

CONTINUUM

David P. Elvar

Smashwords Edition

© David P. Elvar 2014

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(Author's note. How did this book get written? I have three children, all now grown up. A lot of what you are about to read comes directly from them. They asked all the right questions.)

~oOo~

ONE

He's back, all white coat and concern. For a doctor, he's not very convincing. He's telling me they don't like the word _psychiatrist_ in here so they don't use it. But that's what he is, and no amount of hiding behind friendly name badges will make him anything less.

He swings the bedside chair round to face me, peers at me over his clipboard as he makes himself comfortable. He's got questions. It's his job, I know, but I don't need this right now. I could tell him as much but I don't think this guy will listen. He'll just go ahead and delve into me, try to work out what makes me tick, what it is that brought me here. I wish him luck. He's gonna need it.

'So,' he's saying easily, 'how are we feeling?'

We? I take the shot, cheap though it is. 'I'm okay,' I reply. 'I can't speak for you, though.'

His lips twitch tolerantly: he'll let this one pass. Then he's looking down at his clipboard. There's something written there but I can't see it.

'Did you really wreck a Starbucks?'

'Did I?'—Did I?—'I don't remember.'

'Hmm.' A pause, like he's considering what to make of this. 'So what _do_ you remember?'

Now I'm the one who's hesitating. I try to think back but my head won't let me. Apart from a few fleeting images that don't make much sense on their own, there's nothing I can work with. It's like I've blanked it off, that or I was too far out of it to notice what was going on. I shrug, grimace, all at once. He shifts on his chair, settles himself for a long haul.

'Tell me about your day,' he says. 'Everything. From the moment you woke up.'

'Everything? Even when I took a dump?'

'If you wish.' The joke is lost on him. 'If you think it important.'

'From the moment I woke up,' I begin. 'Man, that was some day. Saturday. No school.'

'Which school do you attend?' he says, interrupting.

'Isn't it in your notes?' I throw back.

'It is but I just want to see if you remember. You'd be surprised what you can lose after a breakdown.'

Makes sense. 'Ridgeway High. I plan on college next year. If I make the grade,' I add.

'Is there some doubt about that? I mean, are your lectures causing you problems?'

'Are you kidding? A monkey with its eyes closed can do half the work. The other half isn't even worth doing.'

'Hmm. Go on.'

'Saturday. I normally sleep in, weekends. But yesterday...' I stop, glance up at him, suddenly uncertain. 'Yesterday is still Saturday, isn't it? I mean, you haven't had me doped out for a while.'

'Yesterday was Saturday,' he says patiently. 'Today is Sunday. The only time you're missing is what you've lost through sleep. Go on.'

'Right. Okay. Like I say, I woke up early. I remember looking at my clock and thinking I'd never seen that hour before. 4:19—that was it. The sun barely in the sky and no sound of movement outside.'

'Usually a noisy neighbourhood?' he asks.

'On The Heights? You gotta be joking.'

'Comfortable area,' he nods. 'Affluent.'

'And interfering. You can't even fart without the neighbours marching up your front drive with a lawsuit demanding you keep it down.'

'Well, money does bring with it certain privileges.'

'Yeah, that and a self-righteous feeling that the world somehow owes you something just because you've _got_ money.'

'That's an interesting take,' he says. 'Do you have a problem with money?—with the concept of money, I mean.'

'No. Only what it does to people.'

'And what does it do to people?'

I snort derision. 'You're kidding—right? You a head-doctor and you ask me what money does to people? Get real.'

'Hmm.' Another moment's silence, another something being jotted down on his clipboard. 'So you woke up early. What did you do?'

'That's just it. Nothing. I just lay there. Feeling weird.'

'Weird?' He's found something he can get his teeth into. 'In what way?'

'I don't know. Something just wasn't right, that's all. I mean, normally when I wake up, I have things to think about. Things like maybe what happened the night before, other things like what I've maybe got planned for the day ahead. But that day—yesterday—I felt nothing.'

'Did you find this a cause for concern?'

'No.' I say it vaguely, like I'm not sure. But I'm sure, God knows I'm sure. 'No, I didn't. You see, I didn't care that I felt nothing. It was like everything had shut down. My head. My body. Even my will to live, it seemed. Gone.'

I stop, wait for him to say something. Maybe I want him to say that what I experienced was indeed weird, even that it was a first in the whole history of psychiatry. But he doesn't. He just peers at me over his damn clipboard again, his eyes telling me to go on. I go on.

'I just lay there in my bed for a while—and that was wrong. I mean, okay, so it was early, so I didn't have to move for a while, but you'd think I'd maybe roll over and try and get some more sleep. But I couldn't even do that. I just lay there. Alive in a dead body. Or dead in a living body. Hell, it was a bit of both, really. Am I making sense?'

'You're not expected to make sense just now,' he says. 'You just tell me what happened, okay? Go on. There must have come some point when you had to stir yourself into action. When was that point?'

'When I heard my mother calling up the stairs, telling me breakfast was ready.'

'And this would be...?'

'About 9:30.'

'Five hours! You lay there for _five hours_!' He sounds surprised. Maybe it isn't possible to lie in bed for five hours. Maybe this was a first, after all. 'What did you do in that time?'

'Nothing.'

'Nothing,' he repeats. He sounds like he doesn't believe me. 'What did you think about?'

'Nothing.'

Silence. He doesn't believe me.

'So what you're saying,' he begins slowly, 'is that you spent five hours in a kind of limbo. Not sleeping. Not waking. Just lying there. Doing and thinking nothing.'

'Hey,' I say, 'you told me just now that I didn't have to make sense, just tell you what happened. And that's what I'm doing. Not my fault if it sounds crazy.'

'That's not a word we like to use in here,' he says stiffly. 'So your mother called you for breakfast. Presumably, you responded, you went down and joined her.'

'It took me a while but yeah, I did. I got up and dragged myself to the bathroom, took a leak and dragged myself back, then crawled into a few clothes and sort of drifted downstairs. Like before. Like I didn't care, like I didn't care I didn't care. No change.'

'Hmm. Your mother, did she notice anything amiss?'

'Why should she?' I say it with a wry smile. 'We're not what you would call close, just sort of glance off each other at mealtimes. So no, she didn't notice anything, just heard me slide into a chair and dropped a dish of cereal on the table in front of me.'

'Did you eat it?'

'Huh?'

'The cereal, did you eat it? I mean, you must have been hungry.'

I try to think back. 'I don't...Maybe...' I stop, shake my head wretchedly. 'Dammit. You know, I don't remember. Is it important?'

'Not in itself, no. Just adds to the picture we're trying to build here, that's all. One thing I would say, though, is if you didn't eat it, she would surely have noticed.'

'Oh, you think? Too wrapped up in her daily TV schedules to notice important things like if her only son is eating.'

He scribbles something furiously as I speak. I can almost feel the words _Potential parent/child conflict_ forming on the paper. Already, he's on the wrong track but I don't tell him as much. I just continue, try to piece together the morning for him.

'My father arrived, that I do remember. He'd been out walking, spends a few minutes every day trying to lose what years of smug self-indulgence have piled on him. Come weekends, he likes to push himself. Goes double the distance then comes back and crashes out for the rest of the day in front of the TV. I wonder why he bothers, sometimes.'

'It sounds to me as if you don't like him much,' he says, interrupting me.

'Any reason I should?' I reply.

'Well, he _is_ your father.'

'Like that counts for something. He is what he is, and blood ties or not, I can take him or leave him.'

He's jotting again, a single line and a single word. I have the feeling he's just crossed out _Potential_ and written in its place _Definite_.

'So your father arrived home from his walk,' he's saying as he finishes writing. 'What happened then?'

'Oh, he breezed in like he always does. Sort of tossed a breathless _Hi!_ my way and thumped down across the table from me. My mother was there beside him, coffee-pot at the ready. They were talking about something as she poured, something...I don't know...all I know is I didn't want to hear it.'

He's alert again. 'Something unpleasant?' he's saying, almost eagerly. I shake my head.

'The Fourth of July,' I say flatly. 'That was it. It'll be upon us soon and they were discussing ways to celebrate it.'

He's puzzled, doesn't know what to make of this. 'And this was something that was somehow...offensive to you?' he's saying.

'Pretty much.'

'But why? They're just being good patriots, that's all.'

'Yeah and that's why I didn't want to hear it.'

He's holding up a hand: he's just understood something. 'No, don't tell me: as well as money, you have a problem with patriotism, too.'

I turn my head to look at him. There's something in his eyes that I can't quite catch, as though he's looking down on me and laughing at me all at once. For one brief moment, I feel pity for him: this is going to be tougher on him than I thought.

'Yes,' I say steadily, 'I have a problem with these things.'

'Something you'd like to share with me?'

I know what he's asking but I'm not ready to visit this again, not yet. I shake my head, look away. 'Some other time,' I say. 'Not now.'

He nods understanding, acceptance. 'But this was the root of what you didn't want to hear, what your parents were discussing.'

'Pretty much. I mean, okay, so they try to be "Good Americans", whatever that means. And if they're okay with that then fine. But why do they have to try and involve me in their delusions?'

'You think they're...No, let me rephrase that...You don't hold with their way of thinking, then.'

'Hell, man, what have I just been trying to tell you? No, I don't hold-with-their-way-of-thinking. It's right for them, it's wrong for me. But they just don't seem to understand that. I don't think they can even conceive of it.'

He's quiet again. I like to think it's because I've given him something to think about but I know I'm only kidding myself.

'So what happened next?' he's saying.

'I'm not sure,' I reply vaguely. 'The only thing I remember for certain was my fingers gripping my coffee cup, squeezing it almost to breaking as I listened to my mother sounding off about the fine parade that was sure to be scheduled for the afternoon of the Fourth. And that we should all go. As a family. Because that's what families do on days of special celebration. I think I must have excused myself because the next thing I knew, I was back in my room, my head throbbing with rage and frustration and some sudden rush of the whole goddamn futility of it all. I knew I had to be somewhere but I couldn't recall where. And I was supposed to be meeting someone but I couldn't think who. And though I didn't know where or who, I started getting changed to go out. And I went out and...and the next part is lost to me.'

'If I can interrupt you there,' he says, 'you say you went out with no idea of where you were headed or who you were supposed to be with?'

'Yeah, I know. Weird but there it is.'

'Were you conscious of being drawn in some direction?'

'Yeah.' I say it slowly, trying to remember again. 'It was like...I don't know...flying on autopilot. That's the best I can describe it.'

'This meeting,' he's saying, 'this somewhere and someone, it was prearranged?'

'It was. I know that now. I just didn't know it then.'

'Hmm. Subconscious will coming into play. Autopilot would indeed be a good way to describe it. Go on.'

'The next thing I remember, I'm sitting in Starbucks in the mall.'

'Where the, ah...incident took place.'

'Yeah. Cindy's with me.'

'Cindy is...?'

'My girl.'

'Sorry. That's something that's not in my notes. Are you sleeping with her?'

I look up at him—hard! 'What the hell kinda question is that to ask someone?'

'I'm only trying to identify potential stress areas in your life, nothing more. So, are you sleeping with her?'

Makes sense though I don't want it to. I reply reluctantly, give him just so much, no more. 'Look,' I say, 'we're young, we're healthy. You do the math.'

He murmurs, jots something down on his clipboard. I can't tell what he's thinking. He could be imagining the two of us at it, I don't know, but there's a brief flash of interest lighting his face. I let it pass, can't be bothered to let it bother me.

'Go on,' he says. 'You're sitting with Cindy. What happened then?'

'We're talking. I don't know what about but we're talking. Something important. God damn it, what was it...?'

'If it's any help,' he says, flipping over the top sheet on his clipboard, 'the medics' report says you were shouting some pretty weird things when they arrived.'

'They weren't weird to me!' I snap back.

His eyes dart up, catch me unawares. 'Oh, so you do remember, then!'

Suddenly, I do. Suddenly, it's all flooding back to me. I'm sitting across the table from Cindy, talking about my parents, telling her I can't hack it with this patriotism crap, that it's not _borders_ that create divisions between peoples, it's _people_. And when you create divisions, you create tensions. And when you create tensions, you create wars. She's looking at me as I speak. And man, am I speaking. The words won't stop. Her eyes are growing wide. She's looking frightened, looking scared. And still the words won't stop. What's happening to me? The words, Cindy, stop the words. CINDY? _PLEASE?_

There's blur and a crash, and I'm down on the floor, my face sidelong in a pool of spilt coffee. There's someone kneeling on my back, holding me down and whispering something like 'Easy, son. Easy.' I'm seeing upturned chairs and a table on its side, a sea of anxious faces gaping down at me as though they can't believe this is happening. I know one of these faces but can't seem to place her. Someone's roaring something, like an animal at bay, my mouth moving in perfect time with the sounds. There's a shout and the crowd parts to let two uniforms through, then a rustling and a jab in my arm and I suddenly don't want to struggle any more. Everything's going dark, going blank. For the first time since waking, I'm happy.

I come to, look up at him. He's still waiting for me to speak. What the hell do I tell him?

'It followed on from breakfast,' I say weakly. 'I guess it was still bugging me.'

He nods like he understands, glances over the few notes he's made.

'So,' he says eventually, 'how do you feel now?'

I answer without thinking, let slip the one thing I don't want him to know. 'Nothing's right.'

A moment's silence. 'Just that. Nothing's right.'

I follow through. I have no choice. 'Isn't it enough?'

'You mean, this patriotism business you have such a problem with.'

'Not just that. Life. Everything. Nothing's right.'

He's silent again, is looking at me like this is worse than he thought. I can't read his expression: it's like he's blanketed every innermost thought, has smothered it before it can seep through to betray him. Probably wise. If I've scared him, he won't want me to know as much.

