. Her mind goes intuitively to her shadows, and, from there, to an image, sudden and unexpected. “A caterpillar, I guess.”

  “You guess? And why would that be an example of symbolism?”

  “Well …they … they start as a caterpillar and then … they change into a cocoon, and then into a butterfly.”

  “And what would that symbolize? What idea does that convey?”

  “Um … changing, I guess.”

  “Well, while your sentence structure leaves something to be desired, that’s certainly an appropriate choice of symbol, considering your name.” He emits a short, muted laugh. “Although as an example, it is a bit obvious … a bit … on-the-nose.” She stares back at him, dumbfounded. Once more, she feels an unfamiliar, powerful hate for this man. For the first time in her life, she feels an intense urge to physically lash out, to strike.

  If I could, I’d punch you in the face

  After class, Nate meets her by the door. His shoulders are nearly as wide as the door frame. As she approaches, he turns to let her pass and then follows her out, coming up beside her.

  “What an asshole!” he says.

  “Yeah,” Mary replies.

  “If you want, I can, you know, punch him out for you.” Mary laughs again at this and Nate laughs in return. “Or I can hold him down so you can kick him in the face.”

  That sounds great

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Yeah, probably not a good idea. But it would be a helluva lot of fun.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay, well, I’m off. See you in bio.” She manages a small, timid wave. “Oh, wait. Are you coming on the bio field trip to the”—he has lost the word—“the tree place, the whatever, the …”

  “Arboretum?” she offers.

  “Yeah, the arboretum. Are you going?”

  “Um … I’m not sure yet. I haven’t got my permissions slip done yet.” She was planning on not getting permission. Anything to avoid riding on a packed bus.

  “You should go. I’m going. We can, y’know, sit together on the bus.” His face flushes red with embarrassment.

  “Okay, maybe.”

  “All right. See ya later.” She turns and walks away, continuing to her next class. A smile insists on creeping over her face no matter how hard she tries to stop it.

  CHAPTER

  Ten

  Casually, with the air of someone who has said such things a million times, Mary’s psychology teacher calls out to the class, “All right, hooligans, settle down.” With a pen, Mary draws circles on the paper of her notebook, going round and round until the black ink threatens to tear right through. Her teacher, a portly blond man named Mr. Marten, sets some papers down on his desk, then turns to face the class. He hooks two thumbs into the front pockets of his chalk-marked navy trousers.

  “I’m going to give you all a test,” Mr. Marten says and is instantly greeted by a barrage of groans and moans. “Yes, yes, yes, you all hate tests, but don’t worry, this one won’t be graded because …” he pauses for effect as the class sighs in relief, “… it’s a psychology test.”

  Silence.

  “What? Nothing? No groans? That’s really too bad, because taking a psychology test is when you should really be scared.” This line draws some nervous laughter from the class. Mary shudders at the thought of anyone peering inside her.

  The teacher clicks a button on his laptop and it blinks to life. An attached projector throws a bright square of light onto a screen pulled down in front of the blackboard. After a few moments of nothing but white light, a dark image appears. Mary’s eyes grow wide in surprise. She inhales sharply, the sound drawing stares from those seated around her.

  “Are you all right?” a girl close by whispers. Mary doesn’t look over to see who it is.

  “I’m fine,” she replies thinly. Her breathing is short and fast, her eyes unable to move from the perfectly symmetrical composition of smeared ink spots, spreading out from a vertical center line. To Mary, they are more than just ink, they are shadows, her shadows, and they have manifested here in the classroom in the form of a black butterfly. She feels as if her secret self is exposed for all to see. She attempts to will the image to disappear before anyone notices that she is the one who created it.

  “Now,” says Mr. Marten, “there is an image hidden in this ink blot and I want you to see if you can find it. However, if what you see isn’t something you’d be comfortable saying to your dear old granny, I don’t want to hear it.”

  A few laughs come from the class before a dull male voice from the far side of the room says, “Yeah, it’s a face.”

  “Okay, who here sees a face? Show of hands.” The majority of the class raises their hands. The teacher makes a show of checking the number of hands before continuing. “Did anyone see anything different?”

  “A bat,” says one voice.

  “A raccoon face,” says another.

  “I saw a mask, like a Japanese one, or something like that,” suggests a girl nearby.

