by Jay Kerk
©2019 Jay Kerk. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
ISBN: 978-1-54397-638-0 (print)
ISBN: 978-1-54397-639-7 (ebook)
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Contents
Part 1 - Jason
Chapter 1: Page Dr. Thompson
Chapter 2: Play Along
Chapter 3: Facing the Demons
Chapter 4: Impure Truth
Chapter 5: Broken
Chapter 6: Mathew
Chapter 7: Peanuts Over Walnuts
Chapter 8: A Gray Rainbow
Part 2 - Jerry
Chapter 1: Who Am I?
Chapter 2: Into the Abyss
Chapter 3: Kaleidoscope
Chapter 4: The One
Chapter 5: Courage
Chapter 6: Enkidu
Chapter 7: Boredom
Chapter 8: Nothingness
Chapter 9: Turbulence
Part 3 - Jason
Chapter 1: A Free Bird
Chapter 2: Go On
Chapter 3: Guardian Angel
Chapter 4: And Action
Chapter 5: So What?
Chapter 6: Inspection
Chapter 7: Plans of Hope
Chapter 8: Dancing With a Lady
Chapter 9: Sin
Chapter 10: Garbage Bins
Part 4 - Jerry
Chapter 1: Out of the Cocoon
Chapter 2: New Times
Chapter 3: Alpha
Chapter 4: Rain
Chapter 5: Healed
Chapter 6: Focus
Chapter 7: Dreams Do Come True
Part 5 - Jason
Chapter 1: Breeze
Chapter 2: Serendipity
Chapter 3: Laugh
Chapter 4: Never Say Never
Chapter 5: Debt
PART 1
JASON
CHAPTER 1:
PAGE DR. THOMPSON
The screams resonated through the front door of the psychiatric hospital, building four. In the hall, three nurses in scrubs tried their best to keep the man pinned to the floor. Next to them, a leather armchair lay on its side. The receptionist waited on the phone, eager to hear a reply.
“Morning, Dr. Thompson. Mr. Stankovic is having another fit. We gave him a shot.” she blurted.
“When he’s out of it, transfer him to my clinic.”
“Your clinic? Not the ward?”
“No, not the ward.” He hesitated for a second. “Let’s try something different.”
She hung up, and Dr. Thompson thought about how cruel life could be to some people. How many fits could Jason Stankovic take? They have been happening closer together compared to when they occurred initially.
I woke up, and I’d had a deep and uninterrupted sleep, but my back ached. I was lying on a leather sofa, and I could smell stale cigar smoke.
I turned and saw Dr. Thompson behind his desk, and my anger built up inside me. In a split second, I sat up straight and put one leg over the other, folding my arms to show composure and pride. The office was filled with wooden furniture and countless books, and I always wondered if people actually read them or used them solely for decoration.
I grew fond of the man and his skill, but I didn’t trust him, trust was my scarcest commodity.
“Hello, Jason. How are you doing?” He hadn’t looked at me yet, still tidying his desk by rearranging documents.
Like shit. “Fresh as an early morning bagel. How about yourself?”
“I’m doing well.” I recognized his tricks by then, how he let the silence expand until I did most of the speaking. Well, not this time.
Two minutes passed. “Would you like something to drink?”
“Whiskey. On the rocks. Please.” Would be phenomenal.
He chuckled. “Not possible.”
“Gary, I would like to go home. Whatever you think I am suffering from, I’m fine now, and I would like to leave this place, this instant. I miss my family.” Filled with anxiety as I waited for his reply, I knew anything I did could give him information. My legs started shaking.
I tried to distract myself as he sipped his drink. Gary Thompson was a psychiatrist, my psychiatrist, but not sure how long I’d known him. Maybe about a month since this nightmare started. He was in his late fifties, and he wore a ridiculous, out-of-fashion goatee.
“I don’t think you are ready.”
The words fell heavy on me, but I expected them.
“Tell me how you’re feeling and what you’re thinking. Why did you snap at work? What happened to you?”
I needed to put on a performance, perhaps threaten him. “Listen Gary. I won’t succumb to this bullshit. I want to leave, so draft the papers. I’ll sign anything.”
I waited. He didn’t reply or react.
“You can’t keep me here against my will. I’ll call my lawyer, and a big lawsuit will come your way, buddy. I’ll make sure you bear the consequences. Unless—” I put my finger up. “Unless I’m satisfied by my immediate release. Then I won’t press any charges.”
A desperate attempt, but still worth trying.
The silence expanded. The motherfucker smiled, enjoying the control.
“Jason. How are you? What’s going on inside?” He said in his usual calm voice.
“I’m frustrated. I’m furious. I’m being held against my will.” We smiled at each other. “And I resent you.” In previous sessions, we agreed I would voice my emotions, whatever they were. I took advantage of that every now and then.