'We'll continue this tomorrow,' he says, getting up from his chair. 'Right now, I want you to rest. I'll have your evening meal sent in to you, and a nurse will be along later with something to help you sleep.'

'I can't wait,' I mutter. 'Anything else?'

'Yes.' He takes a thin notebook from his clipboard, a ballpoint from his top pocket, places both on my bedside rack. 'I want you to jot down your thoughts over the next few days. As they come. Don't force it.'

'Can I ask why?'

'Of course. What you write will help us to understand you a little better.'

'Us?'

'Yes. Us. As in you and me.'

I reach round, pick up the ballpoint, examine it wryly. 'Are you gonna trust me with this?'

'I'm sorry?'

'Are you gonna trust me with this?' I repeat. 'I mean, it's got a sharp point. Aren't you afraid I might do something stupid?'

He smiles, tries to kid me with a thin curve of his lips that he already knows me well enough to know what I'm capable of. 'I don't think you'll try to harm yourself,' he says. 'You have no reason to.'

—and he's gone, a flash of purposeful white striding off to his next patient. I close my eyes, let my head drop back onto the pillow. He's got me wrong, I can tell that already. But more than that, he'll always have me wrong. He can dig all he wants, he'll never know what made me flip the way I did. I know but it's not something I can explain to him.

Only by stepping outside of yourself can you hope to understand yourself. Only by stepping outside of life can you begin to understand life. I tried to do both. I rolled up my portion of Space and Time, and as I stood naked in the middle of nowhere and nowhen, I started to think.

And _that_ is why I'm here.

TWO

They won't let me out of my room yet. Seems I need to "rest a while", need to "get myself together before coming into contact with others". By that, they mean the other guests, as I'm told to think of them. I can dig that but I don't know which they're more afraid of, that these others might affect me or I might affect them. Whatever. What they say goes just now and to hell with anything I might want.

It's not as if there's any real need to be let out just yet, I have to admit. The room they've given me is small but functional, even clinical. Blank walls stare down at me from all four sides, monochrome white relieved only by an air-conditioning vent and a picture of an anonymous stretch of countryside that I guess is supposed to be soothing. The single window has bars on the outside, thick mesh on the inside. Nothing gets in, nothing gets out; I think they suspect I might want to leave. The only furniture is my bed and a small rack of drawers beside it, but they're empty. I came in with only the clothes I was wearing, and they've been stripped off and sent for cleaning; what I'm wearing now is standard hospital-issue. On one wall is a door leading off into a small room and the john. On another wall is another door, locked, leading into the corridor and my fellow guests. And I have this chair. Mustn't forget the chair.

My assigned shrink hasn't been back since yesterday. Like it matters. I can pretty much tell what he's going to say when he finally decides to show. He's here to help me. I must trust him. I must let him carry my burdens for a while, let him help me through this difficult stage of my life. I guess he figures I'm just like every other flipped-out sucker that gets dropped into his lap, that he can just put me on his conveyer belt, slide me through the system and spit me out the other end. Cured. Ready to take my place in the world again. That's the plan, anyway. I'm almost tempted to let him try it.

I get up from my chair and wander to the window. It's raining outside, kamikaze teardrops hurling themselves at the glass. Today is Monday. I should be in school on a Monday. People will see me not there, ask where I am. And Cindy will tell them, I guess. I can already imagine the reactions. Blew out, did he? Finally cracked, did he? Man, I could see it coming a mile off. Yeah, they probably could, too. They're halfway down the same road, themselves. I used to watch them as we talked, used to get the feeling they were afraid, not of me but of what I see. But there was more. They were afraid they might catch a glimpse for themselves, might see just enough to send them toppling over the edge the way I did. I used to wonder just how close they were already, if all it would take was just one carefully worded observation, one thinly veiled hint of the truth too many. I guess I'll never know now. Come the time I get out of here, they'll all suddenly be busy with their lives, won't have time to stop and talk any more. It's what happens when you suddenly find you have a nutcase for a friend.

I turn away from the window, glance over my empty room. How the hell are you supposed to pass the time around here? There's no TV, nothing to read. I guess they figure nutcases don't need these things, have little worlds of their own to crawl into when they're not asleep. And if you don't have such a world? It'd be enough to drive a guy crazy, even if that's not a word they like to use in here.

There's sudden movement behind me. I glance round, my body following more slowly. The panel in the door has slid back. Someone is looking in, a nurse, the same one who brought me breakfast long hours earlier. She satisfies herself that it's safe to enter, like they all do, like they think I might be lying in wait to jump them or something. Then she unlocks the door and opens it, just so far, just enough to slip her head in through the gap.

'Hi,' she says.

'Hi,' I say.

'Everything okay?'

I nod. 'A little bored. Apart from that...'

She casts a quick glance over my empty room. 'I can do something about that for you. But first, are you feeling up to receiving visitors?'

Visitors? It's Monday. Anyone I want to see will be in school. 'Who?' I say warily.

'Your parents.'

My parents. Great. It's not the thing to say but I say it anyway. 'Do I have to?'

She gazes at me blankly: obviously, this is not the right response.

'Forget it,' I add. 'If they're here, I'd better see them.'

She doesn't answer, just clicks the door shut again. I turn away, stare out the window at the rain again. My parents are here. Like I don't have enough problems already.

All teenagers consider their parents to be strange people. Mine are more than just strange. Oh yeah, they're happy, I guess. In their own way. He's with her for the sex, she's with him for the money. They use each other, it's the one thing they have in common. Me? I'm a kind of afterthought. They had me because they thought it the right thing to do, not because they wanted someone around to share life with. And so we don't share life. We live in different worlds. Incompatibly different. Why? Because I take my religious instruction from Black Sabbath instead of the Bible? Because I read poetry by Massive Attack instead of Milton? Yeah, these things, too. But it cuts deeper.

Take my father. Look at him and you'll see the average American. Good job. Steady income. Won't rub the boss up the wrong way, even if the boss is a jackass. Runs a sedan or a station wagon. At weekends or holidays, he hires an RV called _Kon-Tiki_ or _Wayfarer_ , gives him a sense of being adventurous, like he's exploring some great unknown—probably Interstate 10. His sense of pitting himself against the elements goes to plan until the moment the on-board microwave breaks down. Then just watch him go to pieces.

As for my mother, she doesn't work. She keeps house, makes sure there's a meal on the table, a Martini at the ready when the man with the money arrives home. It's her job, her career. And she has her charity work, let's not forget that. She's proud of it. But if she didn't take so much in the first place, there wouldn't then be a need for her to give something back. Oh yeah, she knows this, just chooses to ignore it. Most people with a feelgood agenda do. It's the one redemption they can lay claim to in a life of willing excess. That's my parents. And they've come to visit.

The door opens behind me. I don't turn to look at them, to greet them. Without seeing, I know the nurse is ushering them in, and I know they're feeling out of place here, like they don't belong here. Hey, welcome to the club.

The door eases closed again. The nurse has gone, leaving them to their wayward son. I just stand here, staring out the window.

'Marty?'—My mother, her voice quiet, uncertain. I don't answer. It's still raining.

'Marty.'—She's trying again. I wish it would stop.

'Marty.'—My father, his voice less quiet, less uncertain.—'Your mother's speaking to you.'

I can't put it off any longer. I turn to them. Slowly. Taking my time. Then I gaze straight through him, sneer two short words.

'I know.'

You'd think they would maybe take the hint but they don't. Not a bit of it. My mother is rushing forward, throwing her arms around me and squeezing me like she's never going to let go. My father steps forward more sedately, with more dignity, grabs one of my hands, starts pumping it vigorously.

'Hell, son, you had us worried,' he's saying. 'When we heard they'd brought you here, we didn't know what to think.'

Translation: Can we keep this from the neighbours?

My mother finally lets go, steps back to look me up and down. 'My, you look a mess. Why, I don't believe you've even combed your hair today.'

She's right, I haven't. And I don't care that I haven't. This is not something I tell her.

'Yeah, well, there's no mirror in here,' I say instead. 'Makes personal grooming kinda difficult.'

'No mirror!' she says, glancing round. 'Why on Earth—'

My father nudges her sharply before she can finish. She looks horrified by sudden understanding. I take the opportunity to step back, to take myself out of her reach.

'Did you have a good journey?' It's all I can think to say.

'Traffic was a little heavy in places,' my father says. 'A few hold-ups. Nothing serious.'

'I swear it's getting worse!' says my mother. 'Why, in a year or two, we won't even be able to get off our drive!'

Translation: Why doesn't everyone else get off the roads, leave them clear for us special folks?

'Yeah, well, you made it,' I say, but I don't go on to say I'm glad they made it.

Silence. I've run out of things to say. It's a weird feeling. I'm standing here in this clinically cold room I barely know with two clinically cold people I barely know. What the hell do you say to people you barely know?

My father speaks, breaks the tension, the ice.

'Let's all sit down, huh?'

I nod vaguely, motion to the chair, the bed. 'It's all I've got.'

'Well, you take the chair,' says my mother as she perches her large butt on the edge of the bed. 'We'll be fine just here, won't we, Henry.'

'Sure thing!' he says brightly as he takes his place beside her. He points to the chair. 'Go ahead, son. You're the sick one here.'

Am I? I let it pass.

'So how are you feeling?' he says.

I shrug. 'I'm okay.'

It's my mother's turn now. 'How long do you think they'll keep you here?'

I shrug again. 'That's down to them.'

'Well, it can't be for very long, can it?' She almost wails the words. 'I mean, it's not as if you're insane or anything like that.'

'Of course he isn't.' My father is certain of this. 'Just needs a little rest, a little counselling, that's all. He'll be out of here in no time.'

Translation: Just how long _can_ we keep this from the neighbours?

My father glances round at the room, nods guarded approval. 'A little basic but comfortable enough,' he's saying. 'Do you want for anything?'

'Just something to do,' I say.

'Oh, you poor thing, you must be bored out of your mind!' says my mother. 'Don't they have TV in here?'

Like I'd want to watch TV. We really do barely know each other. 'It's no big deal,' I say. 'Things'll get better when they let me out to mingle with the other patients here.'

'Mingle with the other—' She looks suddenly horrified. 'Oh, but they can't...I mean...surely—'

I've rattled her. Man, it feels good.

'It's okay,' I say. 'They don't let the axe murderer have anything sharp.'

'Oh, Henry...'

'The transvestite is allowed to dress that way.'

'Jesus, Miriam, what the hell kind of outfit do they run here?'

'And the guy with the twitch is only contagious during a full moon.'

'Only—' My father stops short, blinks realisation. Then he's laughing, a loud pot-bellied rumble that fills the room to bursting. 'Jesus, son, you had us worried there for a minute...Only during a full moon—Yeah, that's good! Real good!'

They're both laughing now. The two of them. I'm not. I'm just sitting here and watching them, wondering how it's possible that I actually share genetic material with these people. It's not something I can answer. So I just let them rumble on, let them burn out their amusement in their own good time. I have to wait a while.

My father glances at his watch. It's a big watch. Expensive. He likes to check the time often, I've noticed.

'Hey, we better be going,' he says.

They get up. I rise with them, feeling strangely glad this moment has come at last.

'Sorry this is such a short visit,' he's saying, 'but I took time out from the office. You know how it is.'

'Now you look after yourself, young man,' my mother is saying as she flicks some half-imagined dust off my shoulder. 'Get yourself well again and get home.'

'Yeah,' I say. 'Whatever. Like I said, it's not down to me.'

'I'm sure if I have a few words in a few ears, I can pull a few strings,' my father booms authoritatively. 'Maybe get you out of here just that little bit sooner.'

'That's right,' says my mother. 'Remember, we want you home in time for the Fourth of July celebrations.'

I don't answer. I just stand here, trying to keep myself from laughing, trying to smother the bitter sense of irony I'm feeling just now. And I'm wondering if maybe I can fix it so I can stay here for the rest of my life. It's tempting.

'Yeah,' I say, 'that'd be great.'

Translation: I'll say anything for a quiet life just now, however nauseating.

THREE

'Have you started your journal?'

He says it like he means it, like he really expects me to feed my thoughts onto paper so he can read what makes me tick. After my parents' intrusion this morning, he's the last person I wanted to see. But at least he's brought another chair, and I then don't have to lie in my bed and play patient while he pretends to understand me.

'No, I haven't started it,' I say. 'Why?'

'I thought we'd been through that already. This is a two-way thing. You and me. We work together.'

'And you think that me scribbling a few random notes in your little book is going to help that process?' I ask. 'No, don't tell me. It's like looking at a painting, isn't it? You look at the way the artist uses his brush, the sweeping strokes signifying pent up aggression, the stark outlines signifying the holding back of the dark forces that threaten to engulf him. Am I on the right track here?'

There's a silence while he digests this. Obviously, patients don't answer back like this.

'I see you are well-versed in the psychology of art,' he says eventually. 'Where did you learn it?'

'I don't know,' I shrug. 'I just picked it up somewhere along the way, I guess. Why?'

'Well, there is a danger in applying what you know to your own circumstances. I'm sure you're aware of the old saying about a little knowledge being a dangerous thing.'

'Dangerous to who?' I ask. 'Me or you?'

He bristles, smothers it, all in the same moment. 'I understand your parents were here this morning,' he says stiffly, says instead. 'How did it go?'

'As expected.'

Silence. 'Just that?'

I sigh. Heavily. Deliberately. 'What do you want me to say? That we were all hugs and kisses and forgiveness for sins past, real or imagined? Some hope, brother.'