  “Interesting! Anything else? No? Well, we had some good responses, although a few of you didn’t respond at all, so I can only assume that what you saw was so terrible or so naughty you don’t want to share it with the class.” More laughs, and Mr. Marten joins in, enjoying his own joke. “But seriously, folks, what we have here is called a Rorschach or Ink Blot test. It’s designed to provide a window into a person’s subconscious mind.”

  Make it go away!

  “So, what’s the right answer?” asks the dull voice.

  “Aye, there’s the rub. There
is no right answer. It’s intentionally open to interpretation. By being abstract, the perception of the image reveals more about the mind, the subconscious mind, that is, of the viewer than about the image itself.”

  A classmate asks, “Is it like one of those tests where someone says a word and you have to say the first thing that comes to your mind?”

  “Exactly. I always start today’s class with the Rorschach test. Its validity may be up for debate, but it’s still an excellent introduction to the idea of the subconscious mind. The subconscious is also called unconscious, but as so many of you are unconscious most of the time, I’ll stick with subconscious.” This pun is greeted with a mix of laughter and groans.

  “We know that over millennia, the human brain has evolved from that of our more primitive ancestors. So, unless you’re one of those people who believes that all of humanity was created by an incestuous family six thousand years ago, we can say that the human brain has actually been evolving for millions of years. Along the way, a lot of interesting things have happened to it, one of them being the development of the subconscious.

  “As its name suggests, the subconscious mind exists below our conscious mind. It’s behind our thoughts, influencing our decisions, fabricating our dreams, or allowing us to find meaning in otherwise meaningless ink blots.

  “Now, dreams are fascinating, particularly for psychologists. They provide an amazing window to the subconscious. Dreams may appear illogical, but they do seem to have their own inner logic.”

  “I have a book that interprets your dreams,” says a female student.

  “Well, there are many ways to interpret dreams. Consider the one that so many people have had—being naked in public.” A series of hushed giggles follows this. “Yes, yes, yes, I said ‘naked.’ Moving on … you take a person—let’s call him Bob. Bob is worried about a big presentation he has to give at work. He’s nervous because he’s afraid of being embarrassed. He goes to sleep and his subconscious mind takes over. The subconscious senses that Bob is afraid of being embarrassed while at work. It looks back into his mind and finds an example of something that would really embarrass him, such as being naked in public. Now the subconscious takes the location of his worries—his workplace—and combines it with a symbol of embarrassment—being naked in public—and puts the two together. Presto, change-o, he has a dream where he is naked at work.”

  “Why?” a student asks.

  “Why does the subconscious mind do this? Excellent question. No one really knows, but the mind is a powerful thing. It can make perfectly reasonable people believe in completely unreasonable things.”

  Mary’s heart goes cold.

  Like seeing things that aren’t there

  The teacher continues to talk but his words are lost to Mary; all she can think of is the possible truth of this revelation.

  Am I crazy? Could I have been imagining the shadows this whole time?

  Or are they real?

  If I tried to show someone, would I end up in a mental hospital?

  If I keep it secret, how will I know the difference between what’s real and what isn’t?

  It’s only the sound of shuffling feet and creaking desks that brings her back to awareness as the class ends. Unlike her classmates, she does not leave.

  She stays in her seat, knowing what she wants to ask—what she has to ask—as soon as she and the teacher are alone.

  Don’t do this. You won’t like the answer

  I know

  And he’s going to be suspicious

  I know

  So don’t do this

  I have to

  Why?

  Because I have to, that’s why

  She pushes her warning voice away and approaches her teacher. He leans over his desk, his back to the classroom. As she nears him, her stomach flutters and her head swims. For a moment, she faces the very real possibility of fainting.

  “Hi,” she says.

  “Oh! You startled me! I didn’t know anyone was still here.” He pauses for a moment, searching his memory for the name of this unassuming girl. “Mary,” he says, retrieving it with a wag of his finger. “What can I do for you?”

  “Um … I have a question.”

  “Shoot.”

  “Do you think … I mean … can the subconscious mind … can it make you see things that, you know, aren’t real?”

  “As in, a hallucination?”

  She shrugs, unsure.

  “Well … people dream, which is a kind of seeing things that aren’t there. And it’s possible to hallucinate, or have delusions. That’s usually caused by a disturbance in the brain, such as a high fever, but it could also be caused by drugs or mental illness.

