They found him curled up under his favorite hedge-row, clutching his frayed sweater - near steps to the library terrace - at the university - in that same idyllic - ivy-laden quad - where he was sure he had once worked - as professor? instructor? archivist? acrobat? - back in the days before his life unravelled - and brought him back to the Facility - an immense, sprawling, labyrinthine hospital compound and out-patient center - a mere 15 minute drive away - for closer monitoring. (They plopped him down in the coffee lounge - his favorite spot - a popular wing of the Place - where beverage and break snack were dispensed in exchange for tokens - and the chairs and couches were especially cozy. In such familiar-unfamiliar circumstances, his usual sense of radical mistrust kicked in and he began asking the typical questions: where am I? why have you taken me here? what do you plan to do with me? are you holding me capitve?? Oh-oh... The Nurse, commenting gently on his frazzled state-of-mind and his unreliable memories - prodded him to sip a cup of dark roast, take a blue pill and wait for further instruction - cooing as she handed over a jar of sugar cubes: here to help you...we're here to help YOU Mr. Gray man... a soothing mantra to be sure, yet one that elderly folks aside from our humble protagonist had a hard time accepting at face value... His "episodes" of derangement and disorientation had been scattered of late - and generally speaking he had not wandered off the premises - except to go in search of "greenery' and "butterflies". He had been a sort of "outpatient" there, a perfect specimen for the study being conducted with boatloads of grant money - on certain cases of profound "a-sociality" (for lack of a better term) people whose lives had gone seriously off course - and were "not in a good way" - as Dr. Heinrich like to say somewhat euphemistically. The "miserables" - or the "ruined ones" - "failures" - "rejects" - flotsam and jetsam" of the American dream - people who had fallen short of someone's - perhaps their own - vision of how things should turn out. A goodly portion of embittered elderly folk, yes, but also a cross-section of the young and persons touching upon their first serious middle-age crisis or breakdown. Completely aware of himself as one of these chosen few - yet how many of "us" were there exactly ? - like a self-conscious rabbit being scrutinized by the big doctors and nurses in their fancy white lab coats - he compared himself to the other sad cases. It was hard to get out of his thoughts an image of that barefoot young woman (Lucy?), completely dishevelled, hospital gown in tow, with pock marks on her arm and matted hair, walking the halls haphazardly or standing frozen, staring blankly (for minutes, hours at a time) the dolphin paintings on the wall or the twitchy bloke with the flat feet, always attempting to fed off the imaginary horde of bats in his path, batting his cane at perceived invisible enemies... or the cursing, drooling, crying woman with thin hair being wheeled about in the corridors. And in his mind he wondered about the sheer numbers of people on the planet whose little pilgrimage had gone astray - the ones whose trajectories ended badly due to mental instability or physical impairment or dashed career hopes or disappointment relating back to broken family or lost friendship or a marriage gone south - or some mishap such as financial ruin or unexpected psychic trauma. You could make a list of such persons - hoarders, invalids, addicts, schizophrenics, loners, catatonics, stroke victims, conspiracy theorists, borderline personalities, head trauma patients, survivors of plane crashes, MS sufferers, survivors of cults, survivors of abuse, orphans and abandoned children, washed up celebrities, homeless vagabonds, widows, widowers, retired air traffic controllers, betrayed and embittered DMV workers... the list was infinite... the possibilities endless... Compared to the more severe cases - one could begin to view oneself as a "fraudulent sad sack" (not up to speed) - a mere wannabe in the sweepstakes of "epic failure" and "despondency" - and with these bouts of "imposter syndrome" - it was sometimes hard not to wonder why he had been selected. Philosophically speaking - the sheer volume of such cases were important to him - if X number of people were miserable, waylaid, unhappy, alienated, disenchanted, anti-social, maladjusted - full of regrets during their sojourn on this planet - then that was quite a statistic worth ruminating upon. He made it a point to bring up with Dr. Heinrich on more than one occasion: Are you keeping tabs - Doc - here at this Institute - where funding is never an issue - on what I like to call the "demographics of suffering" - and what that entails? The implications - of the greater #s of mortals falling into a cosmic rut? Dr. Heinrich - ever cheerful and receptive to his queries - was quick to play Devil's Advocate:
- > I am delighted to speak with our resident philosopher - on such matters - the mere asking of which shows a refreshing bit of compassion on your part... Well - it's a point well-taken... You have guessed at what our project is in part aimed at - namely documenting and categorizing these types of misfortune... Everyone's journey is different of course - but the patterns that arise are most intriguing. One must be aware of the types and sources that contribute to a person's overall malaise... But just for the sake of argument - do you imagine that an elderly person having a tough time due to a health issue in their 80's has not lived a fulfilling life overall? Is their existence only to be measured by a constant mood of positivity or a consistent pleasure quotient? We must allow perhaps for some topsy-turvy element - some ebb and flow to the vicissitudes of experience - eh? So - it becomes harder to issue an absolute SCORE of happy or unhappy to a person - unless their entire journey has been laid bare - Even in your own case...