'Hmm.' He glances down at his clipboard. 'It says here that you initially didn't want to see them. Is this true?'

'How'd you know that?' I snap back.

'Your nurse reported it.'

'My nurse reported it,' I repeat dryly. Figures. 'What is this place? Some kind of prison or something? Spies round every corner? Feeding you information about me? And you sitting up there in your watchtower just waiting for me to slip up and become the next candidate for a lobotomy? Ain't gonna happen, bro.'

His lips twitch a half-smile, as though he's maybe wondered once or twice about running the place that way.

'That's not the way we do things around here,' he says quietly. 'Psychiatric medicine has come a long way since _One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest_. Now, coming back to what we were discussing, why didn't you want to see your parents?'

'You really don't know?' I say. 'Did you meet them?'

'No, I didn't meet them. But we're talking here about your feelings towards them, not mine. So let's try again, shall we? Why didn't you want to see them?'

I sit back in my chair, look aside. How the hell do you answer something like that? I mean, we all know someone we'd rather not mix with though we can never put a finger on the reason why. It's just something deep inside that whispers _Stay away...Keep your distance...Don't even make eye contact_. Maybe it's a soul thing, some distant echo of a lifetime past where you were sworn enemies and you're brought back together in this later lifetime to settle your differences. If that's the case with my parents and me, it sure as hell ain't working out.

I look up at him. 'Let me tell you something about them,' I say. 'They didn't want a child, they wanted a clone. Of themselves. Someone who would mirror perfectly every chest-swelling pride that makes them what they are, every petty little prejudice that colours their thinking, that determines what they do and who they mix with.'

'Isn't that a little harsh?'

'You don't have to live with them,' I mumble. 'To them, I'm not a sentient being, with my own hopes and dreams, my own strange little fears. I'm just their reflection. Or at least, that's what they would like me to be.'

'And you have some problem with that?'

'Wouldn't you? Hell, what if your daddy told you that you couldn't be a shrink, you had to follow in his footsteps and be a Nazi Camp Commandant?'

'My father was not a Nazi Camp Commandant!'—He says it quickly, defensively. And I take the shot.

'You sure about that?'

He's not just rattled now, he's mad as hell. For the first time in days, I'm actually enjoying myself.

'This combative attitude is not going to help you,' he says.

'Nothing will help me,' I reply. 'But I'm the only one who knows the truth in that.'

'You're certain of this?' he says. 'Well, then, maybe I should just take myself out of here and leave you to wallow in this little personal hell you've created for yourself. How would you like me to do that?'

I think it's at this point that I'm supposed to buckle, to apologise and beg him to stay, maybe even mumble some kind of promise that I won't do it again. Yeah, that's what I'm _supposed_ to do.

'You mean never, ever come back here again?' I ask.

'Yes, that's exactly what I mean.'

'Uh-huh.'—Too good to be true, this guy—'Can I have it in writing?'

He doesn't answer. He just looks at me, looks at me like he doesn't know what to do with me. Now he's getting up...walking to the door...pulling it open. Now he's turning, swinging round for one parting shot.

'Why do you do this? You're obviously intelligent, you know we have to get to the bottom of your problems so why do you fight us?'

I look up at him standing there framed in the doorway, fix him with steel and certainty. 'Because I have to. And because you're wrong.'

He doesn't answer, just throws me a frustrated glance and slams the door shut behind him. I hear his footsteps stomping down the corridor. He sure is mad about something. Me? I now have two chairs in my room.

The panel in the door is being thrust aside. Back again so soon? But it's not the doctor, it's the nurse. Come to give me something to do, I guess, as she said she would. She peers in like before, checks the coast is clear.

'You have a visitor.'—She says it curtly, like she's doing me a favour in telling me. I don't let it bother me.

'Who?'—I say it sullenly, like I don't want to see them. She doesn't let it bother her.

'Someone called Cindy.'

Cindy! But she's in school. I check the clock on the wall. There is no clock on the wall. 'What's the time?'

She glances at her watch. 'Nearly five. Do you want to see her?'

'Yeah! Yeah, of course I want to see her!'

The panel slides shut again and she goes to fetch Cindy. I'm not surprised that she's here, nor that she's here so soon. What's puzzling me is where the afternoon has gone. All I've done is sit here and watch the walls. And maybe think a little. Time seems to be slipping by me unnoticed. And nutcase or not, that's not good.

But Cindy's here and that _is_ good. A friendly face for a change, one that won't ask probing questions or complain that I haven't combed my hair. Yeah, it'll be good to see her.

She's cute, I'd be the first to admit that. The curves are all where they should be, the legs long and slender. This summer, despite the rain, has been hot, and she looked great in a short skirt or cut-off denims. But that's not why I'm with her. She's someone on my level, likes to ponder what she calls the Great Mysteries Of Life. And that means more to me than any measure of naked thigh flashed my way.

It's not all roses, though. There are things we disagree on. One is her use of make-up. I got a problem with that. It's not an animal cruelty thing, it runs deeper than that. I came to understand long ago that beauty is nothing. Beneath the make-up, beneath the skin and a thin layer of flesh, is the same eyeless, leering skull common to every glorified ape that walks this planet. Try slapping a little lipstick on that and see what it does for you. Go on, try it. Because you're worth it.

It's something I've tried explaining to her but she won't understand. I guess it's something she'll have to come to in her own time. We're all the same underneath, and no amount of preening or plastic surgery is gonna change that.

The panel slides back again. The nurse checks again. Then she's unlocking the door and opening it a little. This time, the face peering round is one I want to see. It smiles, seems glad to see me.

'Hey,' she says.

'Hey,' I say. Silence. She doesn't move, just stands there. Uncertain. Maybe even unwilling. I can fix that. 'Well, are you gonna come in or are you just gonna visit from the corridor?'

She slips inside, clicks the door shut behind her. She stands there for a moment, just looks at me, seems to be trying to gauge what she's seeing.

'How are you?' she says eventually.

'Been better. Been worse. You?'

'Worried out of my skull. What the hell happened?'

I smile, remembering. 'You should know, you were there.'

'Yeah but...Oh, what the hell! Come here.'

She comes arrow-straight to me, slips her arms around me and holds me, just holds me. I feel my arms fold round her. Automatically. The way they have so many times before. Her body feels warm, feels good. But it's quivering a little, pulsing rhythmically. I know what this is.

'Hey, are you crying?'

'I'm sorry, I was just so worried.' The words are thick, muffled. 'I didn't know what had happened to you, no one would tell me anything...It's just so good to see you again.'

I pull back, lift her face to me, kiss her lightly on the lips. 'It's all right. I'm fine. Okay?'

She sniffs and nods, pulls away and fumbles for a tissue. I watch her standing there in figure-hugging jeans and T-shirt. I should be feeling a stirring inside but I'm not, and this is a little scary. Maybe it's too soon after the event, maybe there are things I gotta learn again. Think I'll want to be there for the first lesson.

She fumbles her tissue back into a pocket, brushes a last tear away. Then she's looking me up and down, seems to be finding something strange about me.

'Great outfit,' she says.

'Thanks. They didn't have anything else in my size.'

'That I can believe.' She looks round at my room, sees the chairs standing empty beside my bed. 'Well, aren't you gonna ask a girl to sit down?'

'Yeah, like you need to be asked. Make yourself at home. You usually do.'

She laughs and we settle ourselves opposite each other. For one brief moment, I'm reminded of sitting with my shrink.

'So why are you in here?' she says. 'I mean, okay, so you freaked out a little, so what.'

'I think they want something to do for the next few days,' I say. 'Nutcases are out of season right now.'

She smiles half-heartedly, like this is really not something to joke about. 'Have you had any other visitors?'

'My parents. This morning.'

'Oh, great!' She's met my parents. 'I guess I don't need to ask how it went, huh.'

'No. You don't.'

She nods mutely, takes another long moment to gaze round at the room. There's something she wants to know, something she's building to ask. She asks it softly, tentatively.

'Do you remember anything about what happened?'

'A little. Snatches of it keep hitting me between the eyes. Hurts some.'

'I'll bet. You really freaked, you know that?'

'That's what they're telling me. That guy holding me down, who was he?'

'Him? He was at the next table. He floored you after you threw the chair.'

I smile wanly. 'Did it hit anyone?'

'No, you were lucky. He held you there until they got some sedation into you, stopped you doing any more damage.'

'Guess I should be grateful to him.'

'Not so grateful as you might think. After they'd taken you away, he made a pass at me.'

'Yeah?' Like I'm surprised. She _is_ cute. 'So did you take him up on it?'

She makes to hit me. I recoil. We fall towards each other, laughing. It's good to be with her again.

'I've missed you,' she says.

'I know the feeling. Why didn't you come sooner?'

'I couldn't. I had to stand there and watch them take you away, they wouldn't let me ride with you in the ambulance. Your parents wouldn't tell me where you were—'

'Yeah, well, me being in here is kinda hard on them.'

'—so that took care of Sunday—'

'I was still pretty much out of it then, anyway.'

'—and it wasn't till I got to school this morning that I could find out.'

'Uh-huh.' Suddenly, I'm a little uncertain. 'Does anyone else know I'm here?'

'A few people. No one's bothered.'

I pull away, look at her, look directly into her. 'Are _you_ bothered?'

Her eyes are looking back at me, deep pools of puzzlement questioning that I should even be asking this.

'It's just something that happened,' she says eventually. 'But what led up to it, Marty? That's what I'm trying to figure.'

I try to dismiss it with a shrug. 'Things just got to me, is all. I remember sitting there and telling you about my parents and the Fourth of July and going to the parade and...and I don't know...it all just seemed so suddenly... _pointless_.'

'So don't go,' she says gently, misunderstanding me. She's touching me, tracing her fingers down the side of my face. 'You don't have to go.'

I shake my head, shake her away. 'It's not just that. It's everything. Everything we live by, everything we think matters. It doesn't. But it's only me that knows this, it seems.'

She sits back in her chair, gazes at me in a way I've never seen before. She doesn't understand. She should but she doesn't. And that bothers me.

I look past her to the slim booklet lying untouched on the bedside rack. I'm looking at it and I'm thinking. I'm thinking maybe my shrink isn't the only one around here who needs to delve a little deeper into me. Maybe I need to start this damn journal, after all.

FOUR

It's getting late. I only know this because it's getting dark outside. They still haven't given me a clock. There must be a reason for that, and I'm kind of figuring that maybe they don't want me to know simple things like the time, that what I might want and when I might want it doesn't count for anything in here. It's like they're telling me they're in charge and I have to accept it. With that and the bars on the window, the word "prison" comes to mind a little too easily for my liking.

I got gas. My evening meal was as bad as last night's, was some kind of mush you could suck up through a straw. They mince it up like that so you can feed yourself with the plastic spoon they give you; I guess they figure that anything sharper doesn't mix too well with nutcases. I'd thought of maybe sending out for a pizza. Pepperoni. With extra cheese. But I pretty much knew what would happen when it got here: someone would grab it and mince it up, send it in with a plastic spoon. Either that or a straw. Like I say, they're in charge. And I'm just a nutcase.

I turn away from the window, settle myself on the bed for an hour of wondering what the hell to do before turning in. Oh sure, they've had some books sent in from the hospital library, like they said they would. But I took one look at the small pile they dropped on my bedside rack and thought Hey, guys, you shouldn't have...No, really, you _shouldn't_ have. Most of them, I'd already read. The rest weren't worth bothering with. I guess I'm just going to have to get used to this boredom thing. I got the time to. What I don't have is a way of telling how much.

I look round at the pile again, wonder if maybe I could stick a reread of something but there really isn't anything there worth the effort. Only then do I notice it, poking out from the bottom of the pile, forgotten from the afternoon or maybe just ignored, I can't decide which.

I reach round to ease it out, take a moment to hold it, to study it. It's just a notebook, like the kind you might buy at the drugstore, nothing special. The pages are lined, giving your wayward hand some reference to work to, and held together by a single staple on the spine. There's a cover of thin card encasing them, giving these anonymous sheets some measure of identity, stopping them being just a pile of paper someone left lying around. Yeah, just a notebook. Worth maybe a few cents when you buy it. Worth maybe a fortune once you've poured something of yourself into it.

I remember there's a pen around here somewhere, something sharp my shrink said he'd trust me with. He's right on that count, anyway: one thing I don't have just now is the need to find out just how far I can push it into my flesh. Even so, there is a lot of damage I can do with it. And that's maybe something he hadn't counted on.

I retrieve it from behind the books, take another moment to study it, too. Cheap. Mass produced. Could have come from the same drugstore. But you have to look at it in a different way. The only thing you can be truthful to is a pen. It doesn't judge what you write, it just does its work as faithfully and with as much conviction as you make the strokes. You have to admire it for that. Just now, I do. Just now, it's the most loyal friend I've got.

I swivel it round in my hand, open the notebook at its first page. My shrink told me to jot down whatever comes into my head, whatever I feel like writing. But what the hell do I write? Just where the hell do I begin this? Thing is, I've got a lot to say. Maybe too much. I'm thinking maybe I need to compartmentalise my thoughts, take everything that's been bugging me over these past few months and slot them neatly into mental folders. Then take each folder and open it, see what comes out. It's a good plan, I'm just not sure I'm ready to work it. A lot has happened in these last few days, a lot that's telling me, even warning me, to back off, you're not ready to visit this just yet. Could be right, too. It was pretty heavy.

