“Between grief and nothing I will take grief.”~William Faulkner
The front doors of the hospital were padlocked despite the parking lot being full of vehicles.
Cursory examination revealed a shared feature among these forms of conveyance: Each car or truck was covered by layer of thick dust. (One might be forgiven in thinking this a used car lot that did not thrive.) Closer examination, however, suggested this powdery residue was composed of ash and not dust, and its application owed to a wind blowing off the factory’s chimney two miles away.
Howard’s Chevy truck was at the edge of the property—yet how could a man with a crushed leg drive himself to the hospital?
The visitor entered at the far end of the unwelcoming Kirkbride building. Its principle corridor was as black as it was long, but faint light beyond a frosted glass door beckoned him forward.
The receptionist greeted him, and told him he was ten minutes early for his follow-up appointment with the Korean doctor, which Liam had completely forgotten.
The patient sat on the examination table facing the French doors. Their curtains were open to reveal an empty waiting room, which might have been as dark as the building itself but for light from the examination room.
A poster depicting parts of the human eye was surveyed on an opposite wall. One wondered what disease was showcased here: The interior of the eye was as dim as the waiting room, and pitted with dark holes. The disgust the viewer felt was due to trypophobia, where revulsion is induced by a presentation of holes in an purulent surface. Moreover, this poster was three-dimensional in that each hole appeared to be recessed.
An insect moved in one aperture—but it did not move like an insect. Should he swear to it, this was a domesticated animal of some sort, seen as if in a long way coming…
The physician entered abruptly through the side door communicating with a second corridor. His retinal scope was employed, though the monotone line of questioning was less concealed. “Has your sleep improved?”
Before an answer could be supplied, x-rays were pulled from a file and held against the overhead light, which provided little additional illumination. Regardless, the subject of these x-rays was able to determine that much (if not most) of his skeletal system was under discussion.
The doctor summarized. “You appear to have suffered grievous injury sometime in your past, going by these multiple fracture lines. They have healed over, but were not properly set.”
This was news to the patient.
“You have traveled some ways down a tunnel,” was cryptically added, “and may have met with an interceder.“
Liam was on the point of asking for clarification on these remarks when the medical man segued.
“Which family relations most regularly appear in your dreams?”
This strange question was searched. “Family dogs feature prominently.”
“In what way?”
“They appeared to me in need of assistance. I guess this is due to the responsibilities I used to have bearing on them when I lived at home.”
“Such as watering, feeding, or letting them outside?”
“Yes. The latter responsibility sometimes occurred at night. I suspect residual guardedness in my sleep owes to this wiring.”
“And you loved these pets?”
“Of course, but so much time has passed that these feelings are little more than abstractions to me now.”
The doctor searched one x-ray peculiarly. “For someone with autism, routines (such as those you listed in the care of your pets) stand in for overt displays of affection. Love is always compartmentalized for the autistic.
There is a study centering on secure attachments in autistic children where a young boy, in the company of his mother, runs around a room humming to himself contentedly. He is oblivious to his mother’s presence until, on some pretense, she is called from the room. The child falls to the floor and, despite having little language ability, calls softly for his mother. An assistant enters the room and attempts to engage the boy with toys, but he will have nothing of it. Once his mother returns to the room, the distressed child rises from the floor, takes one look at her, and resumes his play as before.
Outwardly, you do not need much in the way of human interaction—but you may be doomed to walk in darkness in these matters, and never know your heart’s true objects until, in their being removed from you, they are unmasked. Perhaps it is through dreams of pets that you navigate your deepest feelings; and your dream life forms a forward boundaryland of your recovery. The way into the autistic heart may be narrow, where few may enter—and none may leave.”
The patient could not see how this conversation had any bearing on the x-rays. He glared at a French door window across from him, and asked pointblank, “Have you placed me under a spell? Am I hypnotized?”
Easing back in his seat, the hypnotist raised two fingers and snapped them. “If you labor under the premise that you persist in an unwaking nightmare, consider—from this moment forth—that you are awakened.”
This act may have been described as offhanded or unserious.
In his haste to leave the hospital, Liam failed to visit his ailing friend.
The spurt of memorable dreams was ended, and against this development, the old landline telephone rang the next morning. The resident entered the sewing room, which was naturally dark until late afternoon, and cautiously brought the receiver to his ear. Howard was on the other end, and this intersection of a working phone and his one listable friend was to recall the last occasion of it, which was in a dream. The answerer accessed his lucid state, and then that of his coworker.
“I need you to fetch my truck and drive it to my house,” asked Howard.
“How did your truck come to be on the hospital lot?”
“Another factory worker drove me there after the accident, and I procured the services of a medical chauffeur to drive me home. You will find the passenger door unlocked. An extra ignition key resides in a detachable magnetic box under the glove compartment. You can stow your bicycle in the rear.”
The Chevy truck was still parked where the cyclist last encountered it. He approached it timidly in seeing two wasps swarm over its door. A third wasp crawled under the hood covering the sideview mirror where, apparently, a nest was made. (Wasps are opportunistic squatters whenever a stationary object is presented to them.) The unseen papery wasp nest was sufficient in size to prevent readjustment of the mirror.
A second difficulty was soon discovered: The rearview mirror was in the glovebox and not attached to the windshield. This essential item was wedged into the gap of the passenger sun visor and angled to capture a rear view of the road.
Howard’s unfastened tarpaulin, which secured only two points on the flatbed, kept lurching into an already compromised view through the same rearview mirror. This constituted no true hazard to his driving, but Liam felt vulnerable in having his line of sight obstructed on two fronts. It was comparable to a convicted man who is inconvenienced by a blindfold at his execution.
The object of his errand was gained. A knock on Howard’s door brought no one to it. Hobbling was heard within the small frame trailer home. This shifting about produced a soft clinking noise, consistent with the jostling of unstable bottles on a shelf.
Liam tested the door; the lightweight trailer rocked easily on its cinder block foundation—this movement also caused the clinking sound. Were the resident at home, he was perhaps medicated for pain, and slept too heavily to be thoroughly roused by his visitor.
This was all the time that could be spared that afternoon for strange occurrences, and on a number of days usually rich with examples.
The cyclist returned home by means of his stowed bicycle.
After a half hour of dinner preparations, he was troubled to lift the telephone handset in the sewing room and press it to his ear—no dial tone hummed in it. Jiggling the chord, the tester was unable to produce evidence of static or a short. The phone was inoperable.
Copyright © 2008-2022 Michael Teague. All rights reserved.