Views from the Asylum by George L.Hiegel - HTML preview

 

Psychotic Views Part Seventeen:

 It was only two days later when the second person I had called stopped by for a visit. The time was late afternoon. I had opened the curtains and blinds earlier in the day to let the sun come in. It must have been around noon. I sat close to the window. The warmth was unseasonably high, twenty-five degrees above the norm. It was early spring pretending to be early summer. Temperatures had been unseasonably high for the past five minutes. Lake Erie had never froze, nor had any of the other Great Lakes. Something I couldn’t remember happening before, but hey, there’s no reason to get excited, is there? I’m sure all of the climate change deniers out there have an unreasonable explanation.

 What I’ve also been curious about with climate deniers is, do they really believe what they are saying? Do they? Are they really that ignorant or naïve, or is it more likely that just don’t fucking care? I believe this is a much more likely to be the case. At least, when it concerns the people perpetrating the fraud at the top of the idiot chain. These people would include lobbyists, corporate goons, big business energy companies, marketers, adventurers, media and politicians. There are the ones selling this propagandistic pile of wet, soggy shit. They are selling it because they and their obsessively corrupt friends are profiting in the billions every year to leave things as they are now.

 It is irrelevant to them that every dire prediction concerning climate change might be true. If millions of people are, so what? If tens of millions of people die, so what? If hundreds of millions of people die, so what? Hell, if the whole fucking human species goes completely extinct in the next fifty years, they don’t give the smallest atomic damn at all.

 Why? Because they’re assholes. They’re assholes the size of pie to the fiftieth poer. Do they care about the condition of the world they are leaving behind for their children, their grandchildren, or their great grandchildren? No, they don’t care. This brand of greed and selfishness we see from these people is on a scale never seen before in human history. The scale spans the entire world and the amount of money being made and the number of lives being destroyed has no historical comparison. Their credo of life is: ‘Enough is never enough’.

 Hey, why get excited right? So what, if the air becomes too altered to breathe or if temperatures use enough that people are turned into human toast. So what if the worldwide starvation rates become a global epidemic, or world oil supplies continue to fall. So what if the lack of access to clean affordable price of food becomes so high that even high middle class families can’t even afford it anymore. So what if a permanent underclass is created throughout the entire world, affecting a vast majority of the world’s population.

Fuck the future, fuck it all to hell. Fuck it in the ass good and hard, fuck it until it’s dead. Human beings have been borrowing on the future for a long time now. Nations, governments, industries, corporations, media, lobbyists, advertisers, marketers, politicians and everyone else have been borrowing against the future, everyone is guilty, some more than others, but everyone is guilty, everyone, and some day the future is going to come due. There will be no more borrowing, the future is going to come due, with interest. No one is going to be able to pay back what has been borrowed all of the years which led up to it. Too much is going to be owed. The hole is going to be too deep to climb out of, the debt will not be able to be repaid.

Yet, how many of the seven billion people on the planet care? The future has been murdered, viciously, violently, cold bloodedly, heartlessly, remorselessly, selfishly. The future has been murdered. Where is goddamn morality in that, huh? Where are all of your sanctimonious little shit moralists on that subject, huh? Where are you? I can’t hear you, what’s the matter, all of the sudden you have nothing to say?

Where’s the sanctity of life with regard to the people of the future? The preservation of life, the right to life? The right to life? Evidently, there’s no moral or ethical responsibility for the people of the year 2012 to do their best to ensure a preservation of life for people in the year: 2030, 2040, 2050 and beyond? Don’t they have a right to life?

Jesus Christ, I really ran off of the rails there, didn’t I? I started to talk about my other visitor when I veered off into a whole other place, I’m sorry, I apologize, wait a minute, who am I apologizing to? I’ve never had a word published in my entire life. Why the hell would that change now? So, who the hell am I apologizing to? Myself?

‘Sorry self, I apologize.’

‘Go to hell jerk, you’re always doing this to me.’

‘ I said I’m sorry, what more do you want?’

‘You’re always sorry, then you act like an asshole all over again .’

“oh, come on self, grow up for Christ’s sake.’

‘Did you say grow up? Did you just tell me to grow up?’

‘You’re goddamn right I did, you’re acting like a child.’

‘I’m acting like a child? That’s funny coming from someone like you.’

‘Someone like me?’

‘This is the last time, I’m leaving you.’

‘You’re leaving me?’

‘You heard what I said, I’m leaving you.’

‘Hell, if you want to go, go ahead and go self, and don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.’

‘Good riddance to you too asshole.’

