Searching for the Fountain of Youth

by Curtis Picketts

  “Son, have you ever heard someone say, ‘I need to go find myself; I need to take some time to myself to find out who I truly am?’ Well, they may just need some time away to try something brand new. And then when they come home, everyone thinks that they’ve changed; they’re a different person now. Well, I think that is probably 100% true. Have you ever noticed that the same person acts entirely different around different people or when they are in different situations? It’s because they actually are a different person. They’re not acting, they’re adapting. The average person actually has thousands of different persons inside of them; the one you see is actually just the version that is the most adaptable to the immediate environment. People generally try to play the part of the person who can bring them the most happiness in the situation that they are in. Not always, but generally. When someone says, ‘I need to go find out who I am,’ they’re actually saying, ‘I need to do something that allows me to try out one of my other persons.’ When they get to play the person they like the most, they are usually the happiest. My theory is that everyone is a multiple-personality. So no one who acts in many different ways is a phony or a fraud or a liar, they’re just adapting. Your mother wasn’t acting around you, she was just adapting to being a mother.”

  Chapter 6 – The Closing of the Walls

  “I’ll always love a sunny day, even when I know I’ll get burned.” Daniel Melvin Paynter (A Friend)

  ‘Stop. Please ring for service, patients are being seen.’ No matter how many times Dr. Winston Stone saw this message, printed inside a red stop sign covering the glass door of psychiatry, it caused him to shiver. What a place to spend your time, he thought, a place where no one can enter. A place of complete isolation from the rest of the world; a place with suffocating walls to protect the world from the madness within. Dr. Stone pushed through the door and the sounds began. To his right, the administration offices. Keyboards clicked. Ahead, the base camp. Nurses giggled and whispered. And to his left, the hospital beds. People screamed. Every day, they screamed.

  “Dr. Stone, we need you to come meet a patient who came in last night. He was arrested on drug trafficking charges, but the arresting officers were convinced that he’d find a way to kill himself if he was kept in a cell.”

  “Well, why haven’t you taken on this patient, Dr. Sharp? I mean, we’re not supposed to hand others our dirty laundry around here. I thought you were a big boy now.”

  “Dr. Stone, he refuses to talk to anyone but you. Dr. Stone, he says he knows you.” The hairs on Winston’s head came to attention like 18 year old girls do on their first day of boot camp and a cold shiver ran from the floor tiles beneath his feet up to his left eye which began to twitch uncontrollably. Colors started to run together and an all-too-familiar feeling began to sweep through the hemispheres of his universe. Soon, he felt. Soon the colors will leave, and the black and white will dominate.

  “Jimmy, it’s not…. It’s not Jackie Bergeron, is it? You know I’m terrified of him.” Dr. Sharp dropped his head and communicated the unfortunate message with a nod.

  ***********************************************************************

  “What’s up Jackie?” Dr. Stone said with artificial conviction as he sat up on the counter of the examination room.

  “Ha, ha, is it hot in here, or was your mother a sweaty pig too?” Jackie said as he scoffed at Dr. Stone’s drenched face. “They do have me strapped to this bed you know. Ah, who am I kidding, the only person I feel like strangling is me. You’re perfectly safe Doctor.”

  “Well, that’s good I suppose,” Dr. Stone said as he stood himself up, pushed down the wrinkles on his shirt, and fished for his pen. “Jackie, I will have to apologize for acting a bit unprofessional, but it’s rare that I have patients such as yourself. You know, patients who have threatened to kill me before. So, if you’ll just push past that, then I will too. Deal?”

  “You betcha,” Jackie said, again laughing.

  “So what’s up then? What the hell’s going on? You finally got busted and now you’re trying to fake a mental illness or what?”

  “Ha! Fake I wish. The truth is, this was long overdue. I’ve been suicidal for years, maybe even since the day I was born for God’s sake. I mean, what kind of parent hides drugs in their baby’s diaper? My father used to do that, figuring that it would be the last spot the cops would search.” He buried his head in his palms and began to weep. He didn’t mean to, but by doing so he exposed the horizontal cuts across his wrists. They looked as though they had been made by barbed wire. “Oh yeah, those,” he said. “I felt like I needed some pain. It’s the only way I can make it to heaven, you know. If I feel some pain like he did.”

