The Seventh Floor

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The Seventh Floor Page 6

by James Murphy


  “When am I going home?” James asked the professional, irritably.

  “Well, we thinking you need to stay here until we decide what would be the best care for you.”

  James got up and threw his chair across the room exclaiming, “This is fucking bullshit! What that lying bastard, Chode, calls care is nothing short of rape!”

  James stormed out of the room. The professional suggested to James’s mother that he be committed to a mental hospital, and she begged and pleaded the difference. It wasn’t a good day. James finally cracked and had no way of venting his emotions. He couldn’t bear the thought of staying on the Seventh Floor for another second. He heard the sirens going off in his head, just like the day the authorities brought him in. James was filled with adrenaline, and only saw two options: kill Dr. Chode with his bare hands, or escape from the Seventh Floor. James waited near the lobby, then, when the door opened from the outside, he rushed through and caught the elevator before the doors closed. The nurses on the Seventh Floor notified security, and James knew they would be waiting on the ground floor for him, so he hit the stairs at the fifth floor and headed down. He made down two flights of stairs, then, as he was rounding the corner he was met with 50,000 volts from the security guard’s taser. He fell to the ground and didn’t have anything in him to overcome the shock. It hurt, and it hurt bad, but James believed with every fiber of his being that it was the best decision he had made in five years. It didn’t work, but the plan deserved an attempt, and James put forth the best effort he could. They strapped him to a wheelchair and took him back to the Seventh Floor. The nurses gave him a heavy injection of anti-anxiety medication. In his room, he was guarded by security until lunch time.

  James was served lunch and as he sat before his food he couldn’t have been more disinterested. Out of shear spite and the longing for the comfort of Sweet Grass Hill and the Paahsaakii, James decided then and there that he wasn’t going to eat a morsel of food until he was released. His fasting began.

  Chapter 9

  (second day of fasting)

  On his 11th day on the Seventh Floor, James awoke to hunger pains. As he sat up in bed and slowly gained consciousness, he thought about the butcher shop, and the big red Dodge, and the Seventh Floor with Dr. Chode and all the other professionals, and all the hunger in his belly melted into a stew of pure rage. James clenched his pillow between his teeth and tore at it like a dog until he was exasperated. He sat in bed and listened to his beating heart. Slower, slower, slower, slowly he could hear the muscle thump in chest, and he thought about the blood coursing through his veins. The thought of blood reminded him of Montana, and the slaughter house. Images of the crimson liquid spewing from the throats of cattle raced through his mind, and those thoughts made James appreciate life and feel whole for he was alive. He slowly accepted reality for what it is; complete imperfection. James began to accept that there never was, nor ever will be a tangible utopia. The means to every end involves sacrifice. Someone or something has to lose in the process of every gain. Wade understood that and accepted it, and wanted James to understand this as well, but the sacrifices that James made for the past five years were raw, too raw. James just wished that everyone who wanted to put meat on the table would have to see their dinner go from beginning to end; from living creature to entre`. He wished that everyone knew the smell of blood, and the sensation you feel through your hands as you remove the skin and slice the meat. He just wished there was a balance among those who made the sacrifices and those who enjoyed the luxuries. If there was balance, maybe the world would revolve a bit more harmoniously. James wanted more than anything to just feel as though everything was in place, just as it should be. The power was not in the hands of the wise, and James was going to make every effort to change that. He spotted the flaw. The human-race will always succumb to vice, and the innocent will always be the primary victims. Once again there was no balance and no harmony. The fruit of temptation was driving desires of lust and gluttony. The strong fed on the weak, but how strength was measured all depended upon whose lenses you were looking through. A man who separates himself from his needs and desires of the mortal realm transcends the grasp of his captors. He who needs nothing is free from everything. James began to see this but his emotions were not yet completely at peace. He had not yet escaped all that truly restrained his soul. He was separating himself from those things, things like food, love, money, and freedom. Money had not been an object to him in a long time. He was learning to ignore the biological demands of food. Love and freedom were objects of the mind. James was not truly trying to give these two things up. Furthermore, to forfeit these two would only weaken the soul, but how James would define freedom and love was about to change. The way James defined love and freedom would determine if his soul would be at peace. The professionals were trying to put their definition of love and freedom in James’ mind. They did not agree with his definition. They were inflicting savage wounds to the intangible aspects of James’ being. Who were these professionals to throw James under the bus for pure entertainment? He didn’t deserve this. There was a blood thirsty monster lurking on the Seventh Floor, and that was the only thing James was sure of. He thought he had beat Dr. Chode at his own game, but James began to feel defeated. He thought he showed enough couth and self control to persuade the rest of the professionals on the Seventh Floor that he was sane, stable, and happy. That wasn’t the case, and the thought of his detainment seemed to be overwhelming. What game did he have to play? How could he win? Nothing was making sense. All he could see was the lust for power this old, fat, bald guy had. Dr. Chode wanted to mutilate James’ mind, feast on an innocent victim. James felt helpless. The professionals wanted to rip away what James held so dear to his heart. Nothing made sense on the Seventh Floor, and that made it impossible to feel the least bit of comfort. He could feel the walls of the room closing in around him. He felt nothing, but hunger pains, and those sensations fueled feelings of anger. His emotions were a thorn bush, red with hate, and a grizzly texture that curled, and knotted, tearing flesh from limb, sprawling across the expanse of the horizon. It crept up, constricting his throat making his heart race, and his lungs short of breath. His eyes got big and his hands became heavy. He could feel the adrenaline. He was ready for a fight, but the ring in which he was to do battle in was not one that welcomed fury. His arena was a place of patience and wisdom. Could James achieve the fitness that such a victory required? Could he find peace in Hell?

