Brainstorm

by Jeff Siamon

  She decided the matter for him. “Connie!” She jumped out of her seat when she saw him. Went to him, touching him on the arm. “Are you all right?”

  Her touch was real enough. “What’re you doing here?”

  She ignored what she thought was his annoyance. “Marlene told everyone you were in the hospital. But she didn’t say why.”

  “Oh, well. I’m out of the hospital now.”

  “What happened?”

  If she only knew what a loaded question that was, he thought. “I had to get a new cast.”

  They stood facing each other. Neither knew what to say next.

  “Listen, Connie. I’m sorry about last night. I didn’t mean to suggest that you were ─”

  “Forget it.”

  “No, honestly. Please don’t be mad. That’s not what I meant to say when I ─” She ran out of words. The waiting room wasn’t a place to speak about intimate feelings.

  “I’m not mad.” He wasn’t.

  “Oh. I’m glad.” She wanted to hold his hand. To wrap her arms around him. To give him a reassuring hug. But did none of these. “You heard about what’s happening at the company. It’s confusing and it’s frightening.”

  “Yeah. Marlene told me.” He felt reluctant to say more to her. Not because they were in public. Not because he was afraid how she would react. It was just that he wanted to keep his thoughts to himself until he could work out what this niggle was.

  “Do you think it has anything to do with ─ With what’s happening to you?”

  The shrug he gave her was meant to hide what he was really thinking. But all it did was, for some crazy reason, bring tears to his eyes. Maybe it was the drug they had given him. Or the still vivid memory of what had happened on that ledge. But suddenly, his head was heavy with depression.

  “Listen. I gotta sit down for a moment.”

  She noticed his tears. “Are you all right?”

  He didn’t want to answer her. Instead he asked a passing nurse where the restaurant was. When she told him, he went to the elevators and pressed the down button. It wasn’t that he was trying to ignore Vicky. He didn’t know how to deal with her. Didn’t know how to deal with himself. With all his own confused emotions.

  She had watched him walk away from her but hadn’t followed him. His curt nod told her he wanted to be alone. But she wanted to be alone, too. Alone with him. Since she had come all this way. Taken a taxi even though that meant she wouldn’t have any money for lunch. She wasn’t going to let him walk away from her that easily.

  She followed him to the elevators. “Do you mind if I come, too?” If he said no ─ then, maybe, that would end the matter. At least for Connie. She’d have to swallow her feelings about him as just another little sister crush on an older sister’s guy.

  “Suit yourself.”

  They remained in silence until one of the elevator doors opened. They stepped aside to let an elderly woman push an even more elderly man in a wheelchair out of the elevator. Then entered.

  Vicky waited for Connie to press a floor button. But Connie wasn’t thinking about which number to press. He was under wraps with that cloud of depression. It darkened all of his thoughts but not enough to hide his flashbacks of memory. Regardless whether they were real or not, he knew he should have somehow saved the woman. He went over in his mind those moments on the ledge. Yet that wasn’t all that blackened his mood. It was that niggle. If he could just flesh it out, he had the feeling it would answer a lot of his questions.

  The door closed. He still hadn’t pressed any of the buttons.

  “Connie?” This time she did take his hand. His good hand. She could feel his despair without understanding what was going on inside him.

  The door opened and several people got on. Numbers were pressed. The door closed. The elevator started to move. It went up to the top floor, stopping at each floor to let people on and off. Connie and Vicky did the ride with Connie still not having pressed a floor button.

  When the elevator began its descent, it was then that he felt Vicky’s hand in his. With its warmth, its softness, he was suddenly back on the ledge. He gripped her hand with such a fierce hold that she cried out in surprise. He brought it to his chest. He wasn’t going to let this softness go. Not this time.

