by D. S. Smith
“Do you work Stuart?”
“Yes, I’m a zookeeper.”
“What animals do you work with?”
“Tigers.”
She removed something from the folder and showed it to him. “What is this?”
“It’s a dog.”
“What is it doing?”
“It looks like its barking.”
She showed him another picture of a dog. “What is this dog doing?”
“Nothing, it looks dead.”
“Could it be sleeping?”
“No, its eyes are open but they’re lifeless.”
“What does that make you feel?”
“Nothing really, it’s not my dog or any dog I know.”
“Do you and Lauren have a dog?”
“We talked about getting one but we both work so it would be stuck on its own all day. It’s not going to happen now with a baby on the way.”
“Do you have any family Stuart?”
“Yes, I have a younger brother David. Our parents both died when we were in our twenties.”
“What about Lauren?”
“Well yes of course, she’s family too.”
“No sorry, I mean does Lauren have any family?”
“Oh I see, yes she has her mother, Margaret who lives in Croydon. I need to contact her, she’ll know where Lauren is.”
“Where does Lauren work?”
“The Natural History Museum, she’s a curator.”
“Is she working today?”
“I don’t know, what day is it?”
“It’s Monday.”
“Then she should be working but she’s probably worrying about where the hell I am.” He felt the anguish rising again but he knew he had to stay calm if he was to convince them he was not crazy.
“When I came in you were messing with your phone. Whose numbers do you have on there?”
“It’s not my phone. I’ve lost mine. I do recognise two numbers on this one, my brother’s and our receptionist at the zoo.”
“Tell me about your house in Croydon.”
“Err, well it’s a three-bedroom semi about ten years old. There’s a small open front garden and a fenced in back garden. There are no carpets downstairs just laminated flooring with the odd rug. We have a wood effect gas fire in the living room, a table and four chairs in the kitchen and a large conservatory on the back of the house…”
While he was answering her questions, Dr Carson took out her phone and began thumbing the keys before interrupting him mid-sentence with another question. “Is that what you saw when you visited there with your brother two weeks ago?”
“No, it was completely different but I’ve thought about that. I was really hungover at the time and I think I may have taken him to the wrong house.”
“Stuart, I have the number for the Natural History Museum here. Would you like to call and see if Lauren is in work so you can tell her you’re ok?” She offered the phone to him and he took it eyeing the number on the display. “Thanks doctor, I was trying to find the number for the museum on that phone…” he pointed to the handset he been holding when she came in, “but I couldn’t get connected to the internet.”
He pressed the call button on her phone and waited. It rang for a few seconds before a man answered introducing himself as the main reception. Stuart asked to speak to Lauren Milton in the Mammal Section. There was a pause of around two minutes before the receptionist came back on and announced there was no one employed at the museum with that name. Stuart asked him to try Lauren Bell thinking she might still be listed under her maiden name. There was a further pause before the man came back on announcing there was no one of that name either. Stuart started to get annoyed with the man informing him he must be mistaken as Lauren had worked at the museum for over ten years and he had called her there several times. The receptionist informed Stuart he was unable to assist any further and if Stuart required more information he should write or email to the enquiries department. Stuart was not ready to give up. He remembered another name, John Lawson, he asked the receptionist to put him through to him. The man asked him to hold again. While he waited, he informed Dr Carson that John Lawson was a colleague of Laurens and a good friend. After around two minutes a voice sounded on the phone that Stuart recognised. “Hi John, its Stuart Milton. Sorry to bother you but I don’t suppose you know where Lauren is do you?”
“Lauren? Sorry mate, no one here of that name I think you must have the wrong number. I’ll just pop you back through to reception.” Stuart could not believe what he was hearing. “No John wait, it’s me Stuart, Lauren’s husband, Lauren Bell? We’ve met loads of times. You know Lauren, you’ve written papers together.” He was beginning to sound frantic and he knew it. “Sorry Stuart, you have the wrong guy, I’ll just…” Stuart ended the call and handed the phone back to the doctor. He knew from the look on her face he did not need to tell her what he had just found out. He thought for a moment about what this latest revelation meant.
“I’m a rational man Doctor and I can understand why you and everyone else think I’m crazy. All the evidence suggests that none of what I claim is real and I have no idea what the hell is going on. But for me to accept that I am sick and Lauren is just a symptom of that sickness, well that’s crazy.”
Chapter 8
Captain Brad Jenson had been a sailor for twenty-seven years and a skipper for the past ten. He had experienced all manner of weather conditions during his time at sea but what he was witnessing now was beyond anything he had seen or heard of before. His vessel, the Oceanic Supplier, was on a routine supply run to one of the many oilrigs in the Gulf of Mexico. They were transporting frozen food, drilling equipment and personnel to the Olympic Ten oil rig situated approximately eighty kilometres off the coast of Mobile, Alabama. They expected to reach their destination within the next hour. Up until this point, the sailing conditions had been perfect. Clear blue skies, long slow swell and a mild breeze. The kind of day that made Captain Jenson glad he was in his chosen profession. Like many of his crew, and the crews of many other vessels in the Gulf, Brad had started his life at sea as a fisherman. He was the tender age of fourteen when he joined his first boat. It was a shrimping vessel owned by his uncle. He could earn as much as one thousand dollars for a ten-day trip spent hauling in nets from dawn until dusk. As a young, single guy, that had seemed like a fortune. It was only when he got married and had his daughter that he started to question the hours and the money. So, when the oil companies arrived offering far greater rewards and much better working conditions he bucked the family tradition and dropped the shrimping game for the life of a supply boat hand.
