by Leigh Lyn
“The female butcher of Lowu village?”
“You bet. She went out at night, stole, kidnapped, drugged anything or anyone she could get her hands on, skinned, butchered, and sold them as prime cuts.”
“You mean folks bought and ate people?”
“Cats, dogs, kids, you name it. And they loved it, even asked her for the recipes.”
“How revolting!”
“The scary thing is you’d never guess by sweet June’s dreamy eyes.”
Flabbergasted, I slumped into the wall.
“Yeah well, thanks to her innocent, wacko eyes, she’s here instead of in jail, but she doesn’t fool me. Not for a second.”
In a daze, I returned to my room. I went to bed, but there was no way I could sleep. When June turned in for the night two hours later, I pretended to be asleep, but I just lay there. Face to the wall and strung like a crossbow, I listened to every sound she made.
She must have sensed something. “Lin?”
My pulse was racing. It took me a second or two to decide whether to respond or not.
“What?” I feigned a sleepy voice.
“Are you okay?” she asked. “What are you doing?”
Could she sense I was pondering the chances of being butchered in my sleep?
“Why? I was just sleeping.”
I closed my eyes and turned to face her.
“Your breathing sounds off. Is something wrong?”
Damn. I opened my eyes. “Why, what would be wrong?”
Tilting her head, she glared at me. “You’ve heard them talk about me, haven’t you?”
I sat up.
She shook her head, disappointed by my lack of forthrightness.
“They set me up like they set you up,” she said. “If anyone, you should believe me.”
On the one hand, she was right. On the other, she would say that, wouldn’t she? Either way, there was only one right answer.
“I do,” I stammered. “I just didn’t know how to tell you. I thought you didn’t mention it because you wanted to put it behind you.”
“I do, but I’d hate for it to become an issue between us.” Her face softened.
“Lin?” Dr. Wen leaned in, placing his face in my frozen line of sight. “Are you there?”
“I’m sorry?”
“I said, I understand.” Dr. Wen frowned. “But trust me, it isn’t so bad. Your case is physiological rather than psychological. Going three days without sleep is enough for someone to lose their mind. But going by the progress you’ve made this week, I’m confident you’ll recover if you work with us.”
He looked at me kindly as bright light streamed through the Venetian blinds behind me.
“My eyes are no longer what they used to be,” he said, placing his clipboard on the coffee table and getting up to lower the blinds. I recognized my notes or the photocopies of them on the clipboard.
“Have you read my notes?” I asked. “What do you think?”
“Yes, I had a look. You still have problems focusing. Your thoughts jump all over the place, but I found the feeble threads of an interesting story in them.”
There was a loud knock on the door, followed by a nurse popping her head around it. “Dr. Wen, there’s an emergency. Dr. Wong is asking if you can join him in the Electro-Convulsion Treatment room straightaway.”
Excusing himself, Dr. Wen disappeared with the nurse, leaving me to sit in the striped patch of sunlight alone.
And even he, who had said we were all snowflakes, had a pocket-guide version of the DSM on his desk. Bored, I picked it up and flicked to the Table of Contents. June had showed me the diagnostic criteria of every disorder identifiable. I flipped to the glossary for technical terms and the cultural concepts of distress. She was right. This could be mighty useful. I slipped the paperback inside my undershirt and moved on to Dr. Wen’s notes about me. Hearing footsteps in the corridor, I quickly sat down and folded my arms over the tiny bulge. Dr. Wen entered, apologized for the interruption, took a seat behind his desk, and then said, “Where were we?”
“My notes. You said my story threads are feeble?”
“Oh, let me rephrase. The onset of your psychotic episode is still unclear to me because you’ve only been in my treatment for less than a week. We still need to verify the grounds you based your story on.”
That sounded more reasonable.
“To summarize,” he continued. “Your colleagues brought you to this hospital. They said you were overseeing a hectic architectural project. After pulling three all-nighters at work, you had an incident or episode. Am I right?”