  The elevator did its milk run going down, stopping at each floor. Each time the doors opened, Vicky looked at Connie. He knew she was looking at him. Asking something of him. He knew why. What she wanted. For him to pick the right floor. It wasn’t as if he were somnambulant. He was afraid that if he spoke or moved, somehow that would break their connection. And if it was broken, he would lose her like he did the woman. So he pressed her hand hard against his chest. Fought back the anxiety he felt. Not sure if what he feared was real or imagined. But daring not to take a chance either way.

  They were back at the main floor again. Connie still hadn’t reached out a hand to select a floor. Both of them now at the back of elevator while people were getting on and off.

  “Connie?” Vicky asked. When he didn’t answer, she turned to one of the passengers. “Excuse me. Do you know which floor the cafeteria is on?”

  “Oh, you want the basement, lady,” a somewhat frightening looking man told her. His dangling earring, leather jacket and large belly looked as if they belonged to an outlaw biker.

  Connie didn’t notice the man. Hadn’t noticed much on the ride up and down the elevator. Not much except Vicky’s hand and the sound of her voice when she spoke to him.

  Vicky moved to press the basement button. She and the would-be biker exchanged glances. His eyes were friendly even if his mouth wasn’t.

  Connie’s thoughts were confused. His memories clouded his real perceptions. He became alarmed when Vicky moved her hand he was holding. He thought he was losing her, too. But she never let go of his hand and when she returned to his side, his senses seemed to return to the real world.

  All three of them left the elevator when it reached the basement. Vicky’s gentle tug on his hand led Connie off, but he stopped after a few steps. Both watched the biker look-alike walk down the hallway. Towards a sign that read Restaurant.

  “It must be the drug,” he said, not looking at her but at the retreating back of the look-alike.

  “What?” Vicky felt the pressure on her hand. It hurt, but she wasn’t about to yank it free.

  “They gave me something for the pain and it’s made me feel a little bit out of it.” That’s how he now thought of himself. He knew he was flitting back and forth from memory to reality. He had been taking too much pain killers, he told himself. Not sure if that was why he felt the way he did. Which was despair. For everything real and imagined.

  He might have accepted this explanation ─ a reaction to the pain killer ─ but for the feel of Vicky’s hand. Her touch wouldn’t let him forget the woman.

  “I couldn’t save her.” The thought wouldn’t leave his head.

  “What?”

  He didn’t know what, so he didn’t answer.

  Throughout all this ─ the up and down elevator ride ─ Vicky’s emotions had gone up and down as well. Her heart had beat wildly when he had first taken her hand. Then she had become alarmed with the pressure of his squeeze. Shamefully alarmed because she really thought he was having some kind of mental breakdown. Then it fluttered ─ her heart did ─ when he relaxed his grip but brought her hand to his chest. And now, she felt compassion for the emotional pain she felt he was feeling.

  The would-be biker had gone into the restaurant. Connie looked at Vicky. What to do? he thought. He examined her face as she did his. He was hoping ─ as illogical as it seemed to him ─ for some kind of answer from her. She was hoping for a lot more. She smiled when their eyes met. And the smile gave him a sense of hope. At least she didn’t seem affected by what was happening to him. Perhaps that was the answer to his question.

  “Listen. I want to tell you something and I want you listen without saying anything. Just listen. No matter how crazy it
all sounds.”

  They both knew what he meant. By not saying anything. Anything meaning she thought he was going crazy.

  “Okay. Sure. I will.”

  “I don’t care what you think. What you think about me. That’s not the point I’m making. Hell, I’m not even sure what point I am making. But … Well, let’s get some coffee.”

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  Vicky didn’t know how she would react to what he was going to tell her. She knew he had had another episode even before he began to describe it. What she didn’t know was whether that would convince her he was having a mental breakdown or ─? She’d put off the alternative reaction until after he had finished.

  As for Connie. As soon as he had begun to tell her what had happened in the subway car, he was right back on the ledge. He could feel the sting of the driving snow. The strain of the woman’s body on his arm. The grief when the root gave way. With his eyes closed as he spoke, his memory was as real to him as the acrid taste of the coffee he had drunk.

