GENESIS (Projekt Saucer)

by W. A. Harbinson

  ‘This is it,’ Jenny said.

  She had stopped at a tall, flat-fronted Georgian house with a black door and polished brass handle. Richard stared at the door, at the names on the brass plate, and a tremor of dread rippled through him and congealed in his throat.

  ‘Oh, well,’ he said.

  ‘Are you going in?’ Jenny asked.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I guess I’m going in. Jesus Christ, I feel dumb.’

  Jenny pressed the bell, her face closer to a speaker built into the wall, and a voice, distorted and indistinct, lazily drawled the word ‘Yes?’ Jenny gave Richard’s name, the tinny voice said, ‘Come up,’ then the door made an irritating buzzing sound that signified they could open it. Richard pushed the door open, letting Jenny pass through first, then he stepped in and closed the door behind him and the buzzing noise ceased.

  ‘The third floor,’ Jenny said.

  They stood together in the hallway, its walls paneled in varnished wood, a thick dark-gray carpet on the floor, a potted plant near the front door. Richard stared at the elevator, at its polished metal door, and experienced a fleeting claustrophobia that made him shake slightly. He glanced uneasily at Jenny, at the high, ornate ceiling, at the stairs that curved behind the elevator and climbed past faded paintings. The fear crept steadily over him, devoured him, made him numb, and he felt himself dissolving where he stood, drifting free from his body. He didn’t want to go up there, didn’t want to relive the incident; he wanted to turn around and walk out, but it was too late for that.

  ‘We’ll use the stairs,’ Jenny said.

  Richard just nodded, a dumb gesture of agreement, seeing her brown eyes through a film of panic, her head turning away from him. Then he followed her up the stairs, moving slowly, reluctantly, his eyes fixed on her blue-denimed legs, the high heels of her boots, the wrinkles where the parka curved out around her broad, swaying hips. It was coming back to him already, the white haze, the silhouettes, the woman with red hair and green eyes – the whole nightmarish catalogue. Richard started shaking, felt anxious and confused, his heart pounding dramatically, glancing down to see his booted feet on the carpet, sinking into deep pile. Then they reached the third floor, a gleaming elevator gate, a forbidding silence surrounding them. Jenny stopped at a door, raised her hand, let it dangle there for a moment, then she turned back and took a step toward him and gently embraced him.

  It was a sad, instinctive gesture, an expression of love and doubt, a silent affirmation of her loyalty and commitment to him. Taken aback, Richard stood there, his hands at his sides, feeling the warmth of her body, her reality, and wondering what he could do with it. Then he slid his arms around her, felt her shoulder blades, her spine; he spread his fingers and pressed her closer to him and laid his cheek on her head.

  ‘It’s all right,’ he whispered.

  She clung to him for another moment, her fingers scratching his back, her thighs and firm breasts molded to him before moving away. Then she glanced at him, her smile hesitant, eyes shadowed, and nodded and disappeared down the stairs, leaving scent in the air.

  Richard stood there for some time, deeply moved, reawakened, closing his eyes and covering his face with his hands and taking deep, painful breaths. Then he put his head back, studied the ceilings ornate moldings, shrugged and knocked lightly on the door and heard a voice bid him enter.

  He stepped inside, closed the door quietly behind him, saw walls of lime-green, a glass table, comfortable armchairs, a middle-aged woman behind the desk, looking up, smiling pleasantly.

  ‘Mr Watson?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘You’re a punctual patient,’ the woman said. ‘Dr Campbell’s expecting you.’

  She pressed a button on the desk, her hand milky-white and elegant, and announced Richard’s presence to Dr Campbell, speaking softly, precisely. Richard glanced around the office, not listening, not really present, still aware of Jenny’s warmth in his clothes, touched again with emotion. Then the woman stood up, a white blouse, a neat gray skirt, and opened the door to another office and motioned him in. Richard coughed into his fist, trying to orientate himself, then he brushed past the woman, smiling at her, avoiding her gaze, and heard the door closing behind him with a sharp, clicking sound.