I nodded. It was accurate, but each word, each bit of info presented, felt like a dagger thrown to outline me on a blank slate.
“I’d like to know more about what pushed you over the edge.”
I did my best to recall, but nothing came to mind. Had the meds erased it?
“You don’t remember at all?”
He drummed his fingers together as I shook my head, horrified that I couldn’t remember what had happened now that the doctor finally wanted to hear my side. This wasn’t going where I’d wanted it to go. Dr. Wen swiveled his large chair around and picked up a tablet from the coffee table next to him. “If you don’t mind, I’ve asked my colleague, Dr. Liu, a hypnotist, for help. Watch this with me, will you?”
Chapter 3
The black screen jumped to life, showing a dimly-lit, small room. I saw myself lying on a couch. The back of a man in a long white coat was visible in the lower right corner. “I’m going to help you remember what happened,” he said in a low, soft voice. “You’ll feel safe, and a deep sense of peace will settle over you as I count back from ten to one.”
The man took his time counting down. “You are descending into a wonderful place within yourself. You are now hypnotized and highly suggestible. I want you to go back in time to the meeting two days ago. Tell me everything as it’s happening to you again.”
Motionless with my eyes shut, I did not respond.
The man leaned toward me. “Lin, tell me what’s happening.”
A whimpering voice that correlated with the movement my lips were making said, “I am so tired.”
“What else are you feeling?”
“My whole body is tingling like I’m being pricked by a zillion tiny needles.”
I lay still for a few seconds, then started again with a quiet, weak voice. “The light in the room… It’s so intense it burns my eyes. The team is here. Suki, Roger, Kat. They’re looking at me and whispering. My supervisor Roger points at me and tells me I’m terribly mistaken. His lie makes me so angry that I feel like I’m about to burst out of my skin. Then a sense of invincibility washes over me, and a hand lands with a loud crash on the table, toppling a glass of water. Recognizing the whitened skin of a scar on the middle finger, I realize the hand is mine.”
A brief pause held the silence in the room. “Take one second and look!” I shouted. No one answered. “Look! These are labs, but they’re planned like a prison asylum,” I continued. “There are operation theaters; labs in which they do horrible experiments on people. Don’t you understand what I’m saying?”
The pace and volume of my speech increased.
“Peter and the team are staring at me in a dead silence. Then Roger walks to the door. He says something, but his voice is too low and muffled for me to understand; nevertheless, everyone leaves except Peter, our big boss, Roger, and me. I’m so scared my legs go limp when Roger closes the door.”
I paused.
“Then what happened?”
“Peter stares at me with a look of bewilderment. His face is the color of an eggplant as he yells, ‘Have you lost your mind?’
“‘Why don’t you believe me?’ I yell back. ‘They are taking you on a detour. This is not just any science park.’
“Confused, Peter looks at Roger, who shakes his head blankly, and then I understand. Roger is in on it! He can fool Peter, but not me. Roger is a needle! Someone opens the
door and enters. My eyes follow Roger as he gets up to schmooze with him. Who is he and why are they whispering? Then, I recognize him.
“‘Matt!’ I scream. He’s my senior architect, my friend, and the only other person who knows.
“‘Matt!’ I scream again, but he ignores me. Relieved to see him, I say, ‘Thank god you are here, Matt. Please tell them what happened!’”
For a second, the image on the tablet crashed. Grey pixels gyrated over the screen until the same scene filled it again, although the camera seemed to have shifted.
“Tell me what happened after you spoke to Matt.”
I shook my head.
“I look into his sad eyes, and they scare the hell out of me. They tell me something tragic is ahead. In that instant, I know he is in on it with Roger. For all I know, all three of them are in on it together. Matt walks to Peter’s side of the table, followed closely by Roger. I watch the three of them sit across the table from me. I must do something. So, I grab the drawing from the table.