  The tears in his eyes were real, too. Vicky could see that. As was the emotion in his voice. But as for the alternative? How could something so fantastic be real? Even given the strange happenings at the company and his car accident the night before. But she wasn’t going to make the same mistake she had made last night. Just listen. That’s what he wanted. That’s what she was doing.

  30

  It was Vicky’s suggestion. She surprised herself when she made it. Surprised because everything he had told her seemed to the amateur psychologist in her as classic schizophrenia. Hearing voices. Having hallucinations. But she wanted to help him. Do something for him besides telling him he was going crazy. That way she could at least be with him. Maybe then, make him see what was really happening to him.

  They’d spend the mornings at the subway stop before coming to work. Where he said he had seen the girl. That was her suggestion. Her only hesitation after making it was the uncertainty of what he might do if he actually saw her again. For what she thought happened to him was that, as he was hallucinating, he saw someone with the same hair as the girl in his dreams. Then she entered his delusions.

  But she kept these thoughts to herself.

  If he had known her better, he would have realized what she was really thinking from the frown she gave him when she made the suggestion. However, he didn’t really know her. He nodded to her frown. Agreed that it was a good idea. Sipped more of his now lukewarm coffee and thought. That niggle. It wouldn’t leave him alone. If he could just remember. Something else happened to him on that ledge. If he could just remember.

  “Something else,” he said. More to himself than to Vicky.

  When he didn’t go on, she asked: “Yes?”

  But her “yes” wasn’t enough to stimulate his memory. “I don’t know.” He sipped more of his coffee. The taste didn’t stimulate anything either. He stood up. “Let’s go.”

  She stood up with him. But when he didn’t move, she hesitated, too. His face had suddenly become pale. “Everything okay?” She tried to make her voice sound as offhand as possible. But that’s not how she felt. She was worried. If he was having one of his attacks ─ in a hospital, no less ─ that’s where he was going to end up. She put her hand on his good arm. Gave it a tug.

  “It’s these damn headaches,” he said. He closed his eyes and tightened his lips.

  “Why don’t we sit down some more.”

  “Yeah.”

  They sat.

  “You must think I’m cracking up.”

  She did. “No.”

  He heard her sigh. “That’s okay. Just don’t turn me in.” He smiled at her. Like now he knew what she was thinking.

  She put her hand on his. “Of course not.” Finally, she could give him a genuine expression. A return smile that told him she’d be with him no matter what.

  He would have smiled back. Her reaction made him feel like he could get a grip on himself. Would have smiled but for another stab of headache. Its bursts crashed his senses with lightning-like jaggeds in his vision. The pounding and flashes blurred everything he saw. Muffled the sounds around him ─ the hum of people talking in the cafeteria; Vicky presumably saying something to him.

  Then he felt a rough hand on his shoulder. Like a shove. He widened his eyes on the impact. Turned to Vicky with an angry glare. That wasn’t how you were supposed to treat someone who was having a migraine. But everything now seemed grey to him. Out of focus. He felt another shove on his shoulder and nearly lost his balance. He reached out his hands to hold onto the table. To keep from falling backwards. But his hands dangled in mid-air. There was no table.

  “Hey,” he shouted. He turned to Vicky. He could see her face now as if a light had suddenly shone on it. “Connie?” he heard her say. “Are you all right?”

  “I would be if you’d quite poking me.” He didn’t hear her response. His head exploded with pain again. Lights filled his vision so he couldn’t see her. Or anything else. Then another jab on his shoulder sent him sprawling backwards. He landed on his back with a powerful thud. “What the hell, Vicky. What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  Hands suddenly grabbed him by the shoulders. Then under his arm pits, lifting him to his feet. Bright zigzags still obscured his vision so he had no idea who was grabbing him. He struggled while his head raced in thought, trying to understand why Vicky had done this. For that’s what he finally concluded during this struggle. She thought he was having another episode and she had called in the hospital staff to subdue him. But why the hell she had pushed him, he was clueless.