I look up from the blank page and round at my blank room. My head feels empty, the walls of my mind similarly washed in unrelieved monochrome. I swing my legs up, lie back on the bed. My head's resting easy on the pillow and my eyes feel like they want to close, to shut themselves off from the world for a while. It would be easy to just let them, too. It's very quiet in here. Time could have stopped, for all I know, could be passing me by without me even knowing it. Yeah, strange thing, time. It sucks away at your life, bleeds you dry of precious moments till the day comes when you suddenly realise you have none left, that it's all been just a big waste of the greatest gift you could ever hope to have been given. Yeah, very strange thing, time. Very—

I feel my eyes snap open, feel them staring up at the ceiling.

Time!

I sit up, take hold of my cheap ballpoint. I need you, old friend. Don't fail me now. I set it to the paper, begin to set down words. They flow easily, even strangely so.

The silence of this room echoes through my mind like the tolling of some great bell, caught in its crescendo by a sudden stillness in the air. Time has ceased its forward march, is pausing to take a breath and look at all that is, contemplating what could be, what is hiding in the infinity between moments. In this instant of stillness, the past is laid to rest and the future is born, possibilities becoming realities in the perpetual cycle of now.

I stop writing, take a moment to read it through. Poetic. But what does it mean? Whatever. It's on paper, it's my shrink's problem now. I set pen and notebook back down on the bedside rack, look at the clock that isn't on the wall. I've passed a little time, maybe five minutes, maybe ten. It was worth it.

I get up from my bed, cross to the window to look out. It's nearly full dark. Think I'll get some sleep.

FIVE

'Poetic,' he says when he's finished reading. 'But what does it mean?'

'Like I'm supposed to know that. You're the head-doctor around here, you work it out.'

'Okay,' he says instead, 'what was going through your mind when you wrote it?'

That one I can answer. 'Nothing.'

'Nothing,' he repeats. 'You mean to say—'

'Look, I was bored outa my skull. I was sitting up last night, I had nothing to do. I just reached for your goddamn notebook and your goddamn ballpoint and wrote down a few goddamn words. Okay?'

Silence. He's looking at me as though he doesn't like what I've just said. Or maybe it's the way I said it. But hey, he wanted to know, now he does.

'Well, next time you're feeling bored,' he's saying now, 'try your hand again, see what you come up with.'

'Yeah, whatever.'

'Now,' he's saying briskly, 'today is a very special day for you. Today is the first day of your journey back to normal life.'

'Normal life, huh?' I murmur. 'Let joy be unconfined.'

'What we have to determine first, though,' he goes on, 'is which path is best for you, which is the most effective route back to that happy land you once knew.'

'Poetic,' I say dryly. 'But what does it mean?'

He ignores me, ploughs on. 'And in order to do that, we need to talk. Are you feeling up to it right now?'

'You mean I got a choice?'

'Of course you have. We don't force you to do things in here, not if you're not ready for them.'

I think about this for a moment. 'Talk,' I say. 'We're just gonna talk.'

'It's as good a starting place as any, don't you think?'

I think about this, too, for a moment. Could be fun. 'Okay,' I say. 'Shoot. Let's talk.'

He settles himself on his chair, looks faintly pleased about something. 'First of all,' he says, 'is there anything you'd like to share with me, any problems, any areas of personal stress—anything, really, you think might be causing you grief right now?'

I take a moment to myself, try to look as though I'm taking this seriously. 'Not really,' I say. 'What about you? Anything _you'd_ like to discuss with _me_?'

'I'm not the patient here, you are.'

'Doesn't mean a goddamn thing. Just because you've got a white coat and a license to practise psychiatry, it doesn't mean your life is just one long easy ride.'

'No, it doesn't,' he agrees carefully. 'But as I've just said, it's not my life that's under discussion here, it's yours. So can we get back to it? Please?'

I could argue the point but don't. He wants this conversation snatched back before it can get too far from his grasp. And I'll let it happen. This time.

'So,' he's saying now, 'are there any stress areas in your life that you think we should be discussing?'

'Only what I told you that first time you were here,' I say. 'Nothing's right.'

'Ah, yes! That! I wanted to ask you about that. When you say that nothing's right, what do you mean by it?'

'You mean I gotta spell it out for you?'

'They're your thoughts, not mine. And my license doesn't extend to practising mind-reading.'

'Okay, you asked for it. It's like I say, nothing's right. The whole goddamn world, all the goddamn people in it—nothing is right.'

'Can you expand on that? I mean, it's not enough to just say that nothing is right, there has to be a reason behind it, possibly several reasons. What we have to do is work out what these reasons are and what led to them.'

'What led to them,' I repeat dryly. 'Have you taken a look at the world lately, a good look?'

'World events and trends are part of my job,' he says impassively. 'They affect people and people are what I deal with.'

'I'm not talking about events and trends, I'm talking about the world as it is! Now! At this point in time!'

He seems puzzled. 'You mean in the evolutionary sense?'

'No, I do not mean-in-the-evolutionary-sense,' I say wearily. 'Look, either I'm not making myself clear here or you're just not listening.'

'Either could be possible,' he agrees. 'Or it could simply be that we have yet to find some common frame of reference for this discussion.'

'What's that?' I mumble. 'Psychiatrist double-speak for what I just said?'

'Let's take this back to the beginning,' he says easily. 'Tell me again what brought you here.'

'I wrecked a Starbucks, remember?'

'I do but what I'm asking here is what caused you to wreck it.'

'Are you serious? Have you tried their coffee?'

'Just tell me what happened, what led up to it. It was something to do with your parents, wasn't it?'

'July Fourth—yeah, that was it. They'd gone into patriotism overdrive.'

'Yes, you had some problem with it, as I recall. Tell me about it. Tell me why.'

I shrug vaguely. 'Like you don't know? I mean, what's so damn special about it? And don't tell me it's something we need to celebrate as Americans, the gaining of our independence from British rule. All of us in the world, we all have some tyranny we've overthrown, whether it's political or economic. Hell, there's probably some country somewhere that celebrates breaking free from U.S. shackles once a year. We're not so goddamn squeaky-clean that we don't have blood on our hands from some conveniently forgotten foreign adventurism. Tyranny is tyranny, whoever the tyrant, and should be celebrated by everyone when it's brought down.'

He listens in grim silence while I speak, stirs vaguely when I've finished. 'That's, er...that's some little philosophy you've put together for yourself,' he says. 'Do you believe it?'

'I have to,' I say plainly. 'It makes too much sense not to.'

'Hmm. So what other opinions have you formed for yourself? Can you tell me?'

'How long have you got?'

'Just give me the outlines for now. We can go into specifics at a later date—if I think it necessary,' he adds quickly. 'I take it you have some pretty forceful ideas about things like...let's see now...religion?'

'Hey, don't get me started on religion,' I say, holding up a warning hand. 'You do not want to hear what I've got to say about religion.'

'Uh-huh. So what else?'

I shrug lightly. 'You name it, I've been there, didn't like what I saw, came back again.'

'Uh-huh. So you've done a lot of thinking, is what you're saying.'

'Yeah, I guess you could say that.'

'And this thinking, does it all run along these same lines?'

'Pretty much. It's like I see too clearly, see things other people either don't or won't see.'

'And that makes you somehow special?'

'Different,' I say, sidestepping the trap he's laying for me. 'Not special. No one's special.'

'Hmm.' He's silent again, is glancing down at his notes. Top page...second page...back to the top page. Then he's looking up at me, is looking as though he's just come to some decision about me. 'I want you to try a little therapy.'

'Oh yeah, sit in with a bunch of complete strangers and talk about why I am the way I am—you know, I can just see how that's gonna help.'

'That wasn't quite what I had in mind, actually,' he says. 'Group therapy—if, indeed, you will ever need it—lies a little further along the treatment program. No, I was thinking of something a little more immediate, a little more intense.'

I'm looking at him, looking at him and not liking what I'm hearing. My mind's eye is showing me pictures of things, things like surgery and ECT. And I'm wondering just how strong the bars on my window really are.

'So what did you have in mind?' I ask.

'A little drug therapy. I think it'll—'

'Drug therapy! Are you serious!'

He's looking puzzled again. 'I take it you have some problem with drug therapy,' he says.

'You're damn right I do! Life getting you down? No problem, just swallow a few pills, make the nasties go away and everything will be hunky-dory in the morning. Jesus, Foamy was right!'

'This Foamy, is he a friend of yours?'

'No, he's a squirrel.'

'You talk to squirrels?'—Now he's looking incredulous. Also a little eager: he really does have a nutcase on his hands.

'No,' I say, ' _he_ talks to _me_.'

'Talks to you?'

'Well, more rants at me, actually.'

'I'm sorry, you're losing me here. Let me get this straight. You have a friend who just happens to be squirrel, and this squirrel talks—'

'Rants,' I correct.

'—okay, rants at you. This...Foamy, is he here now?'

I shake my head.

'Can you call him?'

And again.

'So he just visits when he decides to, does he?'

I've had my fun. Time to end this, to put him out of his misery. 'Foamy is a cartoon character on the Internet. Okay?'

And he understands. And he's just as uncertain. 'So you have this desire to relate to cartoon characters, do you? Isn't that a just little immature?'

'Look,' I say, 'he talks more sense than any two-faced, bloodsucking, asshole politician you'll ever find to vote for.'

He doesn't rise to the challenge, just jots down another something on his clipboard.

'So what does your friend who talks so much sense have to say about drug therapy? I mean, he is the reason behind these objections of yours, I take it.'

I turn to look at him, to take him head-on. 'Have you ever noticed how it's so easy to just reach for a pill bottle?'

'In certain cases, drug therapy can be very useful—'

'Hey, I'm not talking psychiatry here, I'm talking day-to-day living.'

'Your being here is not day-to-day living!' he snaps.

'You're damn right it's not!' I snap back. 'But you're missing what I'm trying to say here. No one lives any more— _really_ lives. We've taken care to insulate ourselves from anything that might cause us pain or misery or worse. All we want from life is a nice easy ride that presents us at the grave with a smile that says Hey, made it in one piece and without having to shed a single tear along the way. And instead of making the world a better place, a place that allows that to happen, we choose instead to pop a few pills and blank ourselves off to its worst excesses. Same result, different means.'

'And who's to say that's wrong?' he says evenly. 'Just because it's an easier means to the same end, it doesn't necessarily follow that it's wrong.'

'Easier?' I say. 'Or lazier?'

He doesn't have an answer to that one. Somehow, I don't think he'll find one.

'So,' I continue, 'given what I've just said, given that you now know how I feel about them, _I don't need your pills._ You got that? Whatever I'm going through now, it's mine, it's something I've got to work out for myself. Throwing a warm, fluffy blanket over it is not going to help.'

'Is this your friend Foamy talking here now?' he fires. 'Or is it you?'

'It's both!' I fire back. 'All of us, we take what others give us and build it into ourselves. As a psychiatrist, you should know this.'

For a moment, he doesn't speak. There's something in his gaze but I can't read it. Then he's getting up, mumbling a few parting words—

'I'll have your midday meal sent in to you.'

—and he's gone, the door slamming hard behind him, shutting me in again, shutting me off again. I guess this session is over.

I'm bored again. I'm lying on my bed and staring at the ceiling. There's a crack in the plaster, leading out from the wall. It's maybe a foot long, is stark black against the white. It's crooked, sort of jerks about as it tries to decide which way it wants to go. And there are a number of smaller cracks leading off it, leading away. They give the idea that this crack has decided to try a few different routes along the way, only to give up each time after a half-hearted attempt. The original plan was best. Maybe better to stick to it.

If you look at it in a certain way, it looks like a varicose vein, like the building is beginning to show its age. Look at it another way and it's a killer disease spreading out from the wall. Look at it again and it's a map showing the advance of an invading army, the smaller cracks skirmishes, sidelong thrusts against attacks on its flanks. The wall has declared war on the ceiling. And none will stand in its way.

Yeah, it could be any of these, this crack. It's amazing how differently you see something when you look at it for long enough.

The panel in my door is being thrust back. I look up. It's the nurse. But something's wrong. Unless the afternoon has flashed by unnoticed again, no meal is due my way.

She opens the door, peers in.

'Hi,' she says.

'Hi,' I say back. 'Don't tell me, my parents have come to visit again.'

'Not at all. Are you expecting them?'

'No.'

'Do you _want_ them to visit?'

'No.'

'It'll only take a phone call.'

'No! Thanks!'

She shrugs. 'Suit yourself. Look, I've been asked to find out if you'd like something to do, something a little recreational.'

'Who did the asking?'—I think I can guess.

'That's not important. So, would you?'

'What did you have in mind?'

'How about trying your hand at a little art?'

'Art,' I repeat evenly. 'You mean as in painting.'

She nods. 'Art therapy can be helpful.'

'Like drugs but without the side-effects, huh?'

She doesn't respond. She doesn't need to. I was right: my shrink is behind this. The drug therapy route is closed off so he thinks he can get to me this way. Fine. I'll play along. I'll give him his damn picture, give him something to analyse.

I shrug lightly, disinterestedly. 'Yeah, whatever.'

She looks relieved. 'I'll set things in motion, then, get you the things you'll need.'

And she's gone, to get the things I'll need and to report the good news. My shrink will be pleased to hear it, I know. Me? I think he's just made a big mistake.

SIX

It's arrived. Delivered by an orderly who just wheeled it in, dumped it down and walked out again, all without a word. I guess he doesn't speak to nutcases.

I've taken time to go over what he left and it all seems to be there, everything I need to open this window onto my soul, this window that my shrink seems eager to see opened. I have an easel and some paper. I have a small fold-up table on which to balance things like powder paints while I'm mixing them up on the palette that's also arrived. I also have a brush. That's the most important part of the set-up, the brush. I pick it up to examine it. It's not new and I have to wonder whose hand it's been through before it came to mine, whose inner secrets it's already laid bare on paper for all the world to see. Whoever it was, I hope he gave the world something to think about.