So, it’s no longer me, myself, and I. Myself is gone. It’s just me and I now. Well, it was a little crowded with the three of us occupying this small space anyway. Now, let’s get on with the visit from the other person I had called and told I was here. I sat in a chair, covered by the afternoon sun when she arrived. I didn’t hear her at first, my mind had drifted off to a calm quiet place and was enjoying the warm, caressing comfort. I stood up as soon as she came in and went to her in such a rush, I ran into the foot of the bed and almost fell. We ignored my clumsiness and embraced in a long, emotional hug. Both of us were crying audibly, with me being the louder of the two. Even after the tears stopped, we didn’t break from our embrace for some time, no words were spoken. None would have been adequate. When the embrace finally ended, we sat together facing each other conversing in the light of the afternoon sun.

“I was so glad when you called and asked me to come,” she said.

“I know it should have been sooner, a lot sooner, but I couldn’t face you before, not you or anyone else I know. It’s what’s best for you that matters, not me.”

“I’m sorry to have put you through this. You have enough problems of your own without my adding to them.”

“You look okay, are you doing better since you got here?” She had avoided my apology and rerouted the conversation onto another line.

Did I really look okay or was she just trying to encourage my mood? I didn’t ask her and went along with her.

“The last few days have been decent. My moods have stayed pretty even, not much binge eating.”

“That’s an encouraging sign, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it is, probably more so to me than my doctor.”

“How is your doctor? Good, bad, in between?”

“No complaints so far, I was worried. She was going to load me up with a slew of medications. There’s a hell of a lot of over prescribing of pills going on. Which suits all the corporate pharmacies. Billions here, billions there, cure you or kill you it’s all the same to them.”

“I see you’re as strong minded and opinionated as ever?”

“Complaining?”

“No, that’s one of the things I always liked about you.”

“Thanks.”

“So, your doctor is taking it easy on the meds?”

“So far.”

“Did you say your doctor was a she?”

“Yes.”

“That’s interesting.”

“Is it?”

“I think so.”

“There are women doctors everywhere.”

“True, but it’s still a mans’ world.”

“IF you put it in those terms, the whole world is a man’s world.”

“So it is.”

“It’s been a long time since I’ve seen you.”

“Yes, it has.”

“It’s a hell of a way to meet.”

“You could’ve called me anytime.”

“Would you have come?”

The question hung in the air for a long time with no reply. The ambience of the room had now changed. Shadows had overtaken the light for --------------. She never did answer my question, but I’m not exactly sure why. Was it because she knew the answer or because she didn’t. Whichever the answer or because she didn’t. Whichever it was, the answer could not be an unbreakable yes, I believed the reason she didn’t answer was clear. She just wasn’t sure. I could see the uncertainty clouding across her eyes.

“There have been so many other times, “ she said. “Times when you wanted me to come. Times when you said you needed me.”

“The boy who cried wolf?”

“Something like that, yes.”

“Thos other times, did you think I was just making them up?

“I don’t know, I don’t know. Maybe it was the number, maybe it was just too many times for me.”

“I don’t blame you. You know that don’t you? I’m a hard man to deal with, a hard man to live with, it took its toll on you.”

“You are a good, decent man, and I love you!”

“Even now?”

“Especially now.”

“It’s my fault, all of it. You told me I should’ve went for treatment. All of the time we were together, but I wouldn’t listen to you and you paid a price.”

“So did you.”

“It’s a price both of us are still paying for.”

I then asked her the question I had asked before without receiving an answer to, the answer, I needed to know, not just wanted to know, I needed to know. The answer wouldn’t change a thing. It couldn’t change a thing. It was an answer to a question from the past, and the past is set in immoveable stone. It cannot be altered, but I still needed to know the answer.

“Would you have come?”, I asked.

“Probably not.” This time there was no hesitation at all. Neither in her voice or her eyes.

“Would you like to change that to a definite no?”

“Can I say with absolute certainty? No, but the chances of my coming wouldn’t have been good, not if the past is any indication.”

“The past is always a good indicator.”

“How could I have known that this time----, that you would’ve ----“

“I told you before, I don’t blame you and I don’t, I just needed to know.”

“No matter what you say, I still feel guilt.”

“Well, you shouldn’t.”

“But I do anyway. I think the reason you didn’t call me when you were hurting was because you reasoned that, if you did call and ask for help, I wouldn’t come and your reasoning was sound. It’s a near certainty that I wouldn’t have.”

“It’s also a near certainty that I would have eventually tried to kill myself even if you had come.”

“Is that your doctor talking or you?”

Now it was my turn not to answer. She was looking at me with those cinnamon brown eyes of hers, determined to have an answer to her question. Her eyes wouldn’t leave me, my eyes in turn, went from her to the floor, to her.