  The call came over the intercom that breakfast was served. James had no intention on eating, but was feeling restless nonetheless. So, he walked down to the lounge and turned on the television. The television seemed so vivid in the fluorescent light, and white walls, but was clearly unnatural. It was light of an alien wavelength to James. The voices that came out of the stereo seemed squelched from their microphones. It numbed the brain and dulled the senses. Nothing seemed stimulating except for the message that was being delivered. Once again the news kept talking about how all of the country’s crops were dying from drought. The vegetation pled from the hillside, crying out to James to bring the rain. Their faces of branches and leaves begged with withdrawn, withered faces, begging in despair. James thought to himself,

  “We’ll never get it right. Reality? That’s just a thought that’s gone to waste.”

  Ryan’s words started to ring clear in James’s mind. God was mad with society. With everything that was going on around him, James couldn’t help but feel the end was near, and he couldn’t care less. The feelings and care delivered to him were reciprocated back towards the entire world. Love feeds love, but the white walls, fluorescent lighting, and the seven stories between him and the Earth had its way of obstructing the vital spiritual energy that he so desired. All he had were memories of his vision. He started thinking about what Coyote said to him.

  “A warrior? Fight for what?” James thought. “My own mother doesn’t even love me enough to fight the ‘professionals’ up here.” Lit
tle did he know, James was loved, but by none more than Mother Earth and Father Sky. James was sick of thinking, but unfortunately his thoughts were all he was left with. It all stewed in his brain into a soup that lacked body and sustenance. His thoughts were as malnourished as the cold dry desert, and brewed nothing but useless emotions. He stood up and walked out of the lounge about an hour after everyone was done eating breakfast. As he walked out of the lounge, James saw Neal with bags in his hands.

  “What gives?” James asked.

  “Doc said nothing’s wrong with me, and, uh, I have to leave.”