As was the norm during these transits to and from the rigs, he had instructed his crew to carry out routine maintenance tasks. He himself was carrying out an inspection inside one of the lifeboats. His more than capable first mate was at the helm. He was a hands-on captain and would not ask the crew to do anything he was not willing to do himself. Whilst he was carrying out the inspection of the lifeboat, the ship suddenly listed steeply to port causing him to fall heavily against the side of the small craft. The ship corrected its position again but began to roll erratically. Captain Jenson grabbed hold of one of the seats and pulled himself back up. He managed to stagger toward the front window where he had a clear view of the bridge and the ship’s bow. He took his VHF radio out of its holder attached to his belt and was just about to call the first mate when he saw something he could not comprehend. Directly in front of the ship’s bow a large column of water was rising up from the sea, gushing spray in all directions like a gigantic fire hydrant. The ship was heading straight for it. He put the radio to his mouth and shouted commands to his colleague on the bridge. “Jeremiah, throw her into manual and engage full astern. Steer her to starboard at the same time.” “Roger, Chief but I think we’re already taking on water.” “Just concentrate on steering away from whatever that thing is. I’ll put out a Mayday call on the VHF.” He could feel the ship starting t
o list again and knew what his colleague had said was right. They were taking on water fast and it would only be a matter of minutes before they lost control of the sinking vessel. He set the VHF handset to Channel 16.
“Mayday, mayday, mayday. This is the Supply Vessel Oceanic Supplier. Current location 28° 44′ 17.3″ N, 88° 21′ 57.4″ W. We are taking in water and in danger of capsizing. Please send assistance immediately, over.”
“Roger Oceanic Supplier, this is the United States Coast Guard communications station, repeat position, over.”
“United States Coast Guard, this is the Oceanic Supplier current location 28° 44′ 17.3″ N, 88° 21′ 57.4″ W. We are taking in water. Please send assistance immediately, over.”
“Roger Oceanic Supplier, this is the Unit…………….(Inaudible) guard communications station. Repeat (Inaudible)……………”
“Current location 28° 44′ 17.3″ N, 88° 21′ 57.4″ W. Over.”
“Roger. We understand that you are taking on water (Inaudible)…………………ber of persons on board, over.”
“We are a supply vessel and have seventeen onboard, I repeat seventeen crew, over.”
“Oceanic Supplier, repeat position, I say again, repeat position, over.”
The captain looked toward the front of the ship. They were just feet away from sailing straight into the water column. His gaze turned to his colleague on the bridge who seemed frozen to the spot staring at the aberration before them. He pressed the button on the radio handset and was just about to speak when the front of the ship made contact. Before he could register what was happening he was thrown forward against the window of the lifeboat banging his head hard against it, rendering him unconscious.
Chapter 9
On arrival at Dr Carson’s office, the door was open and a strong smell of coffee filtered out into the corridor. Stuart knocked and was duly invited in by Dr Carson who stood up from behind a large, contemporary work desk. She was not wearing the usual white coat but instead sported a bottle green polo shirt with the hospital’s logo on it and a pair of tight-fitting black trousers. After an accepted offer of coffee and the exchange of a few pleasantries, the session began in earnest. She started by explaining to Stuart the rationale behind the line of questioning used in the previous session. She described how the seemingly random sequence of questions was actually designed like a flow chart eliminating possible disorders one by one in order to narrow down the process of diagnosis. “The problem we have with you Stuart is you display none of the physiological or psychological traits associated with amnesia or dissociative identity disorder. If it wasn’t for the fact I already know your history I would have no reason at all to doubt everything you have told me is the truth, but all we have to support your claims is your word. On the other hand there is an overwhelming body of evidence suggesting you are either a very good liar or the disassociation with your former life is so acute it is impossible to detect. I don’t think you are a liar Stuart.” She paused for a moment before speaking again. “Tell me something. How did you feel about the outcome of the phone call with the museum yesterday? How can the fact they have never heard of Lauren be explained?” “I don’t know Doctor I can’t explain it. Clearly something has happened to me that has affected my memory, I accept that but I can’t accept all the memories and feelings I have are a symptom of some kind of delusional episode.” “The mind is an incredibly complex thing Stuart. Nobody fully understands the workings of it. Everyone has their own perception of the lives they lead and the environment within which they live them. For most of us the perceptions are complimentary so we accept reality as a collective experience. For instance, who is to say you see the colour of this t-shirt in the same way I do. We both perceive it as green but whether or not we see the same colour, we can’t say. It doesn’t matter though as long as we all agree. Nevertheless, if someone comes in and says my t-shirt is red and everyone else says it is green then we have to question his or her perception of my t-shirt. There has to be a reason why their perception is different to ours. Of course, in that case we would suspect colour blindness, a condition in which the receptors in the eye send erroneous signals to the brain. For some reason Stuart, we are all seeing green but you are seeing red. We need to find out what is causing your brain to do that.”
