by Kevin Dwyer
the look that remained painted on his face, some said his heart froze with terror.
The Professor considered the experiment to be a definite partial success. He was glad his young doctor hadn’t shared the same outcome and rather missed his Bobo the Clown. By comparison, the patient, John O’Connor turned out to be rather dull and uninteresting and perhaps even disappointing. He was one of the very few to have been brought back and seemed to show little interest in that at all. The professor was lost in the psychology of it and the opposing positions of Freud and Jung. Surely the man would have had some will to live, some life force or other and yet it seemed not. Jack Hill, along with half the hospital staff could only wonder what it was that happened to the man, what made him so afraid and what did the pill do? The hospital became a rather quiet place for a while as they sought some sort solace in a situation which was already terrible and yet now appeared to have taken a turn for the worse.
Unfortunately, no solace was to arise in the near future and after a couple of days the staff affected just settled into a degree deeper state of unease. Jack had killed his first patient and the professor was consulting architects over the building of a new wing. Six more of the patients from the many due for termination were given the Insanidol and all died in the same manner. Then Jack met Julia Krish.
Section 7
It makes me sad to write this and when Jack saw Julia Krish water welled in his eyes at the sadness he felt to see her in such a state. She was pale, sickly and damaged. She gave the impression of being somewhat unbalanced in her chair most likely in part to the narcotic cocktail that could have kept a street junkie happy for a week. Her fragile connection to life could be seen as nothing other than an expression of the preciousness of life itself. Jack mumbled some excuses, mostly to himself as Julia was beyond conversation or communication even if she wanted to. He went and got himself some coffee.
It was his job to assess the new patients to make sure they were all suffering from the same psychosis and not just plain ole crazy or misfits in a world that didn’t much care for anyone that didn’t comply with the norm. He’d seen several of them to date but they’d not had this effect on him. For some reason there was still life in Patient 0000. Julia Krish had reached out and touched his heart. The last words of Bobo the Clown were spinning around his head “Julia Krish is quite a dish, Julia Krish is quite a dish” and he felt as is somewhere in the room again someone laughed at him. He pulled himself together and went back to see his patient.
Back in the assessment room the nurse was sitting in the doctors chair watching the patient. He got back up and stood to the side by the wall. Jack sat down. Patient 0000’s appetite for drugs must have been huge for they seemed to be wearing off slightly. She was beginning to look around the room with wild burning eyes, albeit her eyes being the only part of her body she could readily move at this point in time. The nurse was looking wary and his body language should have suggested to the young doctor that this session really should expire. He put his bite proof gloves back on in case things got heated.
Just as Jack sat down her wild eyes fixed on him. It felt like two daggers shot into each of his eyes and he recoiled in his chair. As his head came forward his eyes again felt like lead as with 4192 but this time he couldn’t stay awake. To the nurse it was though time had just stopped. Jack and Patient 0000 were in a still photograph or perhaps motion that is slowed so much it may as well not be motion at all. They were both locked into this together.
To the observer Jack was like a waxwork, his eyes were closed. Patient 0000’s eyes were open but she was a plaster statue. It reminded the nurse of some sort of ghastly sculpture that nowadays might be called art and exhibited at a gallery just to provoke attention. He looked at his watch but didn’t seem to pay any notice of the time. Though he felt odd he reminded himself of where he worked. He didn’t wish to overly consider that having looked at his watch and being no clearer as to what time it was. However, seconds could have been hours.
Jack had no idea his eyes were closed and he appeared to the nurse as if in a trance. He could see an old oil lamp burning on the green grey hospital table. It made no sense at all. It had a round swirly purply red pottery base, brass turn and a glass tube. A flame burnt within it and was giving off wispy black smoke. As he was about to shake himself free from this image that made no sense when he smelt the burning oil and something stirred inside of him. Suddenly the room around him was changing. They were in a gypsy caravan with pots and herbs and clothes hanging around them. A young woman on the opposite side of a small wooden table upon which the lamp sat smiled at him. “What d’you want with this lady” she teased. He felt happier than he had ever felt in his whole life.
The air in the room was thick but the three occupants pulled themselves back to reality. The nurse was silent, not as previously because it was more than his employment contract to contradict this new if somewhat eccentric doctor, but he was just silent. Jack looked at 0000, he was awake but transfixed for a whole another reason. Her face had changed; the beautiful young woman from the caravan was sitting just opposite him. He looked at her. She looked at him, the wild crazed eyes hungry and searching for god knows what had gone. After 250 years her love had come back to her.
Though some mysterious force could have taken out all the electric across the whole city and rendered it silent. Neither Jack nor 0000 would have made any thoughtful connection. She stared at this young attractive man as many women would in a slightly shy but simple way and though some women would perhaps be nervous, she also felt surety, the kind of surety where a woman owns a man’s heart. Her lips which had barely been used for conversation in many years began to power themselves unsteadily into life. Jack seemed to hang on every difficult motion she made to speak, eventually she asked “who are you?” Jack replied in a voice as kind as ever “I’m your doctor”. Her eyes appeared to change to something resembling a liquid metal. If Jack looked at them his concentration was lost in movement, if he tried to piece through them for some meaning his gaze just went on and on. After a short while he felt seasick with vertigo. She said calmly “my name is Neuzero”, in voice that carried such clarity, it could have pierced steel. And to that she added “your name is Hellseer”.
The End
Other publications by the same author include
Antique Restoration and Craft Woodwork
Parking the Mind – Meditation and Dream
Clairvoyance, Energy Balancing and Communication with Light
Advanced Tai Chi and Chi Kung
Fractal Delight DVD
Contact details are on https://www.wooburntaichi.co.uk