  James knew sooner or later the professionals would see through Neal’s lie, and find out he was just a hobo looking for a hot meal and a bed, but James had hoped he would have been sent home by the time Neal was kicked out. What was going on around James denied every law of social dynamics he had ever come to understand, except for one; the strong will always feed on the weak. Everytime James came close to appearing just as he needed to be to prove to all the professionals that he was sane and competent, the professionals sunk their teeth in deep delivering phenomenal wounds. It seemed as though no good deed went unpunished. Everyone was out to get theirs. The patients tried to prove just how crazy they were, and tried to instill fear in the professionals by doing so. They would spit and bite as the professionals, intimidated, put their dirty finger deep down inside the mouth of every patient. James was not exempt from this bit of science. From the time he stepped foot on the Seventh Floor he instilled fear upon every professional that caught word of his name. He was guarded, but more intelligent than anyone he shared words with. He had more experience in the foulness of reality than most men he came across. A butcher will have that. The slaughter house haunted him. Its memories gushed and throbbed in time with negative energy. James’s occupation was to practice what stimulates that disgusting feeling that makes you gag deep down inside. He did it all, execution, gutting, skinning, quartering, butchering, and disposing of scrap. Everyday for five years it was the same thing: look an animal in the eye then murder them and prepare them for the table. The activity spawned a parasite that ate away every last bit of comfort in his life. At first it was just while he was at work, then after taking so much of it, he began carrying those feelings home with him after he clocked out. Before, James’s was a man appreciative of art, life, and beauty. But, after spending those five years butchering, and slaughtering cows, life lost its luster. He felt the pain of the victim, and it ate at his heart until his state of mind was a constant, frenzied mania. He was the underbelly of society, and now the professionals of the Seventh Floor were face to face with James day in and day out. He was now the meat on the chopping block. The professionals wanted to see how far they could take it and how long they could handle it before they could no longer look at the man straight in the eye and had to send him off to another institution just say that they served him justice.

  By the end of his 11th day on the Seventh Floor hypoglycemia had begun to set in. The hunger melted away. Everything around him looked different. Things were vivid, even in their dull light. When he laid down in bed that night, the bed felt different. He seemed to float above it. James believed that if he could detach himself from the matrix that imprisoned him, fiber by fiber, he would no longer feel the oppression of the Seventh Floor. The laws of the Seventh Floor were limited in their domain. They were created by men, and a man can only control so much. They could not control the fire that burned deep down inside the soul of a patient. James’s soul was lit and this fire was beginning to transcend.

  That night James drifted off into a vivid wonderland of dreams. He was high upon an alpine meadow, and as he watched the adjacent horizon of forest, the trees and grassland came alive, dancing to the rhythm of the day. All the vegetation glowed with electric, neon light, beckoning James to come, play, and be alive with the Earth. He crossed the valley and began walking through the forest. As he did, he saw faces of the most profound spirits that ever communicated with humans. Buddha, Jesus, Vishnu, and Apistotoke all came to James and told him he was to be the great warrior of his people, just like Coyote told him that hallowed night on Sweet Grass Hill. He held conversations with the weeping trees and bushes he saw on the hillside from the Seventh Floor. None of the spirits gave James definitive answers, but when he asked them questions, they suggested he look in himself and he will be sure to find what he is searching for.

  Chapter 10

  (third day of fasting)

  When the mind finds itself amidst a deep sleep it ventures far off beyond all reason and laws of nature. The exterior-senses shutdown, and the consciousness parades in bizarre directions across an infinite extent. During the first night of James’ fast he began to transcend in his sleep as he could feel his consciousness leave his body and travel all over the world. He could see evil brewing in all corners of the globe. Oppressed individuals, and oppressed families, and oppressed societies all came to the fore front. The hands of greed wrapped their fingers around the weak and disenfranchised, and squeezed until all vitality was wrung out. It was all a power struggle between the righteous and the wicked. It was James’ struggle. And, although it was his struggle, he was not alone in feeling the crushing hand of greed coming down on him. Tyranny was an expression of some ideal image tyrants tried to embrace by mentally and emotionally distancing themselves from the innocent ones. The affliction of pain was tantalizing to their evil minds, bodies, and spirits. It was like an infection that once began would continue to grow and fester into something abominable. Free thinking was seen as dangerous to the tyrants. They saw it as tool of love, peace, and equality. It was a tool the meek could use to perpetuate the good in the world, dangerous things to a tyrant. James found greed the most disgusting of all vice and Jesus Christ found compassion towards James through this. Christ believed that James could be the great peacemaker of his people. James’ rage left him so disheveled that he would be righteous in the face of any enemy. He had the vivid insight to the chinks in the armor, and exploited them. He felt exacting pain for so long that understood exactly how to deliver such pain. He knew how to take the shots that hurt the most. Belittling any man was no challenge. All that stood in the way was punishment, but he was so disgusted that he lost all fear of punishment. His psyche was a rock painted in a calm, blue hue. It was harmless at first glance, passive, but once hurled through the air, it was sure to strike down the wicked with great malice. James was so detached by this point that all the professionals considered him psychotic. He was a danger to their greedy ways, and though the professionals did not detect this on a spiritual level, they all felt nervous when they came face to face with James. He used words like ‘you’, and ‘your desires’ with exacting sharpness. Christ spoke to James that third night of his fast.