  “Your father?” Dr. Stone asked.

  “No. Jesus,” Jackie explained as he exposed some more barbed cuts across his ankles. “I’ve been increasing the intensity of the pain every night. Last night I was supposed to finish the job and finally be closer to God. But the cops had to go and ruin that.” Dr. Stone paced around for a minute, dumbfounded.

  “Jackie, isn’t there anything in your life that you feel good about? Isn’t there anything in your life that makes you feel lucky to be alive?”

  Well, I guess I’ve only felt lucky about one thing in my entire life. I feel very blessed that my mother didn’t love me,” he said.

  “I.. I don’t really see why…”

  “I’ll explain,” he said. “My mother was a whore when I was growing up. That’s how she met my Dad. He had a business running women. He owned at least a dozen refugee women by the time he was at his peak but, when he met my mother, the other girls just didn’t seem to matter to him anymore. ‘It was quality, not quantity,’ Dad later told me. I guess she had some sort of charm about her. She was Icelandic and had the darkest eyes he had ever seen. Dad worked out a deal with her pimp and Mom was his. He put her to work immediately and she became his ‘best girl’.”

  “I still don’t see how you can feel lucky to have a mother who didn’t love you,” Dr. Stone interrupted.

  “If my mother had have loved me, I would have been beaten to death by my father a long time ago. You see, when she had me, she didn’t look like she used to. My birth aged her and she started to bring in less money. The way Dad saw it, it was her fault and mine. He would beat the both of us for it. One time, after my father had finished beating my mum, I asked her why she didn’t take me and run away. She responded by telling me that she wished I was dead, and then she beat me too.” Jackie cried a little more, but he was certainly a tough man because the weakness didn’t last for long. “My Dad eventually came up with a great idea. He decided that it would be my responsibility to decide who got beaten up when Mom had a poor day at the office. He said that I could either watch Mom get beaten, or I could choose to take her beating for her. I’ll never forget watching her die, watching Dad splatter her brains all over the apartment walls. I hated that woman for not loving me and I’ve survived because of it. If she had have loved me, he would have had to smash my head in with that pipe.”

  “My God Jackie. That’s awful. Don’t you think you’ve suffered enough pain in your life to pay for your sins? Don’t you think God would understand?” Dr. Stone attempted.

  “Ha. Spare me please. Do you know how many lives I’ve destroyed, how many people I’ve killed? My life was ruined, but I’ve ruined thousands. No, I think God tried as hard as he could to make me love my mother. Every one of his teachings begged me to turn the other cheek with her; every one of his teachings tried to have me beaten to death instead of her. If God had have had his way, I would have been dead and thousands of others would have lived. The only way to pay for what my life has done is to pay with my flesh.”

  Dr. Stone thanked him for sharing and then left after reassuring Jackie that a counselor would be in shortly. Dr. Stone walked to his office, sat down, and began pulling at the hairs on his head. He wondered what, if anything, he could do to help Jackie. He also wondered if helping Jackie wou
ld be to commit a sin of his own. If Jackie Bergeron was rehabilitated, would he change his ways, or would the people of Charles Street continue to bury their dreams in his pockets? Would the courts punish Jackie if he were judged to be insane and then treated? It’s too bad humans require food and sleep to survive; five minutes just doesn’t seem like enough time to make such important decisions.

  Dr. Stone prescribed him some anti-depressants and mood stabilizers. He then called the police and Jackie was taken to prison. Problem solved. It’s just too bad that Jackie nearly bled to death in his cell that night. Apparently he had been hiding a thin razor-blade inside himself since the time he was initially arrested; the lethal bleeding could have started at any time. Dr. Stone could never figure out why the cops didn’t feel more responsible for the event; it was as if they didn’t care whether a drug-dealer lived or died.