  ‘Ah! Mr Watson!’

  ‘Yes,’ Richard said.

  ‘Do you mind if I call you Richard?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Good.’

  Dr Campbell wore a gray-striped suit, a white shirt and a vividly colored yellow tie. His hands were spread out on his desk, cuff links glittering, what looked like a wedding ring on one finger. His hair was dark and fashionably long, tumbling carelessly on his forehead, lines of humor around bright blue eyes, his teeth possibly capped. He was in his late thirties, suntanned and clearly healthy, a handkerchief protruding from the pocket of his jacket, pressed and neatly folded.

  ‘Please,’ he said. ‘Sit down.’

  Richard did as he was told, taking the chair in front of the desk, crossing his legs and then uncrossing them again and resting his hands in his lap. He glanced distractedly around the office, saw the same limegreen walls, some reproductions of Turner, a few framed diplomas, the doctor framed by a window.

  ‘Have you ever been to a psychiatrist before?’

  ‘No,’ Richard said.

  ‘Have you ever been hypnotized before?’

  ‘No,’ Richard said.

  ‘And does the thought of it bother you?’

  ‘Yes,’ Richard confessed.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t know. It just seems stupid. I don’t think it will work.’ ‘You don’t believe you can be hypnotized?’

  ‘No,’ Richard said.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I just don’t believe it,’ Richard said. ‘I don’t think I’m the type.’

  Dr Campbell smiled. ‘You just don’t believe it,’ he repeated. ‘You don’t think you’re the type. Is that why you think you can’t be hypnotized?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, we’ll see.’

  Campbell looked down at his desk, at a gray manila folder, opened the folder and pulled out some papers and thoughtfully studied them. Richard just sat there, feeling nervous and slightly vague, trying to seem a lot more casual than he was, wanting to get up and run.

  ‘An interesting case,’ Campbell said, glancing up from the papers. ‘You’ve clearly had a pretty bad year. How do you feel now?’

  ‘Okay,’ Richard said.

  ‘Are you nervous?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, that’s normal. It means you’re still human.’ Campbell smiled at Richard, raised his hand and studied his ring, glanced down at the papers again and then looked back up. ‘It says here you’ve been drinking a lot.’

  ‘Yes,’ Richard said.

  ‘And you still have to drink?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘And the nightmares?’

  ‘What about them?’

  ‘According to these notes, all your nightmares are exactly the same.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So you’re not just dreaming… You’re repeatedly reliving the same incident.’

  ‘You mean, you think the incident was real?’

  ‘Not necessarily,’ Campbell said. ‘It could be a case of autosuggestion, brought on by great stress.’

  ‘You think I’m crazy, is that it?’

  ‘Not remotely. I’m just saying that whatever happened during your period of amnesia could have led to this particularly vivid hallucination.’

  ‘Okay, I’ll accept that. That’s fine. Now how do you cure me?’

  ‘You really accept that statement?’

  ‘Yeah. Sure.’

  ‘Rubbish. Of course you don’t. You’re just saying that because you want to get out of here and go for a drink.’

  Richard shrugged and spread his hands in surrender. ‘Okay, Doc, have it yo
ur way. Just tell me what you want me to say and I’ll gladly oblige.’

  ‘I just want you to say what you believe.’

  ‘I don’t believe anything. I don’t know what to believe. The whole business happened a year ago, and that’s a very long time. I told the cops about it. They laughed me out of their office. When I tried to tell anyone else, they just assumed I was crazy – and I think they were right. It couldn’t have happened. Things like that just don’t happen. So I really think you’re right – that I had some kind of blackout, and that during that time I hallucinated and then thought it was real. I don’t care what it was. I just want to forget it. I want to get rid of those nightmares and sleep soundly again.’

  ‘I didn’t say it was hallucination. I said it might be.’

  ‘I hallucinated. Believe me, that’s what happened. Now how will you cure me?’

  ‘You said you feel okay now.’

