My prompt for this piece was, I kid you not, "someone who suffers PTSD from remembering his mother breastfeeding him" which was a bit of a departure from my last suggestion of "a doomed romance." It took me a while to figure this one out. I ended up re-writing it a few times, and it still doesn't make that much sense. It's actually closer to what I had originally thrown into the Google Doc the day I was given the prompt than any of the revisions - all of which, I can assure you, were just as absurd as this.
The suggestion came from Cleo Elfonte, a New Yorker I met in the airport in Orlando who, by total coincidence, was headed for the exact program I was. A political science major, she was fascinating to listen to whether she was talking about political tensions in Eastern Europe, her wild, romantic escapades in Equador, or even just burping. No matter what she was doing, she did it with an air of coolness that even a large group of disabled blind children immediately noticed and clung to. On her last trip to the school, several kids nearly cried when she told them she was leaving. In comparison, I had been there three days a week for nearly a month and most of them barely knew my name. I'm still getting asked what happened to Cleo.
When asked why this was literally the first thing that popped into her head when asked for a story idea, her response was that she remembered breastfeeding, and she remembers it being kind of ugly.
Someday I may write an entire novel just about her. She's certainly interesting enough. It was sad to see her go.
*
Hypnotherapy
After being shuffled around from therapist to therapist for several years, spending most of his life in an institution in Maine, his latest hospital had finally prescribed him a stint of hypno-therapy. Because clearly, after all else fails, the logical step is to go for the sort of treatment Dracula would prescribe.
Clearly.
He knew Dracula particularly well. In Maine, it was one of two choices on the bookshelf in the hallway outside his room, the other being Corn and the Dwellers of the Tundra which, though interesting in it’s own right, had little repeat value. He found the structure of Dracula with its multiple narratives spread over several different letters and logs appealed to his own, somewhat fractured way of interpreting the world around him. In a way, his repeated reading of the novel was probably enabling his continued lack of acceptable sanity, but it was one of the few great pleasures he still had.
The office he had been sent to, or rather, the building that apparently contained the office, looked as if it had leapt straight from the pages of his favorite novel. It was a large, gothic fortress at the edge of his latest institution’s property, separated from the rest of the world by a thick forest of tall, dark trees. To get there, he was inexplicably escorted from the main building by a nun, despite the Kentwood Psychiatric Hospital being a completely secular institution, who spent a good portion of the trip over saying hail marys with a set of rather antiquated looking rosary beads. At the entrance, she stopped, and gazed somewhat ominously up at the large, wooden doorway.
“Mother Mary bless you, child.” she said, crossing herself.
“I’m a Buddhist,” said Ren.
“Oh,” said the nun, somewhat dismayed, “Well, maybe he’ll protect you, then.”
“That depends,” said Ren, raising an eyebrow, “What do I need protecting from?”
The nun shuttered and turned away in a dramatic flourish.
“I cannot say,” she quite clearly said, “Terrible things have happened inside this building, terrible, despicable, ungodly things. You who are at so much of a mental disadvantage already may not be able to withstand the terrible things that shall inevitably await you. Beware! Beware!”
At the second “beware” the nun tossed her rosary beads into the air and fled swiftly into the trees. Ren reached down to pick them up, debating over whether to run after her, but eventually decided his intervention would be of no use. It rarely was.
He sighed, and turned back to the gothic mansion the nun was so horrified by. Aside from it’s decidedly morbid decor, it actually looked fairly pleasant. Someone had even put flowered curtains in the windows.
It took all of his strength to push open the large, wooden doors. Once inside, he was greeted by a cavernous hall lit only by a crackling fireplace and several large candelabras. This puzzled Ren since, in comparison to the many other institutions he had visited over the course of his life, Kentwood Psychiatric Hospital was supposed to be “state of the art” - a phrase which, he assumed, implied electricity.
“Greetings!” said a smooth, but disquieting voice from the stairwell. Ren turned, and found a tall, slightly unhinged-looking man in a white lab coat coming to meet him. The man bowed, and Ren, not sure what else to do, just stared at him.
“I am Dr. Sing,” said the man, “Dr. Hell Sing. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”
Ren frowned, and once again was forced to raise an eyebrow. “Your first name is Hell?”
“Yes,” said Dr. Sing, “My parents had an unusual sense of humor. They considered calling me ‘Abe’ but after having me decided I behaved less like an Abe, and more like Hell.”
