The Schizoid

Excerpt from "The Schizoid" (2016)

         Cold fluorescence enslaved my senses. I felt numb and distant from my own self. The walls around me buzzed with fear. I opened my eyes to find myself strapped down and immobilized on a stretcher as several blurry silhouettes hovered above me. My nose itched but I could not reach for it. There was a tube in my right arm. The tempered beeping and humming of various medical equipment slowly crept into my right eardrum. My left one gave me nothing but empty silence.  As I began coming to my senses I felt my spirit spitefully pushed forward into a shallow ghastly grave.

                What had I done to get here?

                And then… I remembered.

                I killed three men. They were guilty as all hell… and had to die. For working class dregs like me, there comes, a few times per lifetime, a very precise and particular situation. Forget everything. Forget the law. Know only fear. Forget the courts and the system and the company and the job and the family. Either kill or I get killed. Act. Do not think. There is no other way.

I did what I had to do in order to appease the overlords of my particular union. The hourly jobs in my district did not pay enough to even support a family of three. I had to take on side projects from an underground union in order to feed my wife and kid. It was through an unfortunate unraveling of one of these projects that I ended up in this predicament. There was no escape from what I had done, or from what I was about to do. The memory of exactly what went wrong still eluded me. I focused on my immediate reality and the exact situation at hand.

So, here I am, in a maximum security mental institution. I hope the food here is worth what the tax-payers paid for. They’re going to evaluate me before trial, I suppose. More like torture me… ugh! These fractal neuron machines hurt like hell. I’ve had one before. They scan thoughts with them, leaving subatomic tears in the subject’s neurons. One, you don’t feel it, but… people obviously have more than one neuron. Multiply that by every possible pathway in the brain… and… you get excruciating pain.

                “Do you remember your name? I am Dr. Welson. We will tag you as ‘Patient Thirteen’ from here on out if you do not remember. An identity is important for surviving the evaluation process. If you cannot come up with one, we shall provide you with one, at no further inconvenience.”

                Dr. Welson seemed to be an honest man on first impression. Honest, dedicated, educated… kind of like the third man I kille… (Wait, you idiot. You can’t think you’re guilty already, they’ll trace the thoughts. Think innocent. Think innocent. Think innocent!) He could probably tell right away that I was a psycho killer (I am NOT a psycho killer!). Many vagabonds and star drifters end up with kill totals above three to their name. Not many have killed two people of high regard, esteem, wealth… power.

                Now, if only I could remember the third… wait a god damn minute! I’ve never killed anybody!

                “No. I don’t know who I am,” I lied. I don’t know if he bought it.

                Of course I remembered. I was Daniel Rothsonn. Now I am Patient Thirteen (To them… Wait. Wait… Wait… Damn. I AM Patient Thirteen.).

I’ve read an in-depth investigation report of this place in a weekly news magazine. Apparently, this hospital saves lower ID numbers for the worst cases, a kind of running gimmick they seem to have.

                Why am I now Patient Thirteen? I must have done something awful.

                 And then… I remembered. I killed three men. (Or did I?)

                Ah yes, one of the men I killed was a highly esteemed galactic diplomat. The other was a wealthy property manager. That one owned five mining stations in the outer asteroid belt of Solara III. So then, who was the third?

                “Who was the third?”

                “Stay calm,” the doctor proclaimed. “I won’t lie to you. You will experience major pain during this upcoming process. The less you shake and scream, the quicker we can get on with it. By law, I must reserve judgment upon you until your court day. It is in my oath to properly treat you… the best I can.”

                The interrogative drugs started pumping into my right arm’s vein. My past life began to flash in my mind’s eye. I used to be a simple working class man, in the prime of my life. I’d clock in and out of Gideon Metal Works five times per week, then I’d come home to a simple wife and a slightly demented nine year old boy (must have been all that teenage drug use on my end). She was a very plain woman, and he was a very stupid kid, and yet, the simplicity of our family scenes gave me comfort, gave me a reason to carry on through a dreadful job which I had no hopes of ever leaving.