- > Doctor - may I ask you another question. I will take it as a Yes that you are counting #s (as I could wish someone to do) and keeping track of the types of ruination that befalls people - so much the better - this actually gives me some hope - But more importantly perhaps - is it part of your goal to fix or repair these broken people - as opposed to simply observing their manifold tendencies? - > Oh - yes - yes - yes - the Doctor replied - we could not justify ourselves if we saw this whole project as some sort of menagerie of grief that we had put on display. The point is to AMELIORATE the suffering - and we shall do so - I believe - by understanding the BRAIN CHEMISTRY involved... You see - as I think i have mentioned before - in earlier conversations - some of which may have escaped you - the answer lies on the material side of things - even though - out of respect for colleagues such as Dr. Y and Dr. B - we must test for moral agency and free will... My view is that if a person understands the underlying chemical determinacy of their own mind - they will be far less likely to constantly blame themselves. Fear, guilt and shame - those are the big enemies - Every at the Institute is of one accord on that...
Yes - here at the Institute - where everything looked so pristine and official - where the grounds and hallways and floors seemed to expand to infinity as you walked through them - where elevators moved at lightning speed and the piano music piped through the vents was faintly classical - where cheerful posters with slogans and mission statements were positioned next to drinking fountains - and the artwork on the walls was weirdly nautical in character - with whales, and dolphins and boats and seascapes and shorelines - creating a soothing effect upon the resident "fish" - it was hard not to believe that some sort of an attempt at "progress" was being made - though he hated that word. Getting rid of fear, guilt and shame - his constant compadres - good look with that one. A reflective garden outside bounded by such high walls - that was an interesting touch. These doctors - he thought to himself - with their infinite projects - and their confident research. This Dr. Heinrich - a lanky, wavy-haired, lumbering fellow with broad-shoulders - so robotic in his professional demeanor - always cheerful, accommodating, glibly efficient - unlike the more personable, gossipy, over-sharing nurses and orderlies; amid this mechanical equanimity, he was still slightly more jovial than his business-like counterpart, the serene-if-unsmiling Dr. Solange - a woman of piercing eyes, and sphinx-like stare - whose investigative postures - he often found taxing in the extreme - like a bug being pinned under a microscope. In her presence, he wilted typically, reverting to more childlike modes of interacting with authority figures - imploring her with soft, gravelly whisper: Am I doing alright today? Have I done something wrong - again? Have I made you angry? This brought forth only the pithiest and curtest of replies: Certainly not, Mr. Gray... We have no interest in increasing your fear-quotient or your guilt... We are here to HELP YOU... (Oh the dread that paranoics feel when someone speaks that line! And under her breath he could swear she continued: you silly little man, you silly-silly little specimen ...). Heinrich and Solange usually traded off with the "check-ins" or whatever they were called; on occasion other clinicians were brought in - sort of as collectors of data. On occasion - a youthful, Dr. Firenze or Dr. Polenta would check vital signs and other indicators of "health" - the first meticulously poking and prodding ("sit still for, relax now, you're fine, really..."), the second with a quizzical look to accompany his cryptic reassurances: ("wonderful... perfect... nice... very good....chin up.... no worries..... salut..." But why - and during such exams his paranoia would tend to would ramp up - did everyone in this place give off the makings of a vague European accent? Had they all been educated in the Netherlands or the U.K.? Of course paranoia WAS in fact one of his major morbidities - and they were used to his anticipatory mistrust of seemingly normal situations. For example - it was oftentimes in the "coffee lounge" where an extended conversation would break out between him and a member of the staff - and he assumed that these spontaneous talks may have been planned in advance... Nurse Amanda - a gregarious woman and natural leader w/ sharp powers of intuition - came over and patted him on the shoulder - Doing well after a rough night? It's a beautiful university... and if you just wait a spell - we can do a field trip back over there along with going back to those gardens that you so enjoy - she said. Every hospital, every Institute for that matter, needs a reassuring Nurse. But as quickly as she had arrived, she was called away to check on someone in greater need. There were other patients in other chairs - but he was afraid to engage them in conversation. One gentleman in particular caught his attention - a frail diminutive gent who seemed utterly out of sorts, yet smiling rhapsodically and lost in some private conversation with himself... The Doctor sidled in and patted him on the hand. Well then, my good philosopher...