“I see.”
“Did you know your parents well, Ren?” Dr. Sing suddenly asked, in abrupt seriousness.
“I...uh,” Ren stammered, unprepared, “...no. I didn’t. My mother committed me when I was a kid. I never knew my father.”
“How sad,” said Dr. Sing, somewhat mockingly, “So no fond memories of Mommy?”
“Um, no.” said Ren, “Not really.”
“And how does that make you feel?” Dr. Sing demanded, “Search your soul, Mr. Ren, tell me how much that hurts.”
Ren searched, quite hard, in fact, for the place deep in his soul that held any lingering feelings of unresolved love or resentment towards the mother he had not seen in about twenty years. As he quickly discovered, though, it was difficult to feel anything for someone you only vaguely remember, and since he had always been looked after by doctors and therapists, he had never really felt an aching gap where a maternal figure should be.
“I imagine,” said Ren, slowly, “that when I was very young, it was probably hard. But nowadays, as a cared for adult, I rarely consider it.”
Dr. Sing frowned. It was, apparently, not the response he had been hoping for.
“I see,” he said, “how very...well adjusted that makes you.”
“Buddhism.” said Ren, shrugging.
“Shall we go upstairs then?” asked Dr. Sing, holding out an arm for Ren to take, “It must be nearly time for your appointment.”
“I can probably walk there myself, thanks.” said Ren, instinctively pulling away. Dr. Sing seemed hurt, but politely bowed his head as he motioned for Ren to follow him.
They journeyed silently up an elegant, gothic staircase towards a dark hallway that, if Ren were honest with himself, looked as much like his idea of a hallway in a psychiatric facility as Dr. Sing looked like a legitimate doctor. But then, that was why Ren was here - why, he was always here. His way of interpreting the world around him was strange and fractured, and rarely matched up with what he was told was correct. To him, a mental hospital should look like, well, a hospital. The walls should be white, the air sterile, the lights above him abrasively phlorescent. He expected the food to be terrible, and the beds to be fairly plastic and uncomfortable.
Granted, his mental illness had never actually been diagnosed. But who was he to question the experts?
They arrived in a grand sitting room, adorned with an antique, gold plated seate and an intricately carved mahogany writing desk, at which sat a man who looked less like a doctor, and more like a duke. He nodded gracefully at Dr. Sing, who bowed and - much to Ren’s relief - left the room.
“Good evening,” said the man.
“It’s 3:30.”
“Ah.” the man didn’t seem terribly bothered. “I am Dr. Ratu.”
“I’m Ren.”
“Yes, I know,” said Dr. Ratu, “Tell me about your illness.”
“Oh, right, well,” Ren began, “It started when I was very young. I was sent to school where I assumed there would be desks and chairs and a teacher with a blackboard.”
“What was there instead?”
“Several ears of corn and an eskimo.”
“I see,” said Dr. Ratu, “And how did that make you feel?”
“Confused mostly,” admitted Ren, “I was absolutely positive there were supposed to be desks and a teacher rather than corn and an eskimo. I voiced my concern to my mother, who tried to explain to me how the world actually functioned, but it wouldn’t stick. After several more incidents like the one at school, it just slowly started getting worse. I assume things are supposed to be one way, and am baffled when they’re not. Eventually it got so bad that my mother had me committed. I never saw her again.”
“Tell me about your mother,” said Dr. Ratu.
“I don’t remember much about her.”
“Are you terribly certain?”
Ren returned, once again, to the shadowy, long-forgotten memories of his mother. He remembered her walking him to school, and he remembered her walking him to his institution. As one had caused the other, he remembered them almost as if they were the same memory - connected as if by some predetermined plan. It was almost as if, in some strange, roundabout way, his mother had led him to Dr. Ratu. As if she and him were part of some grand, cosmic plan he wasn’t entirely aware of.
Or was he?
“I’m pretty sure.”
“I see,” said Dr. Ratu, sadly, “You poor thing. You really are quite far gone.”
“That’s what they tell me.” said Ren.
“Now, I understand you like to read,” said Dr. Ratu, changing the subject somewhat abruptly,
“What sort of books do you read?”
“Whatever around,” answered Ren, “which frequently, is only Dracula.”
“Dracula,” Dr. Ratu nodded approvingly, “A very interesting novel. What attracts you to it?”