I've already got water from the washbasin. Now all I have to do is decide what I'm going to paint and how I'm going to paint it. I have an idea about that already. It'll take me a while, not because I want to make a good job of it but because there's a lot I want to put in, a lot I want got out of it.

I unscrew the lid on the jar of black powder, tip a little into the palette. Then I do the same with the white and follow both with water dripped in from the brush. What I'm looking for is a simple grey wash, some kind of anonymous but meaningful background to build on. As I streak thin paint over the virgin white, I'm thinking. I'm thinking how a paintbrush is so much like a pen. It's simple and basic. In the right hands, it can achieve a lot of good. In the wrong hands, a lot that's not so good. Evil in the mind translates into evil on the paper, that's the equation, one we can never escape. But hey, don't blame the technology. Like all technology, it's neutral. From simple ink to the most complex nuclear physics, it's neutral, is only lent meaning by the hand that guides it. And like all technology, we blame _it_ rather than ourselves when things go wrong.

When it's just paper, it's maybe not so important. We read something we don't like, we can just tear the book up, throw it on the fire, think the author a jackass for writing such crap. But look at things on a bigger scale. Look at pollution. We blame the car for causing it. We blame power plants. We blame jet exhaust from airliners. We blame everything but ourselves. Your car stoking up the atmosphere? So buy a smaller one. Or better still, walk. Power plants burning holes in the sky? Turn your air-conditioning down a notch. Better still, turn it off and indulge yourself in a little good old-fashioned sweating. Jet planes chewing up the ozone layer? Go by train. Better still, take fewer journeys. But we don't, do we? Joe Six-Pack still takes his Mustang the fifty feet down his front drive to his mailbox. He still turns the air-con up another notch so his underarms can stay dry. And he still flies every chance he can so he can spend an extra few hours in a bar waiting for the plane back. That's the way it is. And no one wants to see it.

I guess we're back to pills and fluffy blankets. Why deal with a problem when you can just run away from it, pretend it doesn't exist? Only, with cars and power plants and jet planes, the drug is simpler to administer. You just take several large doses of wilful ignorance every day. In acute cases, drip-feed callous indifference at frequent intervals. Continue treatment until planet no longer able to sustain life. Soon, your nice warm blanket will be wrapped all around you and you can fly the fifty feet down to your mailbox every hour to check its air-conditioning is cranked up as far as it'll go. Feels good, huh? And if the world should wither and die while you're securely zonked out of reality? Don't worry, there'll be a pill to help get you through it.

I've stopped painting to look at what my simple technology has achieved so far. The whole paper is covered unevenly in flat grey. It could be maybe a little darker. I'll let it dry, give it another coat then.

The panel in my door slides back again. I look up. The nurse is checking, is unlocking the door and pushing it open.

'You have a visitor.'

No greeting, no asking how I am, she's just telling me I have a visitor. I'm not sure I like what I'm hearing.

'Who is it?' I ask.

'It's not your parents so quit worrying.' This girl learns fast. 'It's someone from your school, someone I think you'll want to see.'

Suddenly, I am liking what I'm hearing. Someone from my school. Cindy. Has to be.

'Yeah!' I say. 'Send her in!'

The nurse looks at me for a moment like she doesn't understand something then just shrugs and draws back, goes to fetch my visitor. Cindy. It'll be good to see her again. It's strange but I haven't thought much about her since her last visit here. I guess I've had other things on my mind. I need to get some normality back into my life, need to start figuring out again what's important to me. And Cindy's important. Guess she'll make a good place to start.

The nurse is back, checking again then opening the door. A figure is stepping past it, stepping into my room. And I'm staring dumbly at it. It belongs to someone from my school, yes, but it isn't Cindy.

'Hi,' he's saying. 'How are you?'

For a moment I don't answer. This is the last person I'd expected to see.

'What are you doing here?' It's the only thing I want to know. That and why he isn't Cindy.

He smiles. 'Did you really think we would abandon you, leave you to get through this on your own?'

'I might have preferred it that way.'

He ignores that, glances round at the room. 'Can I sit down?'

I shrug. 'Whatever.'

He swings one of the chairs round, settles himself onto it. I grab the other, drag it across the floor to sit opposite him. There's some distance between us. Always has been.

'So,' he's saying now, 'what's it like in here? Are they treating you well?'

'It's a nuthouse, remember? You only get treated one way in a nuthouse.'

'I'm not sure that's a term you should be using,' he says stiffly, and I'm reminded again of my shrink and his obsession with terminology. 'You're just ill, that's all. You need a little help to get better, and whether you like it or not, this is the best place to get it.'

The official line. What a surprise. 'So what are you doing here?' I ask. 'Come to gloat?'

'That's enough!' he snaps. 'I'm here because I was asked to come here. It's like I said, you're going to need all the support you can get just now, from several agencies, and I'm just one of those agencies. Am I making myself clear?'

He is and that's the problem. We have a history, him and me. We first crossed swords one semester a year back, when a teacher who didn't like an assignment I'd turned in decided I needed a little straightening out. It wasn't much, it was just this paragraph she took exception to. It read:

In the days of Ancient Rome, the Caesars used to keep the rabble in check with bread and circuses. Now, the rabble are kept in check with Big Macs and cable TV. Nothing's changed. People don't want democracy, they want their minds numbed and their bellies filled. In short, they want security, and they'll vote for any psychotic jackass that promises it.

This she didn't like, thought it didn't quite fall in with what she was trying to teach me. So I got sent along for a few friendly words with the School Counsellor. That was when I met this jerk. I remember it well. Looking at him sitting opposite me now, I think he does, too.

'Support,' I say. 'Is that what you call it? Sure you don't have another word for it?'

'I'm not sure I follow you...'

'Yeah, kinda tough calling it by its real name, isn't it. Tell you what, I'll make it easier for you. Let's call it "brainwashing".'

I come right out with it but he doesn't let it put him off. He has the upper hand here and he's gonna make damn sure he uses it.

'Despite your breakdown, you're still your usual belligerent self, then,' he says.

'Yeah, well, some things never change. So are you gonna start "supporting" me or shall I just carry on with my painting here?'

He darts a glance at my easel, decides there's little conversational value in a blank expanse of flat grey and looks back to me again.

'Firstly, I need to know if there's anything you need. So, is there?'

'Yeah,' I say, 'there's a lot I need. Edible food is one thing.'

'I'm sure the diet on offer here is balanced—'

'If by that, you mean on a fine line between soup and slop then yeah, I'll go along with that. The odd beer would be nice, too.'

'I rather think alcohol would react with your medication—'

'What medication? And something meaningful to do while I'm under lock and key in here.'

'Ah, now, that I can help you with. Do you feel up to continuing your studies while you're in here?'

I lay the trap—'Yes. Why shouldn't I be?'

'Good. I'll arrange for something to be sent in.'

—and spring it. 'I said I was feeling up to it. I didn't say I wanted to _do_ it.'

'But—but you have to.' He's blinking amazement, doesn't seem to understand this. 'I mean...you'll fall behind.'

'Big deal. We only get taught the crap you want us to know, anyway.'

'I object to that! You're being given a balanced education that will set you up for life!'

'Yeah and you know, that's kind of what worries me. Everything you teach us, everything we learn, it's geared to one end only, to fit us into the world as you see it.'

'Well, you'll one day have to earn a living, you know,' he says shortly. 'Unless you want to end up walking hobo trails, that is.'

I smile at this, at the picture he's painting. 'I don't. And I think you know that so cut the scare tactics, okay? What I'm saying here is that you feed us this education you're so crazy about but you don't teach us how to _think_. You teach us to gather facts, to write them up and then throw them back at the teacher to prove we can do it. But you don't teach us to question, to be critical, to even tear apart what we're being told.'

He gestures vaguely. 'Your point being?'

'Is there some reason for this? Is there something you don't want us to know?'

He laughs, snorts derision all at once. 'What? You think there's some great conspiracy going on here? Get real.'

'Okay, you think what you teach us is so damn great, tell me: what's the point of it?'

'I would have thought that was obvious: to get you a good job.'

'No, that's not the way it is and you know it. What you're talking about here is good money—the job side of the equation doesn't enter into it. It's just the money.'

'I'd rather thought the one led to the other, actually.'

'Oh, for sure. But that's just it. Never mind that the job is pointless, the product a waste of time, energy and resources, as long as the bucks come rolling in at the end of each month—that's all that matters, isn't it?'

'That's also the way most people want it.'

'Yeah and who do we blame for that?'

'I'm not altogether sure that blame is a word that should really be used here—'

'No? So, you feed us the crap, you expect it to slot us into the world you've built but not once do you tell us to ask ourselves if maybe we shouldn't change that world, even improve on it a little. Why not? All that matters is the money. And if that's all we're being taught to care about, whose fault is it, who do we _blame_ for it?'

He doesn't answer. And I know why. He's part of the problem and it's probably not easy realising you're part of a problem. He shuffles on his chair, glances aside to my easel, to the sheet of paper drying there, suddenly seems to be finding some discussion value in it.

'Part of your therapy?' he asks.

'They like to think so,' I say. 'And I like to let them like to think so.'

'I take it you have issues with your doctors here, too?'

'I think you know this,' I say wearily. 'You and I have been at loggerheads too long for you not to know it.'

'Hmm. They're just trying to help, you know. And just now, I think you need it.'

'Yeah, well, you would say that, wouldn't you. You're part of the same sick industry.'

'Sick industry,' he repeats. 'That can be taken two ways.'

'So take it whichever way you like. Either is valid.'

He sits up, sighs heavily. 'You really don't like me, do you?'—He says it like it's fact, like there's no bitterness attached. I have to give him that much.

'It's not so much you,' I say. 'It's what you try to be, what you try to do. I don't need it.'

'Which is why you're here, I suppose.'—No bitterness again, just a faint smack of satisfaction.

'That's your job to know,' I say. 'I'm just the nutcase. Remember?'

If I've got to him, he doesn't let it show, just comes straight back. 'And that being so, what I need to know is if there's anything I can do for you while you're in here, anything that will help you towards recovery.'

I take a moment to think about this. I need only a moment. 'Anything?' I say.

'It's what I'm here for. Shoot.'

I look up, look him straight in the eye. 'You can make sure you stay the hell away from me.'

He takes a moment to digest this then he's nodding once, getting up. He understands. And he leaves.

Like I say, we have a history.

SEVEN

They've let me out of my room at last. I guess they figure it's time I got to know the other nutcases.

But like I already said, they're not nutcases, they're _guests_. Or at least that's what the nurse warned me again to think of them as. Guests. Well, I guess _prisoner_ doesn't sit too well with the hospital trustees, even if it is closer to the truth. And looking round at the vacant faces staring blankly at the day-room walls, you have to wonder.

There's no one here I can relate to. Most of them are zonked out on some drug regime or other. It can be very useful in certain cases, remember? There's one guy sitting in a corner. He's alone, no one even near him. It's like he isn't even here, some chemical combination taking him off to another world inside his own skull. I guess they figure it's safer to keep him under, not thinking, not doing, just sitting there oblivious to the real world. Kind of reminds me of someone watching TV.

I'm looking round at the others now. Poor suckers are out of it, for the most part. Either they didn't kick back hard enough when their shrinks offered them the therapy or they'd never heard of Foamy.

There's one guy clutching a bible and rocking himself back and forward, back and forward. Looks like he's swapped one mind numbing drug for another. He's muttering something, muttering it constantly. It could be a prayer. If it is, that's a lot of forgiveness he's begging for. I don't think anyone's listening.

Just opposite him is a guy constantly shuffling a pack of cards. He looks like he wants to start a game but can't decide which one to play and when to start playing it. It's not as if he needs a partner. There's Solitaire, there's a lot you can do with a pack of cards. Maybe he's afraid, afraid of starting something he thinks might spiral out of his control. Life can be like that, sometimes, a game that's too frightening to get involved with. Makes you wonder why he didn't take up with the guy with the bible.

They're the only two showing any signs of life. The rest, like I say, are out of it, are just sitting and staring into space, some of them dribbling, some of them not. Looks like this was a wasted trip.

There's movement behind me and I turn to see someone entering the day-room. I'm surprised to see him. He looks wide-awake and fully aware, looks like he should be wearing a white coat and clipboard. But he isn't wearing a white coat and clipboard, he's wearing standard hospital-issue. That makes him a patient, a _guest_. Against all odds in this place, I think I may have found someone I can actually talk to.

He stops as he enters, looks round the room. He notices me, looks me up and down, looks just as surprised to see me. He's older than me, looks like he's within spitting distance of middle age. Another time, another place, my father might have found something in common with this guy, someone to discuss golf handicaps with. But this isn't another time and another place, this is here and my father's not around. And that kind of lets this guy off the hook. I wonder if he knows just how lucky he is.

He crosses the room, stops before me. He's lucid, I can tell that already. And that makes him safe.

'Hi,' he says. 'New here, right?'

I nod. 'Came in at the weekend.'

'And they've kept you locked up since. Yeah, standard procedure with new arrivals. So what are you in for?'

I smile, remember my nurse's lecture. 'You make it sound like a prison.'

'Well, it is, isn't it? We're not safe to be out on the streets. We're nutcases, remember?'

Now I laugh. It really does look like this isn't turning out to be such a wasted trip, after all. He gestures at a pair of vacant armchairs. They're nicely isolated, are comfortably far from the blank silence that threatens to overwhelm us.

'Take a seat,' he says. 'They'll be bringing coffee and doughnuts round soon. You'll want to stick around for that.'

'Hey, wouldn't miss it for the world.' I sit with him, feel strangely glad to be with him.