- > Doctor - he said - sipping from his delightful coffee and nibbling on his little shortbread cookie - does this count as therapy...? Are we doing something official here - or are you just saying hello? and waited as the doctor laughed...
- > Yes - yes - well - we are always doing therapy here in some form or other - but you might refer to this conversation that we're having now as one of our informal sessions. We like to see you drinking your favorite beverage - which seems to put you in a good mood - and I admit - I do enjoy our philosophically minded banter which always take our little dialogue in unforeseen directions... But I see that you've made another excursion to your prior stomping grounds last night. Does this help to jar your memory further - perhaps? It comes and goes - and some days you are able to reconnect (quite impressively) with aspects of your previous life ...
- > As I sit here - doc - I can say with a strong degree of confidence that I know I once worked in an archive before the big catastrophe struck which remains a little fuzzy...
- > Yes, go on...
- > I believe that I once had a strong connection with that institution - perhaps as a teacher... or an archivist... I could swear that I had a vast collection of something or other... Artifacts...books...manuscripts... Perhaps I taught in some rarified field - etymology, ancient linguistics, medieval history, alchemy, philosophy... There was at least one discipline where I could call myself an expert... And my life there would have been happy...I am quite convinced at times that I once had a family - a wife, a daughter, a pet rabbit (yes - ha, ha,) ... images come into brain of my daughter at the playground, of my wife in her garden, of a past routine - having to do with that campus... And a fear that I have been cut off from these realities - that my daughter has been lost to me along with my wife - perhaps they have died or gone off... perhaps I had done something wrong, something terribly wrong...
- > Aha... And please continue...
- > Oh - but my attempts at re-remembering my crime - my transgression - if that's what it was - only end in a blur. Yet... on the cusp of this sudden radical change in my existence... from which i have never completed recovered... although I know enough to mark out in time the parameters of this decline... I remember the happy years of '89, '92, 95, '97 after which everything becomes fuzzy as I like to say... And I remember a great fear about stepping into the next century...which is still a major fear of mine...
- > You mean by that the 21st century?
- > Yes. I am by no means ready for that one... And this has a lot to do with my theories about the Terrible War - War that brought us into the Postwar - and the 1950s and 1960s and 1970s and the subterranean history which those years of prosperity covered over - how none of us were aware of the secrets and the secret traumas (not to mention the UFOs or the CIAs) - it was a period of recovery and keeping things very hush-hush for as long as possible. (I probably sound a tad conspiratorial in all this...) But - you of course know the answers to all of these questions regarding my past history in advance - eh? You can just fill me in on the missing pieces...
- > And I shall do so - as we have done many times before. But first - it is vitally important for you yourself to reconstruct the past... And you are off to a good start - once again... What else do you remember of your own life?
- > Oh bits and pieces here and there... And another thing - before I forget Herr Doctor - in terms of how I measure up to the other patients with their extreme conditions - truthfully I sometimes feel like an interloper - a bit of a fraud... because honestly - on a good day I feel quite fine compared with - - my only real complaint is that i'm getting old, i'm alone, my. body's falling apart, i have regrets over a career gone south - and an earlier life that is vague to me now...
- > Oh I assure you - with your complex profile - you fit right in with the others...
- > But on the other hand - I feel as though I am an amalgam of good fortune and lucky breaks based on inherited cultural-ethnic-social-economic indicators... really perhaps my old life was handed to me on a platter - and i don't deserve it - so - good riddance...
- > There is the guilt entering in again...
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