“The thing is that you’re in a tricky situation, and we’re here to help you,” he said. “Do you know where you are?”
“I’m in a psychiatric ward. A prison.”
“You’re in Jackson’s Psychiatric Functional Rehabilitation Center,” he said.
“Let’s call Lisa, please. I can give you her number,”
“I don’t think that will be possible,” he said impatiently.
“552 223 1414. Luke Anderson, my lawyer. No further discussion at this point.”
I stood and moved toward the window. We were on the third floor.
“Please don’t think about escaping.” He sighed. “You’d need to break the reinforced glass, and there wouldn’t be enough time to get out. Guards can arrive here within a minute.”
I slowly walked away.
“Jason, you’ve hit a rough patch, and the situation you are in is complicated. I’ll need you to work with me so I can help you heal. Let’s start with small steps. It’s half-past six now, and you slept for ten hours. Do you feel well rested?”
Mental Note 1: Complicated situation.
“I’m still tired as if I need more sleep. What is this complicated situation?”
I tried to set up a quid pro quo situation and hoped he would play along.
“Too soon to tell you everything. The mind works in a way difficult for us to understand, compartmentalizing what we experience. The incident is buried inside you
, and every time you face the facts, you regress to the initial stages of basic functioning.” He moved to the armed chair, and I instinctively took the chaise longue. I sat and babbled in the same chaise long before.
Mental Note 2: The truth is buried inside me.
“You sound as if I’m broken, but I’m not. You paint me as ill, deranged, paranoid. I’M NOT!” I wondered how many crazy people screamed they weren’t crazy. I imagined myself running down a street in a robe, shouting, “I’M NOT CRAZY! I’M NOT CRAZY!”
“I didn’t say so. I said you’re in a complicated situation, and you’re here to heal. We are here to help you.”
“My memories of my life are intact. I know who I am and what I do. I remember everything,” I grew angrier, and I could throw a few punches at this guy.
“Not everything. You clearly don’t remember what happened,” he said.
“382, give me a 3-digit number, Gary. Please.”
“693.”
“382 times 693 is 264,726,” I said proudly.
Don’t speak shit about my mind.
He looked uneasy, irritated.
“Enough diversion, Jason.”
“My total assets are worth $22,782,000. Do you want money?” I pushed more.
“STOP!” he said. “Our time is limited!”
Mental Note 3: We do not have time. Why the fuck don’t we?
“I appreciate your grip on numbers.” He softened his voice as if he pleaded with me. He leaned forward. “The processor is a part of your mind. The psyche is another part. Your processor is intact, but your psyche is not.”
He smiled and extended his arm to place his hand on my leg; I jerked backward.
“Let’s try something else. Tell me about any new dreams you’ve had.”
“Mmm. None. None that I can remember.” I will not give you a thing to hold against me.
“What is your occupation?” The neutral tone, the quid pro quo was back.
“I work in finance at CyberCrews. I’m the CFO,” I said. “Can we call Will or Amanda? Or Lea?”
“Who are they?” Zero sincerity in his voice.
His question infuriated me, but I held my nerves. I answered, “Will, my brother, Amanda, my sister, and Lea, my daughter. Can we call them now?”
“No, also not possible. We will see when you improve.” He said.
“What the fuck do you mean we’ll see?”
So much for holding my nerves.
“Calm down, Jason. When you’re better, we’ll call. What year is it, and how old are you?”
The truce was back on. “2016. I can’t tell you the exact date, I would say October. Did something bad happen to my family or to me?”
“Yes.”
The word took some time to sink in, hearing the confirmation depressed me.
“Are you exercising regularly? Tell me about your exercise routine and your current weight.”
“I do a few weights training per week, a couple cardio sessions, and one muscle and joint stretching session. I keep my weight around 195 pounds. That’s been constant for the past four years or so.” I felt some pride, but considering the big picture, I thought he tricked me into a comfort zone. “What do I need to do to get out?”
He jotted down a few notes, then stared me in the eyes and said, “Now we are talking. We’ll build a schedule and a rhythm to follow, and we’ll make zero contact with the outside world until you’re better. I’m certain things will come back to you in no time. Just be patient.” He stood. “Come, I want to make you some chamomile tea to help you relax.” He was enthusiastic and sincere, but overselling it.
Mental Note 4: Zero contact with the outside world.
As soon as he stood up, I jumped to my feet.
“Yes, come watch me make the drink.” He shook his head.
I followed him a few steps to the corner. He opened a sealed water bottle. They could inject those, or even reseal them after tampering with the contents.
“Don’t be paranoid. I’ll refresh mine, and we’ll drink together.” He heated the water and served us.
I eyed his desk as we moved toward the seats. I saw a handset phone and a mobile. This could be my break. If I can knock him out and make my calls, I might be out of here in thirty minutes.
“Please don’t think of the phones. I switched one off and disconnected the other,” he told me without turning, continuing his steady steps. “And don’t attack me. Again.” He took a seat and smiled at me.
