by Jw Schnarr
I am always with you, The Mad Hater said.
The words were in her ear but also inside her head, like the sound was emanating from somewhere in the middle of her brain. She’d once had one of those Japanese lollipops with the radios built into the stem; they let you hear their broadcast when you put your mouth on the candy and completed a short wave broadcast that you could actually hear inside your head. Alice was eight years old and she thought it was magic; the power of God incarnate. They’d been at Sunday school and the Friends of Jesus had been there for a little chat on obeying God’s word.
At the end of the lesson they’d handed these suckers with a “special message” out to all the kids. Alice was one of the last kids in line and was stuck with Cherry, which she hated, but the magic of putting the treat in her mouth and hearing the lord’s work made the flavour irrelevant. The suckers were wired to pick up the local Gospel station (WGOD, Good for your ears, good for your soul!) and long after the sucker was gone she kept the stick in her mouth, singing along with prayer tunes she knew from church or listening to Jack Van Impe preach about the end of the world until late into the evening. Eventually her mother threw it out on her, like she threw everything Alice loved away; like she threw her own life away by liquefying it and injecting the bad parts into her daughter.
But this wasn’t religious radio coming through her thoughts, and it wasn’t magical. The sudden appearance of The Mad Hater made her feel infected and dirty. It felt like being possessed by the devil. Any moment now she’d start jabbing her cunt with a crucifix, begging to let Jesus fuck her. Just like in The Exorcist. WWJD didn’t refer to sexual positions. Alice had no interest in it ever referring to sex.
LIAR!
She could hear the Mad Hater inside her head, banging on a plate with a spoon and frothing at the mouth. Goddamn liar! We saw you growing AND shrinking in the house of the Rabbit!
How was this even possible? It seemed too crazy to be real. Maybe Alice—
“It’s not crazy at all,” Dr Weller said. “Like I was saying, it’s sometimes common for people to feel that way. Doesn’t make them crazy. Makes them sound like dirty cunts, right Fuckface?”
YOU’RE A CRAZY BITCH AREN’T YOU! The Hater shrieked. YOU DON’T KNOW TIME! YOU’RE RUNNING OUT OF HIM BUT YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU’RE LOSING! BUT I DO!
“What?” Alice said, confused. It was hard to hear what the Doctor was saying with that lunatic shouting in her ears. “I haven’t lost anything.”
“What was that, Alice?” Dr Weller said. He was watching her closely. There was something Alice didn’t like in his eyes. He looked like he was waiting for her to do something. Explode maybe.
Blow your top! The Hater said. I have another for you! We’ll take it to the Queen of Harts and she can stick it on a pig pole like the rest.
“Shut up,” Alice said. “I think I’m done.”
“What are you done with, Alice?” Dr Weller said. “Are you alright? You’re very pale. Maybe you should kill yourself. Then you’d be done, right?”
“I don’t feel well,” Alice said. She was beginning to get misty, like things were overlapping again. She could hear the Hater’s voice, plain as day, overtop of the words Dr Weller was saying. But Dr Weller wasn’t making any sense either. It was like they were all in the same room together, and the Hater had his face pressed against her head, shouting into her ear. Then a moment later he would be far away, sprinting toward her, his voice growing louder with each passing second.
PIG POLES ALICE! PIG POLES! YOU LOVE THE HOG DON’T YOU LITTLE BLOND GIRL? Come back to the table won’t you? Things will be just as before. We’ll have tea and you can scratch a new number in my watch and we’ll piss on time. You won’t miss him at all! If he does arrive, you won’t even recognize him! YOU WONT RUN OUT OF TIME BECAUSE YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHO HE IS!
“Alice, what are you talking about?” Dr Weller said.
Alice looked at the Doctor, her mouth open. What was he talking about? Had she been speaking that insane bullshit out loud?
“I uhh,” she began. She what? She was having trouble hearing him because some lunatic in a big green hat was screaming in her ears? But she couldn’t see him because maybe he was sitting inside her ear, just next to her eardrum? What was the least crazy sounding thing she could say right now? “I feel sick.” The words came out, but they sounded like how she might speak with her mouth stuffed with cotton. A classic Marlon Brando Godfather era impression. I’m gonna do you this favour. Maybe someday you can do me a favour, Dr Weller. Maybe someday you can let me out of this place before the cops find me and put me away forever.
Alice started sucking in deep, whooping breaths. It was just too much to think about all at once. There was too much going on inside her head. She needed to lie down, she needed to fix, she needed something. She needed out.
Dr Weller was beside her. When had that happened?
“It’s alright, Alice,” he was saying in a friendly, nonthreatening tone. The same voice male adults had been using on her since she was eleven years old and started growing breasts. He had a warm hand on her shoulder. Another on her back. Too low on her back, maybe. Creepy low. “We’re going to get you something to calm you down. It’s alright. And if you don’t like it, fucking kill yourself. Slit your wrists. Pull your arteries out and hang yourself with them. Put on a show.”
TEA AND BREAD! TEA AND BREAD! ALICE TOOK A THIRTY-EIGHT AND SHOT HIM IN THE HEAD!