Stuart allowed her words to float around in his mind for a moment before pushing them aside by thinking of Lauren. He flashed the doctor a defiant smile and shared a memory with her.
“About two weeks after Lauren and I started seeing each other I had to go up to Chester for a conference. I had to leave early on a Monday morning and wouldn’t return home until the following Thursday. Lauren spent the Sunday night at my place. We drank a couple of bottles of wine, listened to music, talked and made love. We talked so much about everything and nothing. We listened to each other too. I was interested in everything she had to say and I’m sure it was mutual. It was as if someone had given her a list of things to say that I would be interested in. And the way she listened to me made me feel like I was worth something, like what I said really mattered. The sex was amazing too because we were so at ease with each other. I know sex isn’t everything in a relationship but it’s the closest two people can physically get to each other and that night we got really close.”
He paused for a moment, shuffling in his seat to get more comfortable. He continued with the story. “When morning came, I hated the fact I had to leave her in that warm, snug bed knowing I was not going to see her again for three whole days. I remember feeling jealous of every car, truck and coach that passed me on the other side of the motorway because they were going towards her and I was getting further away. Seven years on and we still have nights like that. Drink wine, talk, make love. Sure we argue over ridiculous things. What couple doesn’t? But we always make up. One of us always accepts they were wrong and apologises. Which without fail leads to the other one apologising also, which in turn makes the whole reason for falling out in the first place seem so ridiculous. We get it though, we both understand.” He paused for moment, composing himself. “I still hate leaving her doctor, every bit as much as I did that morning when I drove up to Chester. So imagine how it makes me feel now to contemplate what you are suggesting could be true. To contemplate I will never see her again and all those memories and feelings I have are not real.”
Dr Carson regarded Stuart with sympathetic eyes. His was a hopeless situation for which any resolution was going to be long and painful. She knew she had to get to the root cause of the disorder but suspected this was hidden so deep that conventional methods would not be effective. She continued questioning him, asking about his upbringing and his school years but there was nothing apparent that could have contributed to his present condition. The only traumatic event he mentioned was that both of his parents had died within a couple of years of each other when he was in his mid-twenties. They were both in their early seventies and whilst he showed obvious sadness toward his loss there was no trauma evident as a result of this. She decided to ask Stuart if he would agree to undergo a course of hypnosis therapy and was pleasantly surprised when he agreed without hesitation. She scheduled the first session for the next day and drew an early conclusion to their current meeting.
Chapter 10
Professor John Humphries stared in amazement at the equipment standing before him in the laboratory. Not because it appeared in anyway extraordinary, quite the opposite. He could have been looking at any security checkpoint in any modern airport. The technology the team were using was in fact based on the Passive Millimetre Wave Scanners widely used for screening at many government buildings and airports. The main feature in the room was a seven foot high hexagon shaped booth with openings on opposite sides large enough for someone six feet plus to walk through. The other four sides that made up the hexagon were constructed of a grey metal frame surrounding thick frosted, lead-based glass. The ceiling of the booth housed a network of thin glass tubes resembling fluorescent light filaments
but were actually high energy resonators used to stimulate a quantum chain reaction. Banks of computers lined the walls of the room forming a vast array of twinkling LED lights and whirring motors that powered the drives and fans. No, it wasn’t the visual spectacle of the equipment that amazed the professor, nor was it the purpose, it was the simplicity.
The professor took out his phone and thumbed in the number for Jim McGonagall, the research assistance he had tasked with investigating the events that had taken place in Norwood. The man answered after just a few rings. “Hi Jim, we are almost ready here, have you found our candidate yet?” The professor asked.
Jim McGonagall loved working for Professor Humphries. As well as being the most brilliant man he had ever met, he was also a pioneer. His work was cutting edge and highly classified. Being part of his team made him feel like a success. Physics had been the obvious choice for Jim. Mathematics came naturally to him from an early age and physics was the only field that truly challenged him. He did not want to be one of those stuffy, nerdy scientists though with thick-rimmed glasses and no dress sense. He wanted to be a rock n roll scientist like Jeff Goldblum in Jurassic Park. Though when he shared this vision with a friend, the friend did point out that in that film, Jeff Goldblum was wearing thick-rimmed glasses and did display very bad dress sense. Jim did not have any problem filling the role though. In addition to an IQ of one hundred seventy, he was six foot two, athletic and charming. His only downfall was despite all he had going for him he was highly insecure about what other people thought of him.
Jim spoke excitedly into the handset as he informed the professor they may have found what they were looking for. “John, you were spot on suggesting I should check the local rags. The Norwood Reporter is running a story about an incident involving a local man forcing his way into someone’s house in Croydon claiming it to be his own. But it wasn’t. The house actually belonged to a family that’s had been living there for more than ten years.” He paused waiting for the professor to comment. “That sounds promising Jim. Well done.”