I stood up and went to the window. There was little sunlight coming into the room now and no perceptible warmth. I turned back to face her in the chair and saw her on her way toward me. When she was close enough to me, she brought her hands up to my face and kissed me.

The display of affection brought a flood of memories rushing through my mind. I thought of our days together. The good days and the bad. I closed my eyes and returned to those days for a brief, dreamlike time.

When the kiss ended, I opened my eyes and took her hands in mine. She was looking at mea nd smiling in a way she used to long ago. She leaned forward, ready to kiss me again, when I started tapping the small diamond ring on her finger.

“Careful,” I said. “You’re a married woman.

“You noticed the ring?”

“Yes.”

“Just now, when we kissed?”

“No, when you first came in, we hugged, remember? I saw it then.”

“Have you noticed anything else?”
“A few things.”

“Such as?”

“You’re wearing new shoes and they’re too tight. Your clothes are new too, even though you fell asleep in them earlier today and got them wrinkled. You didn’t sleep at all last night, but you got a couple of hours before coming here. You had eggs and toast for breakfast and a salad for lunch.”

“Anything else?”

“One thing.”

“Yes?”

“A new haircut.”

“You missed your true calling, Sherlock.”

“Fictional private detectives have much more intriguing cases are much more famous and much more believed than their real life counterparts. As for cops, that wouldn’t work for at least a hundred reasons.”

“Should I ask how you knew all that about me?”

“Well, I’ll do this in no particular order. You’ve got French dressing on your right sleeve, egg on your left sleeve and preserves on the front of your blouse. It looks like blackberry and I thought I was a sloppy eater.”

“I ate in a rush both times and my mind was a little occupied. Please continue.”

“You forgot to remove all of the tags from your clothes. There’s one still on the inside of the neck of your blouse.”

“And the slacks?”

“There’s no tags, that was just a guess. I figured if you bought a new blouse and new shoes, you also bought new pants.”

“The haircut?”

“You still have some hair around your neck and collar. I bet you fell asleep right before the haircut. You jumped up, hurried out of the hotel, got the haircut and come right here.”

“Which explains the wrinkled clothes.”

“You didn’t get a shampoo with the haircut though, did you? I would have smelled it in your hair.”

“No, I washed my hair yesterday.”
“You did all of this because you were coming to see me?”

“Yes, but I completely ruined the affect, didn’t I? I wrinkled the clothes, got food all over my blouse and forgot to cut all of the tags off.”

“Does your husband know you are here?”

“If you mean here, as in this particular place on a geographical map. Yes, he know I’m here, but if you mean as in here with you, then no he doesn’t know I’m here.”

“What did you tell him?”

“That I needed to see an old friend.”

“Did you say why?”

“Illness.”

“Well, I am an old friend and I am ill.”

“So, I wasn’t lying, was I?”

“Maybe a little fudging, but no lying. Would you like to hear something funn?”

“Sure, I could use a laugh. Hell, I could use a boat load full of laughs.”

“Well, I only have one.”

“I’ll take it.”

“Do you know that Sherlock routine. I just did on you. I did the same thing to my doctor during one of our sessions.”

“You’re kidding? What did you say to her?”

“She used to be married, but now she’s divorced, it’s recent. She had work done on her face to try and please her husband, but it failed. He left her for a younger woman anyway. She wasn’t wearing a bra. She used to wear pierced earrings, but didn’t anymore. She had three children. She liked opera and had showered and washed her hair the morning of our session. There was one other thing. What was it? Oh, yeah, she had a cat and it was shedding fur.”

“You told her all that? Jesus, and you did it the same way you did it with me, just by careful observation.”

“Yes.”

“And what did she say after you told her all of that?”

“She said something like: “My god, no wonder you’ve never been married. No woman could hold up to that kind of examination and this was just casual observation.” Then she said: “I wouldn’t want to try and get away with anything with you around. You better stop right here. If you keep going, we’d have to switch positions and I’d be your patient.”

She smiled and the two of us shared a modest laugh together. I’d almost forgotten her smile. It had been so long. The memory of it has been lost, but not forgotten. I dusted it off and replayed it a few times in my mind. Yes, her smile. It was something special. If to no one else except me.

“You actually told your doctor she wasn’t wearing a bra?”

“Yes.”

“And that she had work done on her face to try and save her marriage?”

“Yes.”

“It’s a wonder she didn’t slug you.”

“Maybe she wanted to, but thought if she did, she’d have to go to therapy. Hell, maybe she’s already in therapy.” You mean the therapist becomes the therapy.”

“I see my humor has stayed with you all this time.”