  ‘I was lying. I feel rotten.’

  ‘You mean physically?’

  ‘I mean mentally… I mean, I have trouble sleeping, I have the nightmares when I do sleep, and I keep breaking out in rashes and get very bad headaches. And I think it’s all part of the same thing.’

  ‘Yes,’ Campbell said. ‘I have your medical records here. You never had such ailments before the alleged incident… and they are quite peculiar.’

  ‘Peculiar? What do you mean by that?’

  ‘They’re not caused by anything physical. The rashes and the headaches are psychosomatic: brought on psychologically.’

  ‘That’s ridiculous,’ Richard said.

  ‘No, Richard, it’s not ridiculous. People can will rashes and headaches… and fevers and ulcers and heartburn and stomach upsets and skin diseases… in fact, just about anything.’

  ‘I’m not a hypochondriac.’

  ‘I wasn’t suggesting that at all.’

  ‘That’s what it sounded like to me.’

  ‘No. Not hypochondria.’ Campbell sat back in his chair, placed his hands behind his head, put his feet up on his desk and smiled pleasantly. ‘Let me tell you about the human brain,’ he said. ‘The first thing to note is that the human brain, while undoubtedly being a remarkable instrument, is rarely used at even a tenth of its full potential. Now, most of our bodily functions are actually controlled by the brain – the brain tells us what to do, when to do it and how to do it – so what we see, hear, smell and feel are merely the colors, sounds, smells and sensations that the brain has selected as being most necessary. This selection isn’t arbitrary – the brain selects what it assumes we need – but there are other sensations which, though being actual, are beyond the limited range of our immediate senses. However, by awakening certain dormant areas of the brain, either electrically, by the use of drugs, or through hypnotic suggestion, the scope of both our senses and our capabilities can be dramatically expanded.’

  ‘I can’t see what this has to do with me.’

  ‘Well, I’ll tell you. Would you agree that drugs or electrical stimulation of the brain can change human behaviour?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Fine. Now did you know that these methods of affecting the brain can also induce pain and similar experiences?’

  ‘Yes. I’ve read about it.’

  ‘Okay. Well, regarding hypnotherapy we can apply the same principles, the only difference being that the sensations are induced – or recalled – by a process of suggestion, rather than by physical means. In other words, just as through hypnotism a patient can be directed to go to sleep or awaken, feel a nonexistent pain or ignore applied pain, turn as rigid as a plank or relive long forgotten experiences, and generally do things that he would not normally contemplate – so, too, can the average human being actually will himself into pain, depression or serious illness, not believing for the slightest moment that he’s doing it, convinced that it’s physical.’

  ‘I don’t believe that,’ Richard said.

  ‘Don’t you?’ Campbell said. ‘Do you know that a perfectly normal person, if told under a hypnotic trance that he has just been scalded, will actually come out in blisters? Do you know, further, that this same person, still in the hypnotic trance, can be burned or pierced with needles, experience no pain at all, and not be marked by the burning or piercing when snapped out of the trance state?’

  ‘No, I don’t believe that either.’

  ‘Believe me, Richard, if I hypnotized you and told you that you were a wooden plank, you would turn as staff as a plank, could be stretched out across two supports, and wouldn’t budge if a couple of people used your groin as a springboard… You would simply become a plank.’

  ‘Bullshit,’ Richard said.

  ‘No, lad, not bullshit. These are the realities of autosuggestion, tested and verified. So when I tell you that your ailments might be psychosomatic, self-induced, I’m not suggesting for a moment that you’re a hypochondriac… I’m merely saying that the ailments are a symptom of a deeper disturbance.’

  Richard crossed his legs, uncrossed them, scratched his knee, then distractedly looked down at the floor and looked up again.

  ‘So,’ he said, ‘what are you going to do about it?’

  ‘I’m going to try to take you back to when you suffered the amnesia, find out what really happened during that lost three days, record what you tell me when you’re in the trance state, and then play the recording back to you.’

  ‘I don’t want to know,’ Richard said.