“Try not to speak,” Dr Weller said. “Or I’ll kill you myself.”
The Hater was trying to get her caught, and Alice knew it. He was screaming and making Alice say it at the same time. Dr Weller was hearing every word the Hater spoke to her, coming out of her mouth like a confession. And the worst part was Alice had no control over the Hater at all. She doubted if even the Hater could control himself. She had to do something to make it stop. Dr Weller’s next phone call would likely be to the Homicide division.
“Shut up!” Alice screamed into the doctor’s face. She sloughed off his groping hands and shoved him hard enough for him to fall off the couch. He felt like warm wax against her hands, and she pulled them back to save herself from sinking into his chest cavity. Then she was on her feet, stepping away and shaking the feeling of his flesh from her hands. “Just shut the fuck up!”
Dr Weller was standing beside the door to his office, and he popped it open. There were a couple women huddled around the nurses’ station down the hall, and he motioned to them.
“Nurse? Little help, please.” He said. He made a motion with his hand simulating the plunging of a syringe, and mouthed the word Sedative. Then he turned to Alice and made a blowjob motion at her, jacking an invisible dick and popping his tongue against the inside of his cheek.
“No!” Alice said. “Tittle hee, tittle haw, broken girl, broken maw.”
She stepped toward the doctor and planted a foot squarely on the office door. She pushed, hard, and the door flew out of Dr Weller’s hands. It slammed shut with a rush of air and a bang.
“I just need a minute to calm down,” Alice said. “I just need a moment.”
“That’s fine, Alice,” Dr Weller said. “I don’t want you to hurt anyone though, alright? Why don’t you sit down? We can talk about the first thing that pops up. There’s plenty of time for that, though you wouldn’t know time if you met him, right?”
The walls were beginning to melt around her. The clock on the wall thudded in her ears, and when she looked up at it she saw someone had scrawled the word FUCK across the face of it in place of numbers.
“You think I’m a fuckin idiot?” Alice shouted at them. She had her hands in fists over her ears, her face contorted in rage. “A clock that doesn’t show time is fuckin’ bullshit! Stop crawling around inside there!”
THE ELECTRIC CHAIR! THE ELECTRIC CHAIR! THAT’S WHAT THEY DO TO LITTLE GIRLS WITH PRETTY YELLOW HAIR! The Hater’s lip quivered as he shouted, above Alice, above the Doctor’s soothing cradle voice.
“A
lice!” Dr Weller said. He kept his voice firm, to keep her attention, but his eyes were elsewhere. He was looking at the glass on the sides of his door. There were two orderlies just outside in the hall, dressed head to toe in white uniforms, and when he nodded they pushed the door open. One of them handed Dr Weller a syringe.
The other one opened his wolf mouth and licked his yellow fangs with an overly long cartoon tongue. He was staring at her tits and he wanted to eat them.
“We need to sedate you, before you hurt yourself, alright?” Dr Weller said. “It’s just a shot, and you can have a nap while we take turns digging around in your guts with a plastic fork.”
“You don’t understand,” Alice said, almost pleading. “He’s inside me. I don’t know how he did it but he’s in here with me and he’s making me say lies.” She pounded a fist against the side of her head to drive the point home. Dr Weller put out his hand and she swatted it away. “He’s making you say lies too!”
The two orderlies moved on her, spreading out, talking softly, like they were trying to catch a chicken. Alice backed away from them, kicked over a silk plant by the couch, and slid into the corner.
“It’s alright Alice,” Dr Weller said, stepping in behind him. He popped the cap off his syringe, double checked the dosage. Then he pulled it into his body protectively. “This will all be over very soon. You are having an episode, maybe something left over from your drug use, and we’re going to kill you for it.”
“Ruined the tea party,” Alice said. “Spilled tea and brains all over the dashboard.”
One of the orderlies made a grab for her, and she lashed out with a savage kick. He pulled back, a little too late, and cried out when Alice’s foot connected with his wrist. The other orderly grabbed Alice’s arm then, while she was off balance, and yanked her forward. Alice fell face first, her captured arm jerking behind her back as she fell. Unable to catch herself, she fell hard on her chest, banging her face on the carpeted floor and losing her breath.
“Oh Fuck,” she whimpered.
The orderly still holding her arm snapped it cleanly behind her back by the wrist, and then put a knee on the small of her back. The other orderly, still holding his hand, knelt down and put a knee across the back of Alice’s legs.
“This is just going to pinch,” Dr Weller said. “You know how it is.” He knelt down in front of Alice, syringe out.
“Hold her steady,” he said to the orderlies, “so I can jam my cock into her veins.” Alice wasn’t moving though. She could barely breathe with the weight of two men on her back, and she was still reeling from smashing her face off the floor.
Dr Weller stuck the syringe into Alice’s shoulder. There was a pinch of for a moment, and then a soft spreading heat as the drugs took hold. Dr Weller rubbed the spot with a cotton ball.
Look at Time, The Hater whispered. He’s getting older by the second.