'So,' he says, 'references to prison aside, what are you in here for?'

I shrug. 'That's what they're trying to figure out. I threw a chair in a Starbucks.'

'Yeah,' he says, 'they've really got to do something about the quality of their chocolate muffins, haven't they?'

'I mean, it was no big deal,' I go on. 'I just lost it. I feel okay now, feel like some safety valve blew, took a little of the pressure off.'

'Yeah, well, the mind can take only so much before it has to think about blowing itself apart. That's what they don't seem to understand in here. So what led up to it?'

I don't need to think how I'm going to answer that one. 'Hey, you got parents?'

He grins. 'Yeah. Did have, anyway.'

'Dead?'

'No, disowned me. I guess I didn't match up to their expectations.'

I'm really not feeling so alone any more. 'So what brought you in here?'

'Uh...you sure you want to hear this?'

'Any reason why I shouldn't?'

'I don't know. Maybe it'll give you ideas.'

'Maybe ideas are what I need just now. Fire away.'

'Okay. But first, do you work? I mean, I'm guessing from looking at you that you haven't finished high school yet but...'

I see what he's getting at, rescue him. 'I do a little. When I need the money and when it suits me. Apart from that...'

'Right. So you know what it's like to be saddled with a jackass for a boss.'

'Hey, been there, seen it and punched out as soon as the time bell rang.'

'I don't doubt it for a moment but I guarantee you will never have worked under someone like my boss. As he was before he fired me, that is.'

'Fired you!' This is starting to get interesting. 'What did you do to get yourself fired?'

'It's a long story. It starts soon after I joined the company. I was their Marketing Manager, the guy tasked with conning people into buying the company's products, with giving them a reason for trading expensive cash for cheap trash.'

'Doesn't sound easy,' I say.

'You'd think so, wouldn't you? Thing is, you'd be surprised just how gullible people can be. They need some meaning in their lives. The advertising industry provides it, gives them a reason for spending eight hours a day, five days a week, doing something they wouldn't, if given the choice, actually choose to do.'

'Since you put it that way...'

'Hey, what other way is there to put it? That's advertising, that's marketing. That's what industry relies on to sell what it wouldn't otherwise have a hope in hell's chance of shifting. The trouble was, I saw this. And once I saw it, things started snowballing.'

'You kicked back at them?'

'Uh-uh, not initially. You see, there are things like mortgages and car payments to be considered. And I was as shackled by them as the next man. No, I just kept my mouth shut, went to all the right meetings, made all the right noises and generally made sure the bucks kept flowing my way. And so it might have gone on for years but for one small thing.'

'Let me guess. They rumbled you.'

He shakes his head. 'I only wish it was that simple. No, they introduced a new product line.'

'They what?'

'They introduced a new product line. That was when things started falling apart. You see, the boss wasn't sure about it, thought we were entering new and dangerous territory. It worried him. Sure, he'd had all the researchers researching, all the market projectors projecting and all the focus groups focussing but it wasn't enough. He wanted certainty. And that was the one thing no one could give him. That was when the phone calls started.'

'Phone calls,' I repeat. 'So what did he want?'

'Anything and everything, it seemed. What if we made the handle a different colour? Are we pitching at the right demographic? Every last detail he wanted gone over again and again and again. And even when we'd gone over it again and again and again, he'd take us over it one more time. Just to be safe. Just to be sure.'

I laugh at the picture he's painting of this guy. You hear of them in comedy on TV, you never figure on hearing of them in reality.

'Sounds like he had issues,' I say. 'Maybe he should be in here instead of you.'

He smiles. 'Yeah, I'd kind of got to thinking that, myself. He had this little sign on his desk. It was always placed so it would sort of hit you as you walked into his office. It read _Preparation—the key to success._ I think it was supposed to mean something.'

'Right. So what happened then? You said something about phone calls.'

He nods slowly to himself, looks reflective. 'Ah, yes. Those. They never stopped. I'd get back from work, walk in my front door and my company cellphone would go. And he'd be there on the other end of the line. Asking something. Checking something. Wanting to know something else. And I'd have to stand there and go over it yet one more time. And I'd be tired, all I'd want was a drink and to put my feet up but this asshole with a flow diagram for a brain would keep me talking for fifteen minutes—thirty—even an hour.'

'Sounds rough,' I say.

'It was but it got worse. Come two, maybe three in the morning, my cellphone would go and he'd be there again, wanting to know something, asking if maybe we hadn't got the production costs down as far as we could, that maybe our break-even projection was too high. It was after one two-hour stretch just as dawn was breaking that my safety valve finally blew.'

'No, let me guess. You threw something. Right?'

'I only wish I had, I wouldn't be in here now,' he murmurs. 'No, I got to thinking. And I got to thinking, why am I doing a job I don't like to get money I don't want to buy things I don't need to impress people I don't know? And I got an answer. And when I got into work that morning, I put it into practice.'

'What did you do?'

'Hey, you do not want to know this.'

'Yes I do. That's why I asked.'

'Okay. I socked him one.'

I take a moment to consider this. 'You socked him? Is that all?'

'Uh...no. There's more. I made sure the vibrate function was switched in on my cellphone—'

'The one he kept calling you on.'

'—the very same. Then while he was out cold, I ripped his pants down, bent him over his desk and stuck it in his ass, shoved it in as far as it would go.'

I don't say anything. I just look at this guy in a new light, with a new respect. Man, what I would give to have been there in that office on that day, witnessing this act of retaliation that was no more than this jerk of a boss deserved.

'That couldn't have been easy,' I say eventually, tactfully.

'It wasn't so bad. I had a tube of KY Jelly with me.' He turns to me, taps the side of his nose knowingly. 'Preparation, you see. The key to success.'

Suddenly, I'm laughing. Man, is that outstanding work or what! But there's something I want to know. I manage to stop laughing just long enough to ask it.

'So—so why did you switch the vibrate on?'

He looks at me again, flashes a brief smile. 'I was expecting a call. I wanted to be sure he got the message.'

I'm laughing again, wringing every last ounce of satisfaction from what this guy has just told me: there is something just so ironic, so satisfying about it. Whether he wanted to or not, he really has given me a few ideas.

'Yeah, I guess they would fire you after something like that,' I say eventually.

'Fired me, called the cops, got me sent down here. But hey, it was worth it.'

'Not right,' I say. 'You're not the one in the wrong here.'

He grins. 'Hey, don't you think I know that? But that's the way of it. You want the bucks at the end of the month, you gotta keep in line.'

I nod reluctantly, nod understanding. This is the kind of future I can expect that he's talking about here. I can't say I like the sound of it.

There's a commotion at the door. We look up in its direction. A loaded trolley is being wheeled in. For the first time since I entered this day-room, there is some suggestion of life.

'Coffee,' he says. 'At last.'

At last. I have coffee with him, stay with him the rest of the afternoon. There's a lot we have in common, I find, a lot in him I see in myself. But there's more and it frightens me. What I see when I look into his eyes is the look of someone who's spent most of his life so far chasing a dream that just wasn't there. It's like he's discovered that the god he's been worshipping for so long is flawed, is a man-made creation doomed to decay and death.

He gives me a lot to think about.

EIGHT

I'm back in my room. The evening mush has come and gone. I was allowed to join the others, this time, and I had to sit and watch some guy being spoon-fed the crap that passes for sustenance around here. Kind of reminded me of someone watching TV again. And now I'm here, with these four blank walls and a few blank hours to myself. Strangely, this doesn't trouble me any. I reach for my notebook and hold it for a moment, know there's something that's got to go in there tonight.

I'm thinking about work, about the one half and more of our waking lives we spend in servitude to another. And I'm thinking not about this guy and what he did to his jackass boss but of my father. My father spends eight, nine, sometimes ten hours a day at his desk. Every second of that time he's there, he doesn't belong to himself. Every second of that time he's there, his ass belongs to his boss. And I'm thinking, why does he do it? Why does he allow his life to be frittered away in pursuit of something that, ultimately, is pretty damn meaningless? For the first time ever, for the first time since I was introduced to the concept of work, I think I know the answer. Because he has to.

How do I know this? Think back to the days of slavery. You got put to work every day whether you liked it or not. You got just enough to keep you going, to keep you alive so you could get put to work again the following day. If you stepped out of line, you felt the boss's whip. If you got too old or too sick to work, you got tossed aside, got left to rot as being of no further use. And, ultimately, why? To fill someone else's pockets, someone who didn't do the work you did, someone who effectively lived off you. Hold those thoughts.

Take a look at work today. You go to work every day whether you want to or not. You get just enough out of it to keep you going, to keep you alive so you can go to work again the following day. If you step out of line, you feel the boss's whip. Get too old or too sick to work, you get tossed aside, get left to rot as being of no further use. And, ultimately, why? To fill someone else's pockets, someone who doesn't do the work you do, someone who effectively lives off you. See where I'm coming from?

Nothing's changed, has it? We're still under the thumb of bullies and tyrants, people who steal our lives away and toss a few grudging crumbs back in return, people who make us spend our lives in servitude so they can spend theirs in luxury. And I've just realised something, something my jackass father can't see and his jackass boss won't see.

Slavery hasn't been abolished, just modified to suit market forces.

That's the way it is, that's the way it's always been. I look down at my journal still resting easy in my hands, feel the anger burning inside that this understanding has brought me. It's anger and more than anger. I have things to say. I reach for my pen.

There is so much injustice in the world. Hearts break as the veins of greed throb without mercy. Eyes are blinded by the neon flashes of decaying human spirit, life itself spread open like some dead carcass being slowly stripped bare by Wall Street vultures. We look on helplessly as the dark cloud of globalisation looms overhead, obscuring more and more hope in its relentless path towards totalitarian blackness. A billion mouths go hungry as ageing crones insulate themselves against the march of time and wrinkles, and the tide of pestilence that delights to call itself The American Way sweeps ever on...

I finish, read it through. I like it. My shrink won't but hey, making sense of it what he gets tossed his crumbs for. I close my notebook, feel like I've achieved something today.

NINE

'You really hate this country, don't you?'

He's just finished reading what I wrote last night. Why am I not surprised by his reaction?

'What it stands for, yes,' I say.

'Are the two inseparable?'

'Hey, it's the economic and social structure that defines a country, not its borders. Ain't found one I can believe in yet.'

'Structure or country?'

'You choose.'

He doesn't reply, doesn't seem to be in the mood today for philosophical mind games. He looks aside, nods towards my easel. 'I see you've started painting.'

'Like you thought I wouldn't.'

'And what is that supposed to mean?' He snaps it out sharply, defensively.

'I know what you're about. I'm just playing along, is all.'

He fidgets uncomfortably in his chair: yep, he's been rumbled. 'You see conspiracies everywhere, don't you?' he's saying to cover it. 'You complained of having nothing to do, you were given something to do. Whatever you may think, it's no more sinister than that. So what are you painting?'

I look across at the easel, at the less-than-blank sheet of paper clipped to it. I've done more work on it. The dark grey wash is now partially covered by a solid circle of blue. I've taken time and trouble over it, tried to work some kind of glow into the blue. It hasn't been easy but I think I'm getting there. As for what it is, I'm not ready to give that up, not yet.

'Can't you see what it is?' I say.

He looks at it sidelong, first one way, then the other. He's playing games with me, or at least he likes to think so.

'It looks like a flag,' he says eventually.

I look at it again, have to agree that yeah, it does a little. A blue circle on a dark grey background—flags have been made up of less.

'Maybe it is, maybe it isn't,' I say. 'It's for you to work out, not me.'

'Well, then, let's assume it is,' he says, swinging round to face me again. 'Let's assume it's a new flag for a new nation to replace in your affections the country you hate so much.'

I shrug indifference. 'Yeah, whatever.'

'So, what are you going to call this new country of yours?'

'Is it important?'

'Every country has to have a name. It's what separates any one from another.'

'You think so?' Suddenly, I'm glad he's started this. 'You really think so? You really think that a simple name is all that's needed to set one nation apart from any other?'

He sees the trap, sidesteps it neatly. 'It's more complicated than that, that I'll grant you. As you said, its economic and social structure plays a large part in the formation of its identity.'

'Yeah?' I lay another. 'How?'

He hesitates: he's not glad he started this. 'It's a mix of things,' he begins carefully, 'but what mainly sets one nation apart from another, I think, is its political system. And this country has a pretty good one, I think even you have to admit that.'

'Yeah,' I agree, 'we've got the best democracy money can buy. Go on.'

'Religion also has a part to play, I think. One nation under God—you must have heard that phrase, surely.'

'So that's what this evangelism crap is all about,' I say. 'National cohesion. And here's me thinking it was just a bunch of weak-faith inadequates trying to persuade others to their mass delusion in order to convince themselves of its worth. How stupid of me.'

He ignores that, continues. 'It's a long history, it's a cultural identity, it's—it's a lot of things, really. What sets one country apart from another, what makes it what it is, is a whole mix of things. A national flag identifies it and national borders encase it. So...'

He trails off. Uncertainly. Like he doesn't really believe it, himself.

'National borders, huh?' I say. 'National borders encase national identities that are determined by national borders. Isn't that a little circular?'

'It's the way things are done. Show me a better way. If you can.'

He throws in that last sentence like he means it to be a challenge. No problem. No problem at all. I lean forward in my chair, ready myself for a long but very satisfying haul.

'What if I were to tell you that we all live in the same country?' I say. 'Every one of us. Every single goddamn human being on this whole goddamn planet?'

A thin smile creeps across his lips. He's amused. But he'll play along. 'And how do you work this?' he says. 'How is it that the Americans, the British, the Chinese, the Australians, the Eskimos—no, mustn't forget the Eskimos—how is it that we all live in the same country?'