“Maybe it’s my humor that has stayed with you.”

“You could be right.”

“My other half has not sense of humor at all.”

“Don’t you mean your better half?”

“No, I’m the better half.”

 “Not the first time you’ve been the better half if my memory is functioning properly.”

 “Compliments will get you everywhere with me mister.”

 “Hmmm, is that so? I should’ve started sooner.”

 “Well, you’ve made a man good start. Keep going, I won’t stop you. At home, they’re a very rare commodity.”

 “You said compliments will ge me everywhere, now I was wondering just exactly did you ---------.”

 “That was just a figure of speech.”

 “Speaking of figures, I’ve always liked yours.”

  “Whoa, slow down there Big Bad Wolf. Your huffing and puffing is leading to too much heavy breathing.”

 “Is that an across the board rejection?”

 “”Yes, it is, sorry.”

“ Well, it was fun trying.”

“And it was fun dulling the Big Bad Wolf’s teeth.”

“I’m reporting you to ASPCA.”

“For what?”

“An act of cruelty to an endangered species in his native habitat.”

“An act of cruelty?”

“For refusing to mate.”

“I’ll give you the endangered species. You’re an endangered species all right, but natural habitat? You’re saying that a psychiatric care facility is your native habitat.”

“Okay, so I’ll concede that one. I actually migrated here from the frozen tundra up north.”

“I think I better be going now,” she said with startling abruptness.

“What?”

“I said I think I should be leaving.”

“I heard what you said.”

“Then why did you-----------.”

“Disbelief, what’s with the sudden, ‘I have to go’? You a magician now? Pulling rabbits out of hats. Your slight of hand was flawless. I never saw it coming.”

“Aren’t they called illusionists now?”

“What?”

“They don’t like the word magician anymore, do they? They like illusionist.”

“And weathermen aren’t weathermen anymore. They’re meteorologists. Jesus Christ. It sounds like they’re working for NASA.”

“When the meteor going to strike Mars, John.”

“I don’t know, let’s call in a meteorologist he’ll know.”

“Okay, John, sounds like a good idea.”

“And garbage men don’t like the name garbage men, they’re sanitation engineers. They got their fucking degree from MIT, and what are stewardesses on planes called now? Airline hostesses, and mercenaries aren’t mercenaries anymore. They’re security guards, and the estate tax isn’t the estate tax anymore, it’s the death tax.”

“Please calm down, you’re starting to scare me.”

“Relax, I’m all right, I’m upset.”

“You’re more than just upset.”

“Did I raise my voice? Did I hit you? Have I ever hit you? Have I even done you physical harm?”

“But you couldn’t see the look on your face.”

 “That’s a 10 on the scale of obvious statement.”

“I could.”

“Was it that bad?”

“Yes, your eyes were hysterical, your expression was nothing I’ve ever seen before.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay really.”

“No, it’s not okay, I think I need to lay down for awhile.”

“Why did you get so excited when I wanted to leave?”

“I don’t know. I--------------, I just----------------.”

“What? You just what? You didn’t think that---------, there was a possibility of us getting back together, did you?”

“I’m not going to be about it, the idea was in my head.”

“”Because we kissed and because we sat here talking and laughing for a little while.”

“Yes, I know how irrational it was.”

“You’re here and I’m miles away. I don’t think they’d let me crawl into bed with you here.”

“I’m a drowning man in need of a life preserver.”

“It can’t be me, it just can’t, I’m sorry.”

“Not as sorry as I am. I don’t mind the struggle, but I’ve reached the point where I’ve tried doing it for its own sake. I need reason, I need purpose something outside myself, and I fear that it doesn’t exist. That it’s not out there somewhere waiting to be found, or maybe it is out there buried somewhere in a deep dark faraway place, a buried treasure and me without a map.”

“I really do have to go,” she said.

“Okay.”

“I wish this could have ended differently.”

“I think it ended the only way it could.”

“Both times?”

“Yes, then and now.”

“It would seem so.”

“Horror and harrow, There in the narrow, Of things I can clearly see. Sadness and sorrow, There in the barrow, Of things that can never be.”

“Who’s poem is that?,” she asked.

“Mine.”

“Yours?”

“Yes.”

“You didn’t just make it up now, did you?”

“No, I wrote it after they put me in here on a napkin, no less.”

“I like it.”

“Do you?”

“I think it’s very good, sad of course.”

“A specialty of mine.”

She gently placed her head against my chest and cried quietly for quite some time. My face was downturned and resting softly on the top of her head. Her arms were around me and holding me with all of the strength she could bear.