“Well, as I already mentioned,” said Ren, “it’s often the only book available. It’s either that or a book about corn.”
“Are there any other reasons?” asked Dr. Ratu, “Do you find that you can, perhaps, relate to it somehow?”
“Not particularly,” said Ren, “Is this a trick question?”
“There are no trick questions,” said Dr. Ratu. “Only insufficient answers.”
“Have my answers been sufficient?”
“I’m afraid not.” said Dr. Ratu, sadly, “I can see now why Dr. Stewart referred you here for hypnotherapy. I can’t possibly imagine anything else working. You are completely and utterly, bafflingly insane.”
“Am I?” asked Ren.
“Quite.”
“You know,” said Ren, thinking aloud, “I have to admit, I’ve never really felt particularly insane. I’ve just been told that. Are you sure I’m legitimately insane?”
“Oh yes,” said Dr. Ratu at once, “I think we should begin immediately.”
In that instant, Ren found himself for the first time seriously considering his situation. He was sitting in a gothic mansion with flowered drapes after having been sent here by a Catholic nun to be hypnotized my a man with a thick, vaguely Eastern European accent and an assistant who’s first name was “Hell” . When he really thought about it, he had to admit that he had never actually thought of himself as less than sane, but then, he realized, he had never been presented with such outlandish circumstances either. For a brief, terrifying moment, he began to wonder if any of this was at all what it seemed. Was he really sitting here? Had he really been in an institution this whole time? Had his mother really abandoned him to a world of corn, igloos, and Bram Stoker?
Where did all the strangeness begin, and insanity end?
Ren blinked. There was something decidedly wrong about all of this. For the first time, he wondered if maybe he shouldn’t have simply followed along when the world told him he was insane, perhaps, it was the world itself that was insane, and he was the one who was perfectly normal.
He gasped.
Perhaps, he was actually fine.
“I, uh -” he stammered, “I’ve changed my mind. Actually. I think I’ll be alright without the hypnotherapy. I’ve decided to devote my life to Buddhism, you see, so, inner peace.”
“Nonsense,” said Dr. Ratu, “You will stay.”
Ren stood up and attempted to move towards the door.
“Actually, I -”
“Sit.”
And suddenly, without realizing it, Ren found himself back in his seat.
“How did you - “ he began, “How did I -”
“Be still.”
Ren found he could no longer move. Something in Dr. Ratu’s tone of voice was suddenly commanding, as if he were speaking to Count Dracula himself. Which, when he really thought about it -
“Look into my eyes.”
- was he?
Whatever was happening, as soon as Ren obeyed the doctor’s command, nothing else mattered.
“Now,” said Dr. Ratu, “I want you think back. Think of your past. Think of your mother.”
“My mother...”
He was confused. His mind spun in a thousand different directions. His mother. Why was his mother so important? What did he remember about his mother?
He remembered his mother leaving him at his first institution. She was in a white dress, transparent due to the pouring rain...
“Go back further.”
He remembered being fed warm, mushy, yellow corn in a blue plastic high chair. His mother smiled as he defiantly flung the yellow sludge into her chest...
“Further...”
He remembered being in her lap, her hands struggling to position him correctly...
“Further...”
He remembered one hand gently moving his head to the breast, her other hand holding a book...
Dracula.
He remembered moving his lips, suckling. Suckling and looking up at...
Wait.
How could he remember this?
This was not something he was supposed to remember. This was not something anyone should ever remember.
But in your fractured mind... he heard Dr. Ratu say, you do.
Dracula. Suckling.
Is that what it all meant? How could he be seeing this? Had he always remembered this?
You have, haven’t you?
Had he?
With a gasp he realized that yes, he had. Suddenly everything made sense. His instability, his obsession with Dracula, everyone asking him about his mother. His world revolved around the story of an elegant vampire because deep down, he remembered and associated it with his mother...
And then Ren screamed. A mad, piercing shriek, he screamed for three days. After those days, he took a breath, and started again. He sat alone in a white room, fluorescent lights beating down on him as his doctors looked on.
“Exceptional,” said Dr. Stewart, “Different than I expected, but brilliant results nonetheless.”
“That Dr. Ratu is a miracle worker,” Dr. Sing agreed, “this the closest to reality the boy has ever been.”
Dr. Stewart grinned.
“His mother will be so pleased.”
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