'To answer that, just tell me something. How far down does America go?'

'I'm not sure I'm with you...'

'Hey, come on! It's a simple enough question. Where does America end once you get past the top layer of dirt?'

'I can't say I've ever really thought about it—'

'Well, maybe you should. Ask yourself, does it go all the way down? Does America end only when it reaches the very centre of the planet?'

'Look, I think you're getting into the realms of fantasy here—'

'Uh-uh. This is pure physical geography we're talking here, pure fact. Does this country we call America end beneath the top layer of dirt—in which case, we have no rights to oil, minerals or anything else that may be buried under that top layer—or does it continue to the very centre of the planet?'

'Since you put it that way, I suppose it must do. So what are you driving at?'

I sit back, ask him a simple question. 'Doesn't every country?'

Silence. He's thinking about this, about the unassailable logic that has just shredded his sense of belonging. I don't give him a chance to recover, press home the attack while the going's good.

'There's one single atom at the centre of the planet. Ultimately, we're all standing on it, we're all living on it. All that separates us is miles of ocean that geological accident has thrown up between its outgrowths, that and national borders that history and a lot of bloodshed have forced into being. But we still occupy that same single atom. All of us.'

I've got him thinking but only for a second. The spell vanishes in a puff of dismissal. He's not going to accept this: it runs counter to everything he's ever been told to believe.

'Now I see where you get your strange ideas about patriotism from,' he says easily.

'The two are tied in,' I agree evenly. 'If you look at what I'm saying for long enough, how can they not be?'

'So this one central atom we're apparently all standing on,' he continues, 'which country actually owns it?'

'You're serious—right? You actually think that one single nation has a right to call it its own.'

'It's a perfectly valid question...'

I don't answer. I'm just looking at him and thinking. Never trust a patriot with reason. He'll twist it any which way he can to make it fit his warped sense of national pride.

'No one,' I say eventually. 'Or everyone. You choose which it is. So now you know, what are you going to do? Call the President, tell him there's an uninvaded atom somewhere just waiting to feel the benign hand of U.S. influence?'

'Now you're being ridiculous—'

'Oh, you think? Try it. He'll have the marines down the bowels of the Earth quicker than you can say Desert Storm, to plant Old Glory on that one central atom before anyone else can.'

'This is hopeless.' He slams his clipboard down on his lap, gets up.

'Hey, come on!' I really am enjoying this. 'That's what patriots do, didn't you know?'

He's making for the door. 'I'll come back when you've come to some agreement with reality.'

'Whose?' I yell after him. 'Yours or mine?'

But he's already gone, the door slamming shut behind him. I'm alone again. And I'm wondering if our sessions are supposed to end like this.

The panel in my door slides open, half a face peering through it. Although I'm no longer locked in, she still does it, still goes through the ritual of checking that the coast is clear. It is, and she pushes the door open and slides in.

'Hi,' she's saying.

'Hi,' I'm saying back.

'Are you busy?'

'Like it's actually possible to be busy in a place like this?'

'Oh. Well, I have a visitor for you, if you feel up to seeing him.'

'Him?' I'm uncertain, wary. 'Who?'

'He says he's a friend of yours. Name of Tyler?'

Tyler! How could I have forgotten about Tyler! 'Yeah, sure!' I say. 'Send him in!'

She disappears, hurries off to find Tyler, and I'm left wondering how I could indeed have forgotten about him. Aside from Cindy, he's the best friend I've got.

I've often wondered why this should be: it's not as if we have that much in common, we just seem to get along okay. He's a little quiet, and I once asked him about this. He replied with a quote he'd picked up somewhere, something about it being better to keep silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt. I liked that.

He's heavily into model railroading, has this big HO scale layout in his parents' basement. He spends a lot of time there, a lot of money and effort on it. I've seen it and I gotta admit, it's pretty impressive. I used to think he was something of a geek, doing what he does with it. Now, I'm not so sure. In many ways, he's creating his own world, like most of us do, to some degree. The only difference between him and the next guy is that he makes that own world a little more solid. Given what the real one has to offer, I can't say I blame him.

The door opens and the nurse reappears. She holds the door open, lets this puny-looking guy with glasses shuffle forward into the room. He's looking uncertain, looking as though he's wondering if he really should be here.

'I'll leave you two to it, then,' the nurse is saying brightly and she's gone, is leaving us just standing and looking at each other. I find this strangely difficult and I think I know why. Cindy I can hug to show that everything's okay between us. This guy I can't.

'Hey,' I say to break the tension. 'How you doing?'

'I'm good,' he nods tentatively. 'Yeah, I'm...I'm good. You?'

I smile. 'I'm a nutcase, remember? Nutcases aren't supposed to know how they feel.'

He's silent for a moment...now he's grinning...now he's trying to hold back a laugh. He doesn't succeed but what the hell. The tension's gone. I'm here. He's here. Nothing else matters.

I gesture to the chairs. 'Come on,' I say, 'we got some catching up to do.'

We sit down opposite each other, resting easy in the security of our friendship.

'So what's wrong with you?' he's saying.

I shrug. 'I think that's what they're trying to figure out. You heard what happened, I take it.'

'Cindy told me, figured I'd want to know.'

'Uh-huh. She okay?'

'Yeah, she's fine. Asked me to tell you she'll try and make it along later today.'

Suddenly, the day is good: I'm thinking it'll be good to hold her again.

'Sorry I didn't make it along sooner,' he's saying now. 'School's being a real pain just now.'

'Yeah? Don't tell me: same old crap being fed in, same old crap they're expecting you to spit back out.'

'You got that right,' he says with feeling. 'I got a C last week,' he adds brightly.

'A C!' This isn't right. 'You never get a C!'

'Yeah, I know. I just couldn't be bothered any more.'

'Try for a D next time, huh?' I say. 'This I want to see.'

We laugh. Together. As friends do.

'So how long are they gonna keep you in?' he's asking now.

'I don't know,' I answer truthfully. 'For as long as it takes them to figure I'm no longer a threat to Starbucks, I guess.'

'That long, huh? Do you want for anything?'

'Yeah. A beer. A cold one.'

'I'll see what I can smuggle in next time.' He hesitates, has just thought of something. 'It won't react with your medication, will it?'

'What medication? Did you really think I'd let them dope me out?'

'Yeah, well, you hear stories.' He pauses again, takes a long look round at my room. 'So this is where you crash. Basic.'

'Hell, what else do I need? It's warm, it's quiet, it's without parents.'

He snaps round, grins back at me. 'They've been to see you, yeah?'

'Just the once. They'll be back.'

'Man, I bet you are looking forward to that.'

'Hey, it's what gets me through the day.'

He laughs again. Then he's quiet, is looking sidelong at me. There's something he wants to know but can't bring himself to ask.

'It's okay,' I say. 'All this doesn't bother me any. Whatever it is, shoot.'

He nods understanding. We really are good friends. 'It's just...I don't know...What happened, Marty? I mean, Cindy told me about Starbucks but...well... _Why?_ Whatever it was, was it really so hard to handle?'

That same old question, the one that everyone seems to ask, that everyone seems to want an answer to. And that's not something I can give them just yet.

'It's like I told Cindy,' I say. 'Everything just suddenly seemed to be so goddamn pointless. It just seemed to hit home.'

'Man...' He's scratching the side of his face, is looking pensive. '...You know, I think I can relate to that.'

'Yeah?' This, too, isn't right. 'Go on.'

'It's probably nothing...'

'No! Tell me! This is something we could be sharing, man.'

'Well...okay. I get this feeling sometimes, like there's nothing out there that makes sense—'

He's got my attention. I know this feeling.

'—And the strange thing is,' he goes on, 'I can't seem to pin it down. There's nothing specific or anything, it's just there, like something gnawing at my reason, telling me to sit up and take note before it's too late.'

'No, don't tell me,' I say. 'It's like you're living someone else's dream, like you've got no future of your own, like whatever life's got in store for you, you've got no choice but to take it.'

He looks up at me. His eyes look frightened. I've seen that look before, in a mirror somewhere. 'Yeah, that's just it. How'd you know?'

I could tell him, don't dare to. He's got enough to handle as it is. This much I know.

'Hey!' I laugh. 'I'm kidding you on!'

The fear melts into a glower. 'Asshole!' he throws at me.

'Jerkoff!' I throw back, and we laugh again. But underneath, I'm panicking. Like me, he knows who he is, what he is. And like me, he doesn't know why he is. But unlike me, he hasn't tried to find out. Not yet, anyway. I want this subject changed. For my friend's sake, I want it changed.

'So,' I say, 'how's the railroad going?'

His face brightens, everything else in the world forgotten. 'It's going okay! I finished enlarging the staging yards. And I just heard there's a new model of the SD70M about to hit the hobby stores...'

—and he goes on to tell me about this new SD70M. It's a heavy-duty diesel and he reckons he'll need three, maybe four for the coal traffic on his line. I'm not into model railroading but I sit and listen, nod the odd murmur like I understand what he's saying. And I do.

My shrink accused me of wanting to form my own country. Tyler, with his model railroad, is doing just that. He's building a happy land, free of patriots with their hatred, bosses with their greed, and control freak politicians with their snouts in the trough. He can escape there any time he likes. And I envy him that.

I love this guy, this friend of friends. He teaches me so much.

TEN

I'm having trouble. The paint won't seem to mix into the colour I want. What I'm looking for is a light earthy shade, like dry soil that's been whipped into dust by the wind. What I'm getting is a kind of mud, like freshly tilled land after a rainstorm. And that means I'm getting nowhere. Maybe better to give up for a while, try again later.

My shrink hasn't been back since he stormed out. Can't say I'm troubled by that. I guess he's sitting up there in his watchtower right now, trying to figure out what to do with me next, like maybe strap me into a straitjacket and force-feed me his goddamn pills. I can just imagine him imagining it. And you know something? I think he's enjoying imagining it.

He's given me something to think about, though. It's not like it's some great revelation our conversation threw up in my face, told me to sit down and take note, will ya? No, nothing he says is worth a second shot at listening to. It's something more fundamental than that. I never figured it before but patriotism and all the Say-can-you-see-by-dawn's-early-light crap that goes with it is dangerous. I know this now because I just figured something about patriots.

It's not that patriots love their country, it's that they hate every other country. And the two are not the same thing.

It's like loving someone. You love them, you want to be with them, but does that mean you have to exclude everyone else in your life? Does that mean you can't once in a while tag along with a few friends to a bar somewhere, hold a drinking contest to see who slides under the table first? Does that mean you can't look at another someone and think Hey, he/she is pretty damn easy on the eye? No, of course it doesn't. That one special person in your life sure as hell ain't gonna demand that you exclude everyone else so why should your country demand it of you? And if you do, if you decide that this one person above all others will satisfy your every last wish, that no one else is needed, no one else even exists, then what you have is not love but obsession.

And maybe that's what drives patriots. Obsession. You've only got to look at them to see it. Ain't no country greater than the good ol' U.S. of A. No, sirree. Everything it does, everything it says is fine by me, my friend. And because it's the good ol' U.S of A., it should be fine by you, too. Never mind that you got history, you got customs, you got your own sense of identity. We're Number One in this world and don't you forget it. We sure as hell won't.

I saw it in action once with my own parents—hey, there's a surprise. They took a trip to Europe a year ago, said they wanted to see what lay round the next corner. I didn't say anything, I just figured my father had had his fill of Interstate 10 and wanted to step up to the challenge of airline food with Pan American. I went with them. And you know, I was actually glad I went with them. I saw them at work in a foreign country.

England was okay, they guessed. The language was the same and there was a Macdonald's on every corner. But they drive on the wrong side of the road, Henry. Yeah, Miriam, I kinda noticed that when I nearly hit that guy coming the other way. I did try telling them that the Brits were driving cars on roads long before one even turned a wheel on a dirt trail back home so maybe we're the ones who'd got it wrong but they wouldn't have it. It's not the way it's done in the good ol' U.S. of A. And because it's not done the way the good ol' U.S. of A does it, it can't be right.

France didn't go down so well. My parents got off to a bad start with France on our first night in Paris. We went for a meal at this restaurant and the waitress had trouble understanding us. Most people would have muddled their way through, made themselves understood with hand gestures and pointing to what they wanted on the menu. Not my parents. They just went in hard. Heads down. Take no prisoners. Three times they repeated themselves, three times it did them no good. Eventually, my mother stood up and screamed at her 'What's wrong with you! Don't you understand plain English!' Apparently, this girl didn't. But then, why should she? This was France, and they speak French in France.

Germany was a mistake. I knew that even before we crossed the border into it. There's a lot of history to forgive and one thing you do not do is ask a patriot to forgive another country's history. They liked being there, though. Gave them something to feel superior about. Beat 'em once, beat 'em twice, beat 'em a third time if it comes to it, I heard my father pronounce so many times, I lost count. Seen it all too often with them: the only way they can make themselves look good is by trying to make someone else look bad. And that's probably true of any patriot.

And that was Europe. When I look back on it now, I see how much of a waste of time, effort and money it really was. They crossed borders but they didn't seem to notice. They thought of themselves as living embodiments of the Star Spangled Banner and expected the rest of the world to fall into line before them, to snap to attention at the very sight of these conquering heroes of The American Way. Yes _sir_ , we'll speak English. Yes _sir_ , we'll salute the Statue of Liberty when we next see her. Yes _sir_ , you can have your hamburger medium-rare with all the relish you want. But what they conveniently seem to forget is that our language is borrowed from the British, the very same people whose tyranny we fought against, the victory over which we celebrate every July Fourth. The lady of hope standing guard on the entrance to New York Harbour was a gift from France, where they tend to speak French. And the hamburger is a German invention. Looking at the size of my father's gut, I guess that's one piece of history he is willing to forgive.

