The 8th Sky_A Psychological Novel With An Unforgettable Twist

by Leigh Lyn

  “And now our noon-time traffic report. With Hennessy Road closed off for the annual rally, congestion in Gloucester Road starts at the cross-harbor tunnel and goes back three miles, ending at the Academy of Performing Arts in Wanchai.”

  Loud honks and angry stares were cast in my direction as I changed to the lane for Causeway Bay. Slowly, the Spider crawled along Gloucester Road when something in the rear mirror caught my eye. It was another black Lifan. I craned my neck and saw it had two license plates; a white one for Hong Kong and a blue for China. Its Ray-ban donning driver glanced my way, and I looked away, thinking how much he resembled the thin driver in the black sedan this morning. Were these shades the most used item in a surveillance starter kit or was I being paranoid?

  Earlier, when Ben asked what I was up to today, I’d said, “Nothing much.”

  I hated myself for lying. I’d considered using Dr. Wen’s explanation that each person had a psychological melting point beyond which their mind refused to boot a computer. But I couldn’t get myself to tell Ben about my episode at the asylum. I guess Simon’s reaction was still haunting me.

  I was in a bad shape when the Doc discharged me but, now my life was back on track, I had to hold up my end of the stick. I must find out the truth. The thing was that—much like quantum physics—conspiracy shifts mode once it knows it’s under observation. And the observed becomes an observer.

  The noise of loud sirens approached with remarkable speed. The cars in the four lanes realigned to three to let the blaring fire truck and ambulance pass. I buzzed the window down and stuck my head out. The lines of stalled cars went on along the harbor front as far as I could see. I was poised in front of skyscrapers named after large corporations like a police line-up.

  At the end of the block, the side street opened up the view toward Hennessy Road, and I saw that the rally had started already. The black-wearing, banner-carrying, slogan-shouting crowd seemed well behaved even though they were demanding democracy and universal suffrage. Each year since Hong Kong’s handover to China in 1997, the same thing repeated itself, although they changed the name of the Chief Executive they denounced.

  I hummed along with Joey Yung’s “Xiao Xiao”: “Memories jump over puddles… Circle little villages waiting for fate.”

  In the past year and a half, no other memories had come back the way Dr. Wen said they might until last Monday. For almost a week now, in moments when I’d nothing to do to occupy my mind, images had flashed in front of my eyes. Visions that might or might not have any meaning but made me cringe all the same. And when I lay in bed, in a half-awake, half-slumbering state, I heard fragments of conversations I had only a vague or no recollection of. Sometimes the imagery matched the conversations; sometimes it didn’t. That was why I called Frieda for an appointment.

  One flashback was from our meeting at the Corp’s humongous headquarters. The Corp was short for the People’s Biotech Incorporated, and everywhere media screens coaxed visitors with subliminal messages about the company’s health plan, products, and facilities. A six-by-six-feet model in the middle of its large lobby showed the original design of our science park.

  Thirty board directors gathered in their conference room for the science park presentation that morning. Smooth as silk, Peter did his PR thing. After everyone was seated, I started the presentation in Mandarin with what must have been a comical accent—going by the tea lady at the back who laughed into her hand.

  “Crystalline buildings are set in a calm garden giving the scientist a serene environment to walk around and think in. Inside, the boisterous atrium acts as a hub, a meeting place where they can interchange ideas and soak up the synergy created by the convergence of the brightest minds.”

  “Have you studied how to reduce the cost by twenty percent?” Li Jun—the chairman, who had taken Peter to a nightclub—cut me short. All eyes seemed to be focused on the conspicuous throbbing vein on my temple. For a three-billion project, twenty percent was six hundred mil.

  “Not completely,” I was going to reply, but Peter beat me to it.

  “We have cut three hundred mil as of now. Before we go any further, we remind you, the international science community recognizes a white elephant by its smell alone. Cutting more means downgrading the specifications to standards that won’t be world-class anymore.” Peter’s eyes went around the table. “At the start of the project, you assured me Biotech facilities are extremely competitive. The question now is if this venture will make the cut if the standards dip below the benchmarks.”