After the tears had stopped, we just stood there holding each other tightly and not saying a word. Then, with time passing so slowly it threatened to stop once or twice, she looked up at me and said:

“One more kiss before I go”

“One last kiss before I die”

“What did you say?”

“I just repeated what you said”

“Oh, did you? I thought you said something else”

“What did you think I said?”

“Nothing, forget it. I—“

Then I saw her smile one last time and we kissed our brief, tender goodbyes. There were no more words between us. What else was there to say? As our lips parted, I felt her pulling away from me, I kept my eyes closed and bowed my head slowly done. I didn’t want my last vision of her to be her leaving me for a second and final time. I walked slowly to the bed and laid quietly down without ever opening my eyes. I stayed there the rest of the day without moving, but I did not sleep, no, I did not sleep.

Somewhere in the hours of the early morn, I gave up the idea of trying to find some peace a momentary respite from the pain, through the stilled existence known as sleep. It was then that I sat up, turned on a light, and I wrote this fine piece of my work, and now, as I prepare to put my pen down and call this the end the words of Lord Balfour are whispering darkly in my ear. ‘Nothing matters very much… and in the end nothing really matters at all.’ Here is another self-written piece of poetry.

Where to go

When all paths have been tried

Trapped in an open maze

There are no doors

There are no windows.

Can’t escape

I no longer even try

It’s all become clear now

The mist has lifted

There’s no way out

No way out

There never really was

I just realized now

Escape was just a lie

A false, masterful illusion

A dirty game of make believe

Sold to the naïve and the gullible

To keep them in line

To keep them in check

And playing the game

Let the idiotic hamster

Run madly on his wheel

And pretend he is close

To getting somewhere, anywhere,

That isn’t exactly where he’s always been

Let the asinine sleep

Huddle stupidly together

And move in uniformed obedience

As the smiling shepherd

Leads them merrily to their slaughter

For me the game is over

I refuse to play anymore

I will no longer participate

In this grand mass delusion

I have reached my end.

‘The End of the Game’

 (Yours truly)

Final Views:

Hello, I am the doctor who has been treating the man who has authored this strange, staggering mix of life and opinion. It is as bluntly honest of a piece of writing as I have over seen. Both regarding his views of the world of himself. This is a work of all things.

The reason I am writing here, instead of the man who authored this work, is because he is currently not able to do so. He is currently in surgery, bypass surgery, after having a heart attack.

Yesterday, he had a visitor, a woman. Someone he cared for very deeply. They had known each for a long time and had a close, personal relationship many years ago. This information didn’t come from him. It had come from her. She evidently talked to the nurse for a few minutes before her visit. Well, he had asked her to come and see him and she agreed to. It had been quite a long time since the two had seen each other.

I was not there at the time of their meeting. I have no first hand knowledge of the mood of this encounter. All I know is what the nurse has told me. I don’t know what words were exchanged, but I do know the woman was crying mightily when she left and he went to bed and stayed there. His eyes, his mood, his entire being became darkly sullen. He refused to eat, he refused to talk, he refused all attempts to communicate with him. He refused to take his medication, he refused all things.

Well, sometime in the early morning, at four minutes past seven, his call bell went off. By the time, the nurse got to his room, he was on the floor. He was having a heart attack. All of the proper procedures were followed quickly and efficiently. He was given anti-coagulants (preventing blood clots).

The ambulance arrived quickly. It was on a return trip from a previous call and was in the area. The EMT began working on him immediately and continued to do so as the ambulance drove off to the hospital. Once they quickly initiated a coronary intervention, AC1 with thrombolic therapy.

Then the decision was made that bypass surgery was needed. So, he was rushed quickly into surgery. He is in surgery now as I write this. I am completely uncertain how this is going to turn out. I can’t even estimate the chances of his survival. Surgery is always an uncertainty. There is always an element of risk. It is a dangerous business. Serious complications, even death can occur from the most minor of surgeries.

Heart surgery is especially risky. The dangers of something going seriously wrong are greatly heightened. Then, there are other factors complicating the situation even more. His surgery wasn’t scheduled and planned. It’s an emergency surgery done on the heels of a heart attack, and if all of this didn’t make things uncertain enough, there is his mental state. Who can say what his frame of mind had been right before he had his heart attack. In recent days, his condition had improved, his moods leveled. There were no drastic highs or lows. The pendulum had swung in its normal, modest arc.

The visit though, from the woman of his past had affected him reply, darkly. The drop in his mood was quick and thunderous. Like an anvil dropped in a six inch tub of water. His brief improvement had been on shaky ground to begin with. From the time he had arrived here up to improvement, he had more failures than successes, though they were not out of control, he still had his mood swings and he had a serious fall int