  Mental illness

  “So I’d say, yes, it can.” He pauses for a moment, appearing to consider the deeper import of her question. “Why do you ask?” When Mary doesn’t respond to his question, he continues. “Mary, is everything all right? Are you having hallucinations?”

  “No, it’s, um … someone I know. A friend.”

  Right, a friend, so stupid

  “Oh, a friend. I see.”

  He knows

  “No, really. She just … she maybe sees things that other people can’t. At least, she thinks she does, but how can she know for sure if what she’s seeing is really real or just … made up?”

  “Well, that’s just it. To a delusional person, their delusions are very real. Imagine that someone tries to tell you that the sky isn’t blue. All of your perceptions would tell you that what they’re saying is wrong. If your friend really is delusional, then he or she needs to talk to someone, a trained professional. I took some pysch courses in university, but that was, oh, good lord, thirty-odd years ago. It’s enough to teach this class but I’m hardly qualified to deal with serious mental health issues. Does your friend go to this school? I’m part of the guidance team. I can get her someone she can speak to.” Again, Mary doesn’t respond. “Does your friend show any other signs of a break from reality? Altered personality?”

  No

  “Hearing voices?”

  Just my own

  “Paranoia?”

  Maybe …

  She stares at her feet as she speaks, afraid to look her teacher in the eyes. “No, it’s just this … uh … one thing.”

  “Well, that’s pretty unusual. These things usually go together.”

  Don’t ask what you want to ask

  I have to

  I’m warning you

  Shut up

  “Is there any chance that she … you know … isn’t crazy?” Her words come out slowly, almost as a plea.

  “Well, first, I wouldn’t use the word ‘crazy.’ Your friend, she might just need to …”

  Mary begins to lose hold of the conversation, her mind wavering dangerously. The teacher’s voice goes in and out. He clasps his fingers together, rubbing the thumb of one hand against the knuckles of the other. Mary focuses on his hands. They’re smooth and thick-fingered. A plain gold wedding band is wedged deep into the flesh of the ring finger. A patch of blond hair crosses the backs of his hands. Her focus intensifies while her field of vision shrinks down to the gold of the wedding ring. The rest of the world becomes a black, humming circle. The light of the gold holds the whole of her awareness. Her eyelids flutter and she beings to topple. Her teacher reaches out to grab her, catching her just before she hits the floor. Her consciousness floods back in and she finds herself being held in the arms of her teacher, his face flushed with concern. She pulls herself away, backing awkwardly into a desk.

  “Mary, are you all right? I didn’t mean to scare you. I think I can help you.

  Get away, get away

  Help your friend, I mean ...” but his appeal is too late; Mary rushes, stumbling out the door, her mind black and roiling like a thunderstorm.

  CHAPTER

  Eleven

  By the time Mary has reached home, she is calm enough to stop shaking. An hour spent alone in her room, curled up
on her bed, brings her back to her senses. When her mother returns home from work, Mary has recovered enough to begin preparing dinner.

  Now she finishes the dishes while her mother sits on the couch, bathed in the blue glow of the television.

  “That was great spaghetti, Sweetie,” her mother says with a contented air. “I am so absolutely full. I don’t think I’m going to move all night.”

  “It was just sauce from a jar,” Mary replies.

  “Well, it was great because you made it.”

  Mary looks around the room.

  It’s looking better in here

  There are pictures on the walls, a few ornaments on the end tables, the TV buzzing cheerfully in a unit along one wall.

  “Why don’t you come sit next to me?”

  “I’m a little tired, Mom.”

  “Oh,” her mother says, disappointed. “When you were little, you used to love to cuddle up with me. At least sit down and watch some TV with me.”

  “It’s just that … I’m kinda tired and I have some reading to do for English.”

  “Okay,” her mother says with an exaggerated frown.

  I hate it when you do that

  Turning back to the TV, her mother says, “You know, I never knew how much I missed having cable TV until it was gone. I hear people talking about watching TV on the Internet but I don’t know anything about computers. And I don’t care much for all these reality shows, but it’s all the ladies at the shop talk about! I know cable TV seems like a selfish thing to spend my first commission on, but it makes the place seem less, well … well, it really livens the place up. It’s just basic cable, nothing fancy, but it beats farm reports and French news.”

  She’s happy. Be nice to her

  “That’s great, Mom.”

  “I could cancel it if there’s something you need to buy.”

  “No, I’m fine.”