  Exhausted from playing waiter, chef, and busboy to their volatile demands, I pushed a set of meeting notes toward the center of the table, and added, “This is the list of the cost-cutting items we proposed that the Corp have approved and confirmed. If you want to tell us which item you wish to add and put it in black and white that you accept the lowering of benchmarks, we’re more than happy to comply. We’ll charge an additional fee though.”

  The project manager and his assistant cast each other dismayed looks, and I felt the noose around my neck tighten. The chairman ignored me and continued, “We are running up a huge municipal deficit. To inflate the cost of this project by benchmarking to an unknown user, who allegedly requires a world-class facility but, in reality, is nowhere to be seen, is like a peacock that shows its tail feathers when the peahen isn’t anywhere near, don’t you think?”

  Peter and I were quiet like everyone else.

  “It’s imperative we apply common sense here.” The man narrowed his eyes to dark slits. “Isn’t it?”

  Silence.

  “Just what I thought.” He opened his hand and gestured at an elegant Chinese man in his fifties I’d never seen before. “For those who don’t know him already, may I introduce you to Mr. Lao Bo from G.Y. Inc., our mother firm and main tenant who, as of yesterday, has committed to taking up one-hundred percent of the rental area.”

  Lao Bo’s piercing eyes set in a rugged face studied me as he bowed and said, with a rolling slur characteristic of Beijingers, “G.Y. is very excited about this cooperation, and we have many ideas we’d love to share with you.”

  The chairman smiled, “Great! Have your people work with Peter’s people to knock out any design you need, but I’m afraid there is urgency in the matter. Li Meng wants us to wrap it up.”

  “She told you in those exact words?” Lao Bo peeked over his bifocals at the chairman, who nodded.

  “Give me three days,” Lao Bo said.

  “I’m afraid three days is all we have.” What he was really saying was that we, the architects, could suck it up. “So, can I move the final presentation to the Party Chief to confirm the funding to three days from tomorrow?”

  He looked at Peter and Peter looked at me. I had built my reputation within the office on being a can-do trouble-shooting designer. My expertise was knocking out competition schemes within a week, which meant we were used to incorporating last-minute ideas that drove the concept home; elevating it to a winning scheme was what I did. But this was less than half the time we needed, and I wavered.

  “Consider it done,” Peter replied.

  Peter owed me much more than just a few drinks. Everything became unhinged after that meeting. The whole team put their lives on hold. In the next flashback, I had not left the office in forty-four hours. A harrowing pain ran from my shoulder blades up my neck to the crown of my head, as if electric currents were running haywire through my nerves. Then, my direct line rang. It was three in the morning.

  “Hello, sweetie,” I said, expecting it to be Simon.

  “This is a conference call. Mr. Lao Bo from G.Y. would like to speak with Miss Lee?”

  I recognized the slur. “Speaking.”

  “We want to share our ideas about the design of the facilities with you. If you hold the line, my assistant will join me, and we can go over it, after which he will give you some graphic standards and explain further details.”

  An hour later, I ended the call. In the silence of th
e night, spotlights were burning white holes in my vision while I contemplated the consequence of G.Y.’s staggering requests. It was not my call to say no, but I couldn’t imagine Peter would say yes either. But being a consultant, there was always the danger of being made the scapegoat if one didn’t deliver. With so many big-wigs looking on, that was not a good thing.

  From that moment onward, everything was strangely enhanced like a substance-induced psychedelic dream. And I adopted an undying belief we were invincible and could complete the presentation if only we set our mind to it. In hindsight, to design it was the easy part; to live with what we designed was the real challenge.

  Chapter 9

  A loud honk brought me back to Gloucester Road where a toppled double-decker came into sight. I lowered the window and leaned out. Strewn over the pavement were wounded passengers while firemen handed out blankets to the injured. With blaring sirens, an ambulance arrived by the emergency lane. After the paramedics had wheeled and escorted the wounded onboard, it rushed off again.