  Clueless, that is, until the zigzags ebbed away and he could see clearly. And what he saw might have freaked him out if the sensations hadn’t been familiar. Another episode. That’s what was happening to him.

  He peered into what was now dim light. Dim not because his vision hadn’t come back to normal. Dim because in the distance he could see a rosy slash across the horizon. He was looking at either a sunset or a sunrise. That’s what his senses told him. That’s what the shadows in front of him revealed. They also revealed the glow of flames. A camp fire of sorts on the ground in front of him. Behind the flames, flickering from lit to shadow, were the outlines of three people.

  He shook his head at the illusion. These episodes ─ they were happening too often. Was this going to be his fate from now on? To suffer one episode after another? Was this the niggle that had worried him? Had he realized this when he was lying on the ledge? That he would forever bounce back and forth from reality to these hallucinations? And if all this was so, what did it have to do with his sense of premonition? His feeling that this thing seemed to be both stalking him and fearful of him?

  Too many damn questions, he thought.

  But he’d have to wait to sort out their answers. He felt two more tugs on his shoulders and arms. Rougher this time so he couldn’t move. He glanced from one side of himself to the other, still expecting hospital orderlies. That’s not what he saw. There was indeed a man on either side of him. But they weren’t wearing hospital green. And they didn’t look like orderlies he had ever seen.

  Bushy beards. That’s what he saw. They hid most of their faces, but not the hostility in their eyes. Dark with aggression.

  He turned his attention to the people in front of him. The flickering forms in the firelight revealed three men. Three bearded men. Each a head or so shorter than he, as were the men beside him. If he had been watching a movie, he would have thought he was looking at three peasants in a King Arthur epic.

  The men in front of him wore what looked like tunics that fell below their knees. Some kind of belt around their waists gave the garments shape. Hats, like bonnets, covered their heads. Definitely not hospital attire. Nor were the long, thin slabs they held in their hands. Metallic from the reflections of the firelight. Swords!

  In real time, all this took place in a bare few seconds ─ being lifted up; thinking about what was happening to him; looking at the men holding onto him; contempl
ating the men facing him.

  One of the men growled something in a language he didn’t understand. The other two answered back. Then all three pointed their swords at him. That’s when the men holding him tightened their grips so that his muscles twisted in pain.

  Up until this moment, Connie had remained curious. Even calm. Just another episode. He didn’t even feel any rush of emotion. Any penetration of this thing’s fear. But when the men holding him suddenly twisted his shoulders, some instinctual force within him took over. With a cry, he thrust his elbows hard into the men. They roared back and instantly let him go. He heard the thud of their bodies when they hit the ground. And their moans after they had landed.

  Yet everything happened so swiftly, he had the sense that nothing had happened. The way a person locks their door from habit when they leave home and then can’t remember having locked it.

  But the twinges of pain in his shoulders had a memory. They were real enough. It seemed were the three men facing him with outstretched swords. The crackle of the fire sent sparks into the air as he regarded them regarding him.

  Was this going to be like the time on the ledge when he and the woman fell into the abyss? When he then had woken up ─ unharmed ─ on the subway car floor. Were these men going to run him through with their swords only for him to find himself on the hospital restaurant’s floor?

  That’s what he thought as he watched them take a step towards him then stop. The part of him that was still calm ─ that looked upon this scene as just an episode ─ that part felt no fear. Really no emotion but curiosity.

  Not so for the side of him he had discovered in the desert. This warrior self. That Connie prepared himself for a fight with a quick glance over his shoulder at the men on the ground. He scanned them for any weapons they might have. Both were clutching their chests and moaning. That was all he saw.

  He turned back to the swordsmen. Real or imagined? He took a step backwards and waited to see what would happen next. The three men advanced one step towards him. He backed up another step. The three matched his move. Seconds passed. The swordsmen’s faces were in shadow but their body language was clear enough. Connie had the feeling that the three were about to charge. Even so, as he tensed for a fight, he thought ─ an ironic thought ─ that it would have been a lot easier to deal with orderlies than this hallucinatory trio.