We sat in silence, and the hot vapor from the cup made me nostalgic for winter, snow, and family gatherings.
His remark about the phones shocked me. How did he know my thoughts, and when did I become so predictable?
Mental Note 5: Is this a cognitive experiment? A telepathic kind?
He grabbed an electronic tablet from a drawer in the coffee table, and said, “The WiFi is turned off for the sake of our meeting. But I can teach you a little about the facility and myself.”
He wanted me to trust him.
A half hour passed as he told me about his years in education, his first clinic, his relationship with his patients, his colleagues, and lastly, the purpose of this unit in Jackson’s Functional Rehabilitation Center. He only took the most severe cases and got involved in new research in psychiatry and modern cognitive enhancement. He saw me getting restless when he talked about the research.
“See, Jason, I’m your doctor, and everything I do is for your benefit. Give me your time and faith. You’re not a research subject, I assure you that enrolling you as a subject in any study is neither legal nor ethical without your consent or the consent of a legal representative.” He walked over to the desk and grabbed a folder.
He came back, and I still didn’t say a thing. I watched and recorded mental notes.
He took a paper out of the folder. “This is a letter from your lawyer, Luke, about your condition and the legality of your stay here. Read it. Surely, you’ll recognize his signature and some intimate details.”
The letter from Luke said I wasn’t well and everybody missed me, and he wished me well and hoped I recover soon. He also told me he gave the facility his consent to treat me. The signature was his, and he included our safe phrase, “Springfield times.”
I trusted Luke with my life; we grew up together and always stayed close. Did I trust him with my money?
Mental Note 6: Consider the likelihood of Luke being compromised. Motive: money?
Unwell. Crazy. Insane.
How the hell did that happen!!!
Mental Note 7: If someone wanted to access my fortune, they could frame me for a crime. Or fabricate my insanity.
“I know what you‘re thinking, Jason. Just relax now, and later you can go over the facts. Now let’s play chess, and afterward we go over your treatment plan.” He was eager to continue the play he orchestrated.
You know nothing, my friend.
Can he access my thoughts? Can he predict what I am thinking?
Mental Note 8: Remember if you signed for any experiment for mental predictability.
He set the table. “Before we begin, tell me how much you trust me if ten is the maximum and one is as much as you would trust a hungry lion.”
My processor went into action mode, and the calculations started.
“Remember my merits, and this law-abiding facility, and Luke’s note, and apply the number of circumstances causing a person to develop a mental illness or suffer from a nervous breakdown.” He paused, and I knew the rest: death, drugs, accident. A Cheating partner. Cancer. Bankruptcy.
I grew fond of this guy. Apparently, he knew his customer well... He spoke my language.
“I would say for merits and law and circumstances, seven out of ten. I’ll leave the rest until later,” I said, “define mental illness.”
“Many forms of mental illness can cause a break from reality. The disease doesn’t matter, what matters is the result of a disruption in a person’s perception of reality. However, if this disruption continues,
we then search for the root cause.”
What happened? What is the plan?
I used to think chess is prestigious, designed exclusively for computational minds, but skill got reduced to a set of algorithms so simple that the most primitive computer can beat the most intelligent human.
I beat him with some effort. He set the board aside, and we resumed our conversation.
“Can you please tell me what happened? And I miss Lea a lot, can we call her?”
“Every time we tell you, you end up having a major setback. This time we want you to try to discover what happened, and I will personally help you. I brought you this device for taking notes. No connectivity, only an electronic notepad you can lock. Before your last setback, you were taking notes, memorizing them and then destroying them. And the next day you would write them down again and destroy them before bedtime.”
The notepad might come in handy.
He continued. “Here is the plan for the next four or five weeks. Just imagine the world has come to an end. There is nothing outside of your room or your mind. You owe yourself this time to heal. I want you to take your medication, on time. I want you to exercise as often and extensively as you used to, and we’ll add some variety like swimming and yoga. And there are a few books for you to read.”
He started well, but I became anxious towards the end. I wondered whether I didn’t believe him or didn’t believe myself.
I didn’t reply.
“Come with me.” We moved to the corner near the door. “Please stand on the scale.”
161 pounds???? Really??? I’ve lost thirty-five pounds!
“Something’s wrong. I haven’t weighed less than one-ninety in a decade.” Shit, shit, shit. “I need a mirror, please.”
I remembered the movie about a crazy man who didn’t recognize himself in the mirror; the main actor had significantly changed his body weight to fit the role.
I was a broken man. My tears poured down my cheeks, and I realized I must surrender to whatever happened. Dr. Thompson put his arm around me as I sobbed, but I jerked out of his embrace, driven by pride.
“Jason, it is okay. I want you to put your confidence in me, and then maybe we can get you back on your feet. What’s the last thing you remember before being here?”