  ‘You have to know,’ Campbell said.

  ‘I don’t give a fuck,’ Richard said. ‘I don’t want to know.’

  He was shocked by his own vehemence, sitting upright in the chair, flushing, his heart pounding dramatically, his throat abruptly constricting. Campbell looked thoughtfully at him, not showing surprise, then placed his feet back on the floor and propped his chin in his hands.

  ‘What frightens you?’ he asked.

  ‘I just don’t want to do it.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I’m not dumb enough to be hypnotized. I don’t believe in it. It won’t work.’

  Campbell smiled patiently. ‘Well, now,’ he said, ‘I think you’re antagonistic because you feel that being hypnotized is degrading. Let me therefore assure you, Richard, that any intelligent adult and most children over the age of seven can be hypnotized, that only the mentally retarded and the psychotic can resist being hypnotized, and that hypnotizability is in no way a sign of weak will. Indeed, the more intelligent and imaginative the individual, the better a subject he’ll be. You therefore needn’t feel ashamed. There’s nothing wrong in being hypnotized. Just think of it as another branch of medicine - and try to accept it.’

  Richard crossed his legs, uncrossed them, scratched his knee, licked his lips, glanced distractedly around the office and then studied the floor. He thought of the past year, of the nightmares and the drinking, of the loss of his friends, of Jenny’s rage, of his own failing health. He couldn’t live like that much longer; it just didn’t make sense. He wanted to kill it off or be cured, but the fear held him back. He looked up at Dr Campbell, tried to speak but failed, so finally stood up and scratched his left ear and then shrugged in defeat.

  ‘What do I do?’ he asked.

  Campbell smiled and stood up. ‘Excellent,’ he said. ‘I just want to try a few of your reactions and see if you’re suitable.’ He came around the desk to stand directly in front of Richard, gazed into his eyes, then stepped away and said, ‘Look at your wristwatch.’ Richard did as he was told. The time was four thirty. ‘Keep your hands by your sides,’ Campbell said, ‘and just relax, just hang loose.’ Richard did as he was told. He thought that Campbell was pretty foolish. Feeling sorry for Campbell, he decided to humor him to save him embarrassment. Campbell kept talking. He kept telling Richard to relax. He said, ‘Clasp your hands together,’ and Richard did so, wanting to humor him. Campbell kept on talking. He told Richard to relax more. He said, ‘Your hands are clasped together and you won’t be able to open them, no matte
r how hard you try.’ Richard didn’t bother trying. He wanted to humor Campbell. Campbell told him he could pull his hands apart, so Richard pulled them apart. Campbell told him to raise his right arm. Richard did as he was told. Campbell pinched his right arm and Richard didn’t feel a thing because he didn’t want Campbell to be embarrassed. Campbell told him to lie down. Richard lay down on the couch. Campbell told him to relax and Richard lay there and felt slightly amused. Campbell told him to close his eyes. Richard grinned and closed his eyes. Campbell told him to open his eyes again and look at his wristwatch. Richard opened his eyes. He raised his hand and studied his wristwatch. He blinked and then looked at his wristwatch once more. The time was four thirty. A whole hour had passed. Richard shook his head in disbelief and sat up on the couch, feeling vague but refreshed.

  ‘How do you feel?’ Campbell asked.

  ‘Fine,’ Richard said.

  ‘How long do you think you’ve been asleep?’

  ‘I haven’t been sleeping.’

  Richard looked again at his wristwatch . It was definitely four thirty. He shrugged and grinned foolishly, stood up and stretched himself, then went behind Campbell’s desk and sat down and scribbled his name on a notepad.

  ‘Why did you do that?’ Campbell asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Richard said. He stood up and walked back around the desk and stopped in front of Campbell. ‘Did you tell me to do it?’

  ‘Yes,’ Campbell said. ‘You’ve been asleep for an hour. You were obedient and you talked an awful lot and it’s all down on tape.’

  ‘Can I hear it?’

  ‘No.’