  Jackie was placed on suicide watch and Dr. Stone checked on him periodically over the next eight months. Finally, the trial process ended and he was sent to prison for six years. Winston hoped that the experience might help him feel as if he were paying for his sins. Otherwise, prison might turn him truly insane. People say there are only two things a person can think about in prison: everything or nothing. Winston prayed that Jackie would think of nothing.

  Chapter 7 – The Escapades of Man

  “If Bill Shakespeare’s parents hadn’t have been so rich, maybe I would have been able to relate to his words; animals don’t play in the jungle and we’re no different.”

  Once upon a time, on the planet Oystula, in the galaxy Elizabeth, there lived a group of micro-organisms which are now commonly referred to as ‘meddlers’. These meddlers were extremely unusual organisms. They were able to communicate to one another through chemical secretions. The secretions were of different types and the particles they were comprised of would float about randomly through the air. The interesting part, however, wasn’t what they secreted. The mesmerizing fact was that each meddler could only receive messages from their own secretions. It seemed kind of pointless.

  Some secretions would be for growth, some for reproduction, and yet others for death. There was an internal clock to dictate as to when one particular secretion would be released, with the secretions following the basic pattern one would hypothesize for most, if not all, basic forms of life. The problem, however, was that while there was an internal clock for the release of the secretions, there lacked an individual control over when one meddler would actually respond to these signals No, the only control over these crucial events was elicited by other meddlers. As one secretion for growth traveled randomly through the air, it would follow concentration gradients just like that of biological systems. As one meddler’s growth secretions floated about, it might encounter other growth secretions from other meddlers. It would then turn around and travel back to its origin. In this manner, only so many meddlers could grow, die, or reproduce at one time, and thus, there was control.

  As time passed, however, some meddlers began to feel cheated. Some of them wondered why their lives should be determined by chance. They began trying all sorts of whacky things in an attempt to control their growth, reproduction, and death internally. After years of experimentation, they decided on a few things. Firstly, they could grow bigger by staying close to newborns. This led them to want more offspring. Secondly, they realized that they could have more offspring by rubbing up against one another, thus ensuring that all of their secretions would be very close to one anothers’. Thirdly, they realized that they could avoid death by getting as far away as possible from the elderly.

  As the meddler species began to discover new things about their existence, they began to live longer and the species flourished. As they flourished, it became more and more difficult to get further away from other meddlers. One day, the entire scheme collapsed. Meddlers began to live shorter lives than they had before the experiments due to the overcrowding and, after a few short time periods, they became extinct. The meddlers were no more.

  “Do you get the moral of the story, Tom?” Dr. Stone inquired.

  “Don’t meddle?” Tom responded patronizingly.

  “Well yeah. Something like that Tom. I was thinking more along the lines of 'enjoy the life that you’re given because nobody lives forever'. A ‘live life to the fullest’ type of thing. But ‘don’t meddle’ is a compelling one too.” He walked in a quiet circle, pondering as his white lab coat fluttered in the wind of his wall fan. “How are you feeling today Tom?”

  “Much better Doctor. Thanks to you, I think I’m ready to return to my ambitions and to give peace another chance. You’ve helped me find my peace with the world once again Doctor and the people I visit will thank you.” Kind words that always lifted Winston’s spirits. You see, Tom was a saint among thieves. At a time when men tried to conquer their dreams, Tom lived to give the less fortunate a glimpse of theirs. He suffered from severe anxiety because of it.

  Tom’s last adventure had been to the Philippines. The Red Cross had been in the region, providing food and first aid to many new refugees, all of whom had abandoned their coastal homes during the drowning attacks of a vicious tsunami. The flooding had been so magnificent that it had destroyed 75% of the homes in the region, a record for tsunami damage in an area known for just that. Refugees stayed at first aid shelters for as long as they were provided; they had nowhere else to go. They were all very grateful and spirits had remained majestically high during such devastating times. This aspect always touched Tom in a way that his own life never could. How could these people love such a cruel, painful existence so much that they could sing all night? How could they sing in a camp that failed to compare to the luxuries of a shelter provided to a North American farm animal? It must be the way they are raised.