“Roger says something to Peter and starts yelling. They all get up, and I panic. I know I must secure the evidence. Grabbing the edge of the table with my shaking hands, I flip it on top of them, and flee from the conference room with the drawing under my arm. I run like I have never run before and make it to the lobby.
“Roger screams, ‘Stop her!’ just as the double glass doors slam behind me. I grab an umbrella from the stand and stick it through the handles of the double doors separating Corinth’s office and the lobby. Frantically, I press the elevator button and wait. I kept pressing the button... When the elevator doors finally open, I leap in and almost knock over one of the building security personnel. I stand in the corner with my back turned toward the camera. Sweat drips down my back as the elevator zooms into motion. Suddenly, a voice says loudly, ‘Young female, five-foot-five, Chinese, medium hair, dressed in black.’ The security guard looks at me, but I keep a straight face and stare at a stain on the elevator door. At last, it opens, and I dash out. As soon as I do, he screams, ‘Stop! Stop that woman!’
“Sunlight streams through the lobby’s glass façade, and I squint hard to see where I’m going. The guard behind the reception desk is coming around, but I’m distracted by another elevator arriving. It’s Roger! I panic and fail to notice the foot the guard has stuck out. I fall headfirst, and my chin hits the white marble floor with a teeth-rattling clack. The shock reverberates through my entire body. The pain is excruciating, but I scramble up. Having flown across the lobby, I’m not far from the door; I resume my dash. A few more steps and I will be free! Another excruciating pain then explodes at the back of my head. Someone is jerking me back by my hair... Two strong hands pick me up by my upper arms and throw me to the ground... I tumble over and see it’s Roger. He pries the drawing from under my arm, and I set my teeth in his hand. He tries to shake me off, but I refuse to let go. He roars out in pain. Then, Roger’s other, fisted hand crashes down onto my face.”
Pausing the device, Dr. Wen asked, “Do you remember these events now you’ve watched the video?”
“I remember the pain,” I replied, wondering how any of this could have happened.
Dr. Wen made a note on his pad, then said, “What is the last thing you remember?”
“I remember taking a cab to go home for a shower and dozing off.”
“And afterward, do you remember things from the moment you woke up here?”
“I wish I didn’t.”
Dr. Wen sighed. “Based on that, we can rule out anterograde amnesia. None of this should be permanent. Humans need sleep to consolidate their experiences. During sleep, our brains process these experiences and transform them into permanent memories. It is only when our experiences are reasonably consolidated that we can recall them. Your memory of these events may come back later, or it may not.” I cringed, and he added, “Trust me.”
I wouldn’t trust God after seeing myself in a video like that. But, having been here for a week, I’d seen the state of the patients who had spent an extended amount of time here. It occurred to me that, if I insisted on the truth, I could forget about ever seeing my girls again. I could forget about being reunited with my family. I could forget about finding the true reason I was here. I’d be drugged and bound, rotting in some holding cell and marinating in my own body fluids.
Descartes had said, “I think, therefore I am.”
That was probably why some patients here tried to escape by not thinking. Their empty shells sat in their chairs, their eyes unfocused, their minds feigning a mental death. I had tried it. I, too, feigned brain death to escape this miserable, pointless existence. For the longest time, nothing happened. Then, for a minute or so, I would have an epiphany of some sort. I’d feel serene. For a brief moment, I’d even feel unified and at one with the cosmos, which was the opposite of not being. Then, I would snap out of it. Descartes should have said, “We are even if we don’t think, because we feel.”
I simply couldn’t stop my emotions from welling up and drowning me. I shouldn’t be here where there was nothing to do but muse on one thought leading to ten and ten leading to a hundred and a hundred leading to a thousand, all perfectly logical and reasonable unless the first one is proven false.
Notwithstanding, as long as Dr. Wen believed I had faith in him, I could stage my “recovery” by zipping it. As this was my only workable plan, I suspended my pledge to get to the bottom of my demise. I turned to Dr. Wen and answered, “I do, Dr. Wen. I do trust you.”