  At long last, the traffic was set into motion. Within ten minutes, I reached my destination and parked the Spider. In the spirit of a marathon runner taking pride on making the finishing line, I speeded through the demonstrators, whose synchronized fist-shakes and chants filled the stratosphere. I was half an hour late by the time I arrived at the building where Dr. Wen’s clinic was. In the ground floor lobby, I bumped into Mr. and Mrs. Chan. Sandwiched between the elderly couple was their thirteen-year-old grandson.

  “Hello, Daniel,” I said. “Good day, Mr. and Mrs. Chan.”

  “Hello, Lin,” the old lady replied. “Frieda booked your session on July first too?”

  “Oh yes, I only realized on my way here. What’s that about?”

  “She said something about Dr. Wen going off for a few weeks.”

  “The traffic is impossible.” I told them about the accident.

  “How unfortunate,” Mrs. Chan said, laying her hand on my arm.

  “Well, you better talk to Frieda,” Mr. Chan said, as he nudged his grandson to say hello.

  “Yo, bitch.” Daniel smirked, punching my other arm.

  “Sup.” I laughed.

  “Watch the Doc when he offers you fucking candies; they think we’re friggin’ idiots,” Daniel advised, glancing at his grandfather.

  Something had happened to the boy. Frieda told me it had started five months ago. One morning, he opened his mouth and out came profanities and expletives, which hadn’t stopped since.

  “All of a sudden, he’d acquired the foulest mouth. Dr. Wen said it’s a neurological disorder called Coprolalia, a severe case of Tourette’s Syndrome. His parents are paying four-thousand-five-hundred Hong Kong dollars a session to cure him, although they’ve never shown their faces, not even once,” Frieda had said. “If he were my grandson, I would make him wash his mouth with a bar of soap.”

  The line between mental disorders and bad habits is a blur to me. I’d no idea who was right, although I remembered the obscenities that spiced my vocabulary during my episode. It occurred to me though that the boy could make a good rapper and turn the little enigma into an art; an insight I wisely kept to myself.

  Dr. Wen’s clinic was empty when I walked in. Frieda was nowhere to be seen. Piles of magazines like Psychology Today and Scientific American Mind rested on small coffee tables amidst ferns and exquisite orchids.

  Confused, I settled on the brown calf leather sofa in the waiting room with its cloudy view over Kowloon across Victoria Harbor. After sending Frieda a text, I picked up a magazine. Flicking through it, I began to read an article on the top ten weirdest mental disorders.

  Number one was “Autophagia,” a condition that made the patient eat themselves or part of themselves. Number two was “Alien Hand Disorder,” a condition where the patient’s hand assumed a mind of its own, grabbing hold of things and responding to the touch of another person without control. It seems the human mind works in abstruse ways, which these disorders only reveal an inkling of, let alone explain. Number three was “Aboulamania,” a disorder where the patient is unable to make decisions. The simplest things such as whether or not to go out for a walk could paralyze them with indecision.

  This sounded like me alright. I was indecisive with anything not to do with work. I was not sure if it was wise to continue reading, considering that I had a tendency to soak up the symptoms of every disorder I learned about. Getting up, I peeked into the little office behind the reception desk where patients’ files and clinic records were kept in cold gray cabinets. It too, was deserted, even though the computer was on. I leaned over the counter, craned my neck and recognized my own face staring back at me from the screen. Aghast, I sat back down on the sofa in the waiting room and gazed at the skyline of Kowloon across Victoria Harbor, when “Ding!” Frieda’s reply came through:

  Bringing files to the car park. Back in five.

  Back in five. Should I? On the one hand, Dr. Wen’s file of me would shed precious light on my case. On the other hand, I cursed the insane things I had to do to prove myself sane.