Alice tried to talk. Her mouth was full of sand. He’s in here with me still, she thought. Smashing an hourglass over her face. Pouring dust and broken glass into her eyes. Making them heavy. Her head filled with weighted balloons. Pushed her face in warm water. The Hater walked away from the front of her mind. Took his hat off. Ruffled his sweaty hair with a free hand, his too-big ears poking out under sand and sweat.
Try not to think of the Dormouse, he said. Try not to think like that at all.
Alice tried to shake the cobwebs and mist from her brain. They quickly turned to snow. She couldn’t see the Hater anymore. Couldn’t think of him.
Alice, The Hater said, snuggling up against her brain stem. Don’t worry dear, I have a plan. I’m going to help you.
Alice’s eyes rolled back in her head, but right before they did she caught sight of Dorothy standing in the doorway, holding her stuffed dog close to her chest, a worried look on her face.
Snow.
Static.
Exit.
Chapter 9
As soon as Alice was unconscious, Dr Weller had the orderlies put her on a neck board and move her back to her room. On his way through the common he passed Dorothy, sitting on her knees looking over the back of the couch at the procession.
“Dr Weller,” she said, putting her hand to her mouth. The other hand was wrapped tightly around Toto, her stuffed dog. “What did you do to her?”
“It’s nothing, Dorothy. We had to sedate her because she was getting really upset. We don’t want her to hurt herself, right?”
“I guess not.” Dorothy balled her hand into a fist and rubbed it against her eye.
Is she crying? Dr Weller smiled at the girl, and resisted the urge to ruffle her hair. Then he was moving again, past the butter-coloured walls into Alice’s room, where the orderlies had already unstrapped her from the neck board and were sliding her into bed. There were restraints in the small nightstand beside the bed, and Dr Weller moved around the orderlies to retrieve them. He began securing Alice into her bed.
“I need you to double check these,” he told the orderlies. The restraints were nylon straps with buckles and velcro. One for each arm, two for each of her legs, and then two more for the torso. Dr Weller ran one under Alice’s breasts to keep it from sliding down to her throat, another across her hips, and then one across each thigh and shin. When he was done, Alice would be able to breath and move her head, but very little else. Of course, she was going to be out for a couple hours so she wouldn’t be moving at all. In that time, Dr Weller hoped he could get the ball rolling on some kind of diagnosis.
When he finished double checking the straps, he nodded to the orderlies, and then followed them out into the common room. “Just check on her every half hour or so,” he told the nurse in attendance. He leaned in close and spoke softly because he didn’t like the other patients overhearing him. “She should be out for a couple hours. If she wakes up and is lucid, have the orderlies remove the straps. If she starts having an episode, make sure you let me know at once.”
The nurse behind the desk nodded, and then shot him a tired, resigned look. You must think I’m the biggest idiot, it seemed to say. Dr Weller ignored it. He nodded back to her, uttered a quick thanks, and returned to his office. Once there he closed the door, straightened the plant Alice had kicked over, and then sat down behind his desk. He pulled the file marked Pleasance, Alice and settled back in his chair.
He was going to have to do a little research, but a tiny worm of suspicion had been digging around in the meat in the back of Dr Weller’s brain. She had been agitated when she came in, nervous about being in therapy. Probably upset about being stuck in the hospital in the first place. It was obvious she didn’t trust any authority figures. Probably had a history of abuse from people caring for her. That was a pretty common diagnosis.
What bothered him was how rapid her episode had occurred. It had actually occurred mid sentence, while he was watching her. It was like a light switch flicked on in her head and she began spouting nonsense. Then the light flicked off. Alice had seemed unaware that it had even occurred at first. This was what most concerned Dr Weller. If she had been faking, he would have been able to tell. Most often people’s perception of mental illness compared to the realities of it were like night and day. People in the field of mental health chalked it up to what they deemed “The Hollywood Effect”.
Hollywood lunatics were most often hyper-realistic sociopaths, stark raving mad. They were twisted minds bent on death or sex, and often a combination of both. Anthony Hopkins in Silence of the Lambs may have been an interesting and riveting character, but in reality he was far from the sociopathic genius Hannibal Lector.
True sociopaths were rarely monsters you knew. They were more akin to playground bullies, tyrants manipulating their little worlds for their own gain and amusement. They were the button pushers of the world; they were con men; they did what they wanted with little regard for other people’s feelings. This was because they didn’t feel things the way people normally did, and as a coping mechanism turned to mimicking the emotional responses in othe
rs. They didn’t act like they were mentally ill; they acted like other people because they were mentally ill.
The episode Alice suffered from had similar hallmarks. There was no halting at the cliff of sanity, she’d simply been walking along and slipped off the edge without noticing. Her confusion was the key to her sincerity. Alice had lashed out angrily because she had been trying to sort out whatever was happening in her mind when the orderlies came in and threatened her physically. It was unfortunate but necessary. Dr Weller couldn’t allow Alice to go through a complete breakdown in his office for the sake of letting her try and work out her problems alone. It was better she was sedated now, and the episode allowed to pass, so that later they could begin working on it rationally. They would be able to discern whether this was an isolated incident or something that had been ongoing in Alice’s life.