  “The Lord favors he who is prepared.”

  James woke that morning feeling a little anxious. It wasn’t the walls closing in on him. He had come to grips with that. It was all that spiritual contact in his dreams that set him aloof at the dawn of his twelfth day on the Seventh Floor. The blue rock was stirring. Breakfast was served and James refused to eat in preparation to whatever evils he was to face that day.

  Dr. Chode came to James’s room early on the twelfth day. He started with speed, and jumped on James hard, right from the get-go.

  “You threw a chair at a counselor, tried to escape, and now the nurses say you’re not eating. You need to have respect, respect for the people around you, and respect for yourself.”

  James could hardly stomach this hypocrite.

  “What did you have for supper last night?” James coolly asked.

  “That’s none of your business,” Dr. Chode Replied defensively.

  James asked again.

  “What did you have for supper last night?” James asked with conviction this time. Dr. Chode knew he was not going to get anywhere unless he answered the question.

  “I had prime rib,” Dr. Chode replied.

  “Do you fully understand
the sacrifice for that meal? Have you ever smelled a butcher shop? Do you know what dried blood feels like on your face? I know respect. Respect is sacrifice for the good of the community. It’s kind of the antecedent of greed. Do you know what greed is?” James had Dr. Chode backed into a corner and on his heels at this point. “Respect is a utility of morals. Respect is being a peacemaker, not just taking what you feel entitled to and raping everyone in your path, but you wouldn’t know about that. You’re too busy and content with sticking your dirty finger deep down inside the mouths’ of those you’re supposed to be helping.”

  Dr. Chode was red in the face.

  “Keep it up and I’ll send you to the funny-farm! This meeting is over!”

  Dr. Chode walked out of the room embarrassed. James won the battle, but was far from winning the war. James knew well and good that if he kept attacking Dr. Chode every time they had a conference, things would not end well for him, but he couldn’t help himself. Every time he saw that greedy bastard, James blacked out and his mouth would just move spilling words out that he had no control over. It wasn’t like him. James was always a soft-spoken young man, but he began to lose his timid disposition on the Seventh Floor. He was backed into a corner and the primal instincts were taking over. Despite his vulgar display of testicular fortitude, James wasn’t getting any closer to being released. If anything, he was digging a deeper grave, but James was beginning to care less and less every day about how soon he was to be released. His debacle was beginning to strike nerves deep down inside of himself, the same nerves that that big red Dodge, and that butcher shop in Montana had struck. James once again found himself in the belly of all that was wrong with the world. So much power was put in such few hands that it had an astonishing ability to strike down the livelihood of the meek and mild masses. James was so detached and disheveled at this point that vengeance was all that was on his mind. The thought of beating the shit out of Dr. Chode had crossed his mind, but that was too easy and too simple. It would only allocate more oppression onto the innocent and righteous. No, Chode was a smart man and there are better ways of inflicting pain upon intellectuals. James would get Chode into a corner every day that he performed his ‘check-ups’ on James.

 

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