You see what I'm getting at? So much of what we claim as our own, we actually owe to another country somewhere in the world. But we've forgotten that. We've forgotten what made us what we are and replaced it with some arrogant sham we then try to peddle to the world. Because we believe in it. Because we're patriots.

I look again at my painting. I can see now where I want to go with it, have a clearer sense of what I'm trying to say with it. I reach for my brush, try again for the earthy shade this picture needs.

ELEVEN

She's back. And she's smiling. No, she's more than just smiling, she's grinning, telling me with a wide curve of her full lips that she's glad to be here, glad to see me again. Me? Hey, I gotta spell it out for you?

'You okay?'—She's still smiling, like she ain't ever gonna stop.

I shrug. 'Been better. Glad you made it, though. Tyler said you might.'

'Oh, he made it, too, did he? I'm so glad. I don't like the thought of you alone in here with no one to talk to.'

'Hey, there's always myself,' I say. 'I hear nutcases are pretty good at talking to themselves.'

She laughs, lets my self-deprecating humour pass her by, then glances aside to my easel, gives it another look. 'Like it,' she says. 'What is it?'

'Can't you tell?'

She squints at it sidelong, first one way, then the other. Like she's playing some game with it, with me. 'Looks like the world. From space.'

'Hey, give the monkey a banana!'

She makes to slap me. I duck out of the way. 'Seriously, is that what it is? The world?'

I nod. 'It's taking time but I'm getting there.'

'Right,' she says vaguely. 'So what are you trying to do here?'

'Art therapy,' I say, misunderstanding her. 'They're trying to find out what makes me tick.'

'No, I get that. What I mean is what are you trying to do with this painting? What does it mean?'

Do I tell her? Do I even know what to tell her? It's like a parallel universe of my own on paper, and neither is really under my control just now.

'I'm not sure yet,' I say. 'I'll let you know once it's finished.'

'Do that.' She turns back to me, gives me her full attention again. 'So are they treating you okay?'

'Up to a point, that point being the moment my shrink walks through the door.'

'Like that, huh?'

'Hey, you met him?' She shakes her head. 'You're not missing much. He's got his clipboard and his theories. His job is to re-rail me and shunt me outa here ASAP. I can do that myself. I can get by without him.'

'I'm sure he's only trying to help, Marty.'

'Yeah, I bet that's what he tells people, too. So how about you? How's school? Anyone missing me yet?'

'Only the usual crowd. Everyone else is just locked into their own little groups and their own little lives. I guess it's easy to blank off what doesn't immediately affect you.'

'You got that right,' I say with feeling. 'Have you ever noticed that with people?'

She's looking at me, looking hesitant, guarded. 'Uh...where are you going with this, Marty?'

'How people only seem to care about themselves, how they can...you know...walk past a homeless guy in the street without so much as a glance his way. Or maybe switch channels when an appeal comes up for donations to help out with some disaster or other. They do it all the time, like the only people that matter in the world is them.'

'I've seen it, yeah,' she says. 'Too many times. But what of it? It's not that they don't care, I'm sure it isn't.'

'So what is it? Are you telling me that looking out for Number One is just natural human behaviour expressing itself? I don't see it, myself. If we're genetically programmed to be so selfish, we'd never have gotten this far as a species.'

She leans forward, takes my hand in hers. 'Oh God, you're doing it again, Marty. You're looking for answers that just aren't there.'

There's a silence and I'm aware I'm staring at her. I'm looking for answers that just aren't there? Not possible. If there's a question, there has to be an answer, you just have to look for it. She should know this. After all we've shared together, she really should know this.

'What are you saying?' I say. 'That I should just accept all this, the way it is? Not even ask why people don't care?'

'No, Marty, they do. Don't you see? It's just that once you start caring, where do you stop? It's like money. There's only so much in your pocket to go around. Give a bum your last dime and what do you have left for the crippled war veteran round the next corner?'

'But some people don't even do that, the dime stays firmly in the pocket. Instead of going towards helping out a guy who maybe hasn't eaten in a week, it gets added to the pile marked "New Cadillac".'

'Well, okay,' she concedes, 'I'm with you on that. Some people won't give, no matter how much they've got. But it still comes down to where you stop caring. You have to draw the line somewhere.'

I'm not sure that's true but I don't tell her as much. She draws back, looks brighter.

'Hey, here's something that'll make you smile,' she says. 'Lacuna Coil have a new CD out. I've downloaded a few samplers and it sounds _hot_.'

She goes on to describe what she's heard. Music—something we don't have trouble wrapping our heads around. Lacuna Coil, The Bellrays, Incubus—if it rocks the walls down, we'll listen to it. But I'm only half-hearing her. My head is elsewhere, trying to make sense of what she's given me this afternoon. Already, I think it's getting there.

We don't suffer any more, do we. We don't know pain, we don't know deprivation. We don't know what it feels like to go hungry, to feel thirsty and realise that our next drink of water lies in a muddy creek six miles away that some cow has just taken a dump in. We've insulated ourselves from suffering. And because we've done that, we've insulated ourselves from other people's suffering, too. We've become detached, become dispassionate observers of some of the harsher aspects of life. We can afford to. And I mean that in the money rather than the moral sense.

My shrink was right when he said money brought with it certain privileges. And the biggest privilege of all is the ability to give the world the finger and shout _'Hey, losers! Kiss my ass!'_ But does that mean it should actually happen? Remember Katrina? Remember the suffering of the people there? Most of that was man-made. Because they were poor, because they were black, no one gave a damn. And because we're rich and white, we couldn't, maybe wouldn't, identify with them. So we left them to fend for themselves, to try and rebuild shattered homes and shattered lives as best they could.

I have to ask this: have people become so smug in themselves that they can't feel for others any more? And I then have to answer, probably yes. I'm rich, I count. They're poor, they don't. Had that hurricane hit Park Avenue in New York, you can bet your bottom dollar FEMA would have been there even before the eye had passed, handing out skinny lattes and consoling the poor wretches standing in nothing but the fur coats and designer labels they were wearing when the storm hit, the one Hockney they'd managed to salvage tucked securely under an arm.

It's all a question of identifying with what we can relate to, maybe even what we want to relate to. We don't want to be reminded that there are such things as poverty and homelessness. We don't want to be reminded that in this fragile economy we've built for ourselves, we are, all of us, just one pay-check away from the gutter. So we turn our collective back on these things, shrug our collective shoulders and mutter _Hey, shit happens_. So maybe Cindy's right, maybe it is a case of deciding where you stop caring. But as I say, it's less where you have to and more where you want to. And for most people, they stop where they end and the rest of the world starts. We're both right. Just in different ways.

I'm back. I'm sitting here again and listening to my still-smiling girlfriend telling me about these sample tracks she's downloaded. This new Lacuna Coil sounds good and I suddenly realise just how much I miss my music. When I can interrupt, when I can get a word in edgeways, I'll ask her to bring along my I-Pod next time. I need to catch up with some old friends.

They're back. And they're smiling. Me? Hey, I gotta spell it out for you?

'So how have you been, son?' my father booms.

'I'm okay.' I say it grudgingly, like I couldn't care less if he knows that I'm okay.

'I see you've combed your hair at last,' my mother says.

'Yeah. At last.' Actually, I haven't. Cindy lent me a brush. Well, more than lent me a brush. Sort of brushed it for me. Before the hands slowed and her arms fell away, fell down around my neck. Before we started kissing. This is not something I tell my mother.

My father cocks a nod towards my easel. 'So what's this? A new hobby or something?'

'Therapy,' I say and I feel a little uncomfortable with the word. Maybe it's because I'm using it in front of them, I don't know. 'It's supposed to give my shrink some idea of what makes me tick.'

'Yeah? So what is it, what are you painting?'

'Oh, Henry, don't be so dumb!' my mother scolds. 'Can't you see it's a picture of the world?'

'Oh yeah, I see it now.' He's looking at it sidelong, like there's something wrong with it. 'And those brown areas, they're land masses—right?'

I nod, don't say anything. He's still looking, still studying it.

'So that...that land mass in the middle there, that's—'

'Europe,' I finish for him.

He nods but not agreeably. 'Europe, huh? So why'd you place Europe at the centre of the world?'

I can see where this is going. 'You got a more worthy suggestion?'

He glances sharply at me. 'Just remember what country you're living in, boy.'

'I do. And that's why I put Europe at the centre of the world.'

He goes to hit back, is cut off short by my mother. 'Oh, now, don't you two start fighting again. We're here to visit, not go over old ground. So tell me, Marty, what's the food like in here?'

I tell her. I describe it mouthful by mushy mouthful. And all the while I'm telling her, I'm glancing at my father. He isn't looking at me, he's looking at my easel. This isn't a painting, it's an abortion. It's an affront to his dignity, his sense of national pride. And I realise it's exactly what I'd intended. I'm feeling glad I started this. But I'm not finished yet.

'Would they allow us to bring you something in, once in a while?'

So intent am I on enjoying my father's discomfort, I almost miss her question.

'Uh...I don't know,' I say quickly. 'You'd better ask the nurse. Likely she'll tell you if it comes with a straw, no problem.'

'Oh, I'm sure it's not that bad. I'm sure if I bring a piece of home-baked apple pie in, maybe some cream to go with it, it'll be all right—don't you think, Henry?'

So intent on his discomfort is my father that he _does_ miss her question.

'Henry?'

He sort of blinks, snaps round. 'Uh...yeah, whatever you say, Miriam.'

'Then that's settled.' She doesn't even notice, turns back to me. 'Now then, young man, when are they going to let you out of here? We have such a celebration planned for your homecoming...'

She goes on enthusiastically about the party they've planned, all the friends they'll be inviting. But I'm only half-hearing her. My head is elsewhere again. And this time, it's having a harder time making sense of what these two have brought me this afternoon.

It ties in with what Cindy and I were discussing earlier, about drawing a line somewhere when caring about people. And I'm looking at my parents and wondering how the hell it is I cannot bring myself to feel anything for them. It's not because of some decision I've made about myself caring only so far and no further. It's more fundamental than that, maybe even more frightening.

With people like these, where do you start?

TWELVE

I don't like this guy. He's been here all of twenty seconds and already I don't like him.

He settles himself in the other chair, smiles at me earnestly as he tries to make soft ass comfortable on hard wood. He's carefully casual in jeans and sneakers, half a day's worth of beard edging his face with just enough cool to remain acceptable. To look at him, you'd think he was just another Joe muddling his way through life. But in his case, that is so not true. His sweatshirt is black, reaches up to a dark collar fronted by a flash of white. Yeah, you got it. He's part of the happy, clappy, high-on-his-delusions crowd. And man, is he happy! It oozes from every pore, like nothing and no one is going to spoil this blessed day. And nothing _can_ spoil this blessed day: he's here as a representative of his Lord, as an emissary of his God's holy work in this wretched world of mortal sin. He's the one chosen to carry the word of truth into the darkest recesses of human iniquity. Because of that, I think I'm supposed to be polite and respectful to him. Because of that, I think I won't be.

'Hi!' he's saying as he thrusts out a trying-to-be-friendly hand. 'Let me introduce myself. I'm Pastor Kincaid of The Church of the Sacred Cross.'

I look down at it, don't take it. I'm thinking if there is a God, I can't see him having much truck with this jerk.

'Thanks,' I say, 'but I'm a practising Satanist.'

He laughs this away, retrieves his hand. Quickly. Just in case.

'So,' he says, 'you're probably wondering why I'm here.'

'No.'

Another laugh. I gaze at him impassively, begin to understand just what I'm up against here. One thing I know for certain already: whatever I say, however I say it, this guy is just not gonna let go. I'm not a flawed and faulty human being, I'm another recruit to his twisted way of thinking, another piece of cannon fodder for the Jesus Army. I was warned about him, that he spends a lot of time here, and that kind of figures. I guess he finds peddling quack remedies easier in a place like this.

'You're going to need a lot of help with your recovery,' he's saying now, 'from many agencies. This is where people like me come in.'

'It may have escaped your attention,' I say, 'but I've got doctors for that.'

'Ah, yes. Doctors. Well, doctors can only do so much. There is a certain spiritual aspect to your life that maybe you've yet to understand, that maybe you have yet to embrace. It could even be that that neglect of your soul is what brought you here in the first place.'

Yep, I was right about where this was leading. 'I know what brought me here,' I say wearily. 'And you can take it from me, it had nothing to do with spirituality.'

'Ah, but that's where you're wrong. Everything we say, everything we do, there is a certain spiritual aspect to it, whether we see it or not. Everything we say and do has spiritual consequences. The soul cannot, will not, be neglected.'

There's a wild fire in his eyes as he speaks. I've seen it somewhere before. In here. There was some guy in the day-room, kept tearing up pieces of paper and chewing them. One of the nurses told me he did it to keep the tumbleweeds from eating him. I figured there was something slightly wrong with his reasoning and asked this nurse why they just didn't take the paper away from him. After all, unless my shrink had adopted a new line in psychotherapy, there weren't any tumbleweeds here so no way could this guy get eaten. The nurse said they tried that once. He nearly screamed the place down. Substitute a bible for the paper and the Devil for tumbleweeds and I think you see where I'm coming from. Some people need a psychological crutch to get them through the day. If you don't believe me, just kick it out from under them and watch them smash into pieces on the floor.

I look blankly at the confirmed cripple sitting opposite me, consider blankly the crap he's trying to force-feed me here. 'Thanks,' I say, 'but I think my soul can get along fine without the sort