  Tom had volunteered with the Red Cross for a week, but he couldn’t help but feel that he had something more to give. You see, he had spent most of his twenties as a sculptor. He was very poor because of this addiction to manipulating clay and stone into art and, because he was very poor, he was lonely and unhappy. On his 30th birthday, he had destroyed all of his creations, sold his belongings, and hit the road to find his new addiction. And now, in the Philippines, at the age of forty-seven, he had found his true love: sculpting!

  Tom left the guidance of the Red Cross after that first week and hiked towards the coast. The tsunami had left the beaches littered with stones and boulders. ‘What a blessing,’ he had thought. Over the next eight months, Tom chiseled, grinded, and polished the stone debris. He then spent the next year performing back-breaking labor, lifting and stacking the stones. When he was finished, he had built some incredible structures: homes, a church, and several monuments commemorating the strength of the people he was helping. The ‘piece du resistance’, however, was a fifty by fifty by fifty foot dome that he had built in the center of the town he had created. It was to be a cemetery for those who had been killed by the tsunami. The inside of the dome was dark with one small crack in the center of the ceiling, creating a spotlight on the center of the floor. In the middle of the spotlight was a small, perfectly rectangular piece of marble that glistened. The different colors of the marble projected rays of light all over the walls of the dome in a manner similar to that of a disco ball. It was truly beautiful! The piece of centralized marble, when translated, read ‘Sing, and your voice will echo with those within for eternity.’ Truly astonishing!

  Tom then spent two more weeks at the Red Cross shelter helping to serve food to the hungry. As people became stronger, he would move them into a new home. It was truly a work of art.

  Months passed and Tom continued to build more homes as refugees began to inhabit the stone huts he had sculpted. Every night, he would gather inside the dome to listen to the people sing for the lost souls of the tsunami. He would say, for the rest of his life, that he had never heard anything so beautiful. Ten people sounded like one hundred as the voices ricocheted from wall to wall, eventually escaping through the small crack in the m
iddle of the ceiling. ‘The dome would echo the voices, building their intensity, finally releasing their words to heaven when they became strong enough to reach God’ he would explain.

  On April 15th, 2014, exactly four years after Tom had begun polishing the first stone, the 200th refugee moved into the community. On April 17th, 2014, a giant tsunami hit the beach once again. Fifty-three inhabitants were killed, and one hundred and forty-seven were again homeless. Tom returned to Canada, called Dr. Stone, and told him that he never should have left the Red Cross.

  “I was too selfish, Dr. Stone. I thought that I could help others and also help myself at the same time. I traded sound judgement for personal satisfaction, and I killed fifty-three people, trying to find my place in the world. I feel like all of the rest; I guess I only care about myself. I just thought that I could live my dream and help others at the same time, but I know now that that's impossible. Perhaps the true virtue of humanitarians is that they can accept a life of misery themselves.”

  “Have you ever met a true humanitarian, Tom?” Dr. Stone pondered aloud.

  “I don’t think so anymore, no.”

  “Well I have,” he boasted. “And let me tell you Tom, my mother loved to sing.”

  “Dr. Stone. I don’t want to intrude, but didn’t your mother walk out on you and your Dad?” Tom said firmly but with regret.

  “Yeah, I guess you’re right. I guess I’ve never met a true humanitarian either. She was just like the rest of us.” He shook Tom’s hand and left the room. He knew that this conversation would replay in his mind throughout the day. Are there such things as truly selfless individuals and, if so, is being completely selfless truly a virtue of humanitarianism? Do some people help others and never feel any personal gratification when doing so? Perhaps even a very generous donation of one’s self to the needs of others serves no purpose. Ultimately, whatever small amount of personal gratification we seek, no matter how minute a quantity, will interfere with the needs of others until our virtuous efforts are transformed into annoying disturbances. Don’t meddle, Winston thought. Don’t meddle.