Chapter 4
At the end of my second week at Castle Peak, Dr. Wen deemed me well enough to receive visitors, so Simon came to see me with the twins.
“What’s wrong with you, Mommy?” Mimi asked. At ten, she was bright-eyed, lanky-limbed, and only a head shorter than me.
“I was naughty and didn’t go to bed for three days in a row.” I pulled Mimi onto my knee, although she was too big for it. “Now I need to catch up on sleep.”
“Sleep through the winter like a bear?” Mimi’s twin sister Maxy asked, scanning the visitors’ room with curiosity.
“For a bit, yes,” I said, fighting back tears. I pulled Maxy onto my other knee and basked in the familiar warmth of their presence. I’d missed their monkey business so much. I smudged their mischievous cheeks with kisses, ignoring their protests. The guard, watching us from his position next to the locked gates, commanded me to set them down in their own chairs. Simon looked away with worn, glistening eyes.
“Are you coping alright?” I asked.
“I got it under control, darling. You just do what the doctor says.” He stroked my hair, and the guard cleared his throat. I missed my family so much.
So ostentatiously, ceremoniously, and histrionically, I pretended to fall back into my good old self. I became the thespian. I clutched and held on to the shattered pieces of my mind with bleeding nails. I paraded my sanity as well and composed as I could in front of Dr. Wen. In truth, there was no way back, nor was there a halfway of doing this. I put my fate in the hands of the old man with the snow-white tresses. After two weeks in this hellhole, I figured trusting the doctor was my only hope.
If they wanted me to shut up, I would. I pictured Mimi’s and Maxy’s sweet faces as I swallowed the meds, which could just as easily make you forget your name, remember the origin of the universe, or turn into a vegetable. Two weeks after I stopped my rants about labs, cells, and experiments, Dr. Wen called my progress exemplary.
Today, they allowed me to make calls. So, I phoned Kat, my boss’s personal assistant and a good friend I often hung out with after hours.
“Are you better now?” she asked.
“Much. I didn’t make any sense, did I?”
“Are you kidding? You went completely mad.”
I managed a chuckle, having regained control of my urge to argue. “You think so?”
“Hell yeah! Now you’re better, it’s kind of funny. It would have been terrible if something bad happened to you.”
; Kat had the arduous task of calling me back to the office for that disastrous meeting. “Peter was standing right beside me. He would have bitten my head off if I so much as quivered, but I’m glad you’re okay now.”
Encouraged by Kat’s remarkable lightheartedness, I called Suki next, a chatty, junior architect on my team. She told me Matt—the senior who I’d thought was my friend—quit a week after my episode. Roger, the associate director who punched me in the face, had also disappeared.
Looking over my shoulder, I asked, “What happened to the design we did?”
“As far as I know, no one mentioned it again. The whole thing imploded. After that drama, it just went poof.” Her chirpy voice sounded comical, ending the gossip with a sound-effect. “And then, Peter told us to go back to work.”
The evening before I was released from the asylum, I walked into its sparsely furnished common room to watch the evening news for the last time. June had been gone for a week—the nurses refused to say where she went—so I sat down by myself. Glaring fluorescents cast an unflattering light on the waxen complexions of the handful of inmates present.
On a large flat-screen, a twenty-something, clean-shaven anchor presented the evening news. “The outgoing Party-Chief of Chongqing, one of the nation’s four largest municipalities, has already stepped down, but the new Party-Chief has not been announced yet. This leaves the municipality, which is already plagued by problems such as pollution, organized crime, and complications from the Three Gorges Dam, in limbo. No announcements were made regarding the nature of the delay.”
The cameras switched, and a female anchor with large hair and a maroon red mouth reported. “A small delegation of the Hong Kong Democratic Party has once again been refused entry into Shenzen. The party chair claims the ‘blacklist’ of pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong who are barred entry to China has been extended to include all of DPHK’s members.”