  “Ding!” My cell’s reminder of Frieda’s previous text set my heart off on another sprint. It was now or never. I dashed into the little office, straight to the computer where a disheveled version of me with wild eyes and uncombed hair in a hospital gown adorned the screen. I scrolled down the list to “Lindsay Lee” and clicked. My heart thumbed uncontrollably during the 60 seconds the old computer took to open the window. My personal data appeared next to my photo. Diagnosis: Acute psychotic episode. A list of files followed. Like flies to a cadaver, my eyes were drawn to three video files at the bottom of the list:

  Lindsay Lee-Hypnosis-01-20101105

  Lindsay Lee-Hypnosis-02-20101105

  Lindsay Lee-Hypnosis-03-20101105

  Did they hypnotize me three times? How come Dr. Wen showed me only one video? I quickly inserted the USB attached to my key chain and dragged the files from the screen to its icon. It took a long time for the old machine to open the window showing the content of my USB. A long white bar showed the progress as the copying took place. My heart felt like it was about to jump out of my chest, and my forehead was damp from sweat.

  I checked my Jaeger: four and a half minutes had passed and the bar was less than a quarter filled. Damn it! Should I abort the copying? I dashed back to the waiting room, grabbed a paper cup from the water machine and filled it up.

  “There you are.”

  I turned around with the cup in my hand. Frieda was standing in the doorway of the clinic. “We thought you weren’t coming until I got your text just now. Dr. Wen left already.”

  “Has he?” I said, blocking Frieda’s sightline on the cup as I dropped it on the pile of magazines.

  “Oh dear.” I growled. “I’m such a klutz.”

  Frieda rushed forward. “It’s okay.” She picked up the top magazine to shake off the liquid. “It’s just a few magazines.”

  “I’m so sorry. Do you have a cloth?” I asked, moving the pile to the sofa. Water was dripping onto the leather upholstery and from there onto the carpet.

  “There should be paper towels in the janitor’s storeroom. Hang on, I’ll get it.” As soon as she was gone, I raced back into the little office. The copying was almost done, but I stopped it. Ejecting my USB, I dashed back to the waiting room, just a little ahead of Frieda, who reappeared with a small stack of paper towels.

  “Thanks, Frieda.”

  “Don’t mention it,” Frieda said, soaking up the water. “Dr. Wen had to leave because a patient tried to commit suicide.” She lowered her voice. “I told you about Brenda, didn’t I? She cut her wrists and drained the little blood she had, anorexic as she was.”

  Shocked at the readily-shared information, I stared at Frieda. “Is she…?”

  “She’s in intensive care. Luckily, someone found her before it was too late.”

  “Thank God.”

  “Tell me about it. Her parents have been trying to get her t
o see Dr. Wen, but she came up with one excuse after another. She’d only had one session with him so far. That’s why I had to print out the reports from her previous doctor and bring it down to Dr. Wen.”

  “Well.” I shrugged. “I was late.”

  “What’s up with you these days?” Frieda tilted her head in her characteristic way when she lifted her chin and stared past her nose at me through narrowed eyes. “I’ve hardly spoken to you lately. Are you doing alright?”

  “I’m good.”

  I smiled. I was ecstatic after I learned that Dr. Wen had recruited Frieda to work at his clinic. Not because she was a good nurse, but because she was kind and approachable. In the asylum, she was my friend more than she was my nurse, which probably had its downsides from Dr. Wen’s perspective, but I loved her. It was because of her that I’d come to trust Dr. Wen. Listening to her stories of how he, as past president of the Hong Kong Institute of psychologists, handled the cases he got through referrals from both the court and the hospital convinced me he was upstanding and just. In any case, I filled Frieda in on what had happened in the year and a half since I left Castle Peak.

  “So many changes.” Frieda gasped. “Well, you seem happy enough. Why don’t we reschedule you for next week?”

  She walked up to the reception counter and opened Dr. Wen’s diary on the screen. “You can take up Lorna’s slot. Her court case for shoplifting has been rescheduled after she got arrested again yesterday. The judge subpoenaed Dr. Wen to testify on her psychological profile. You’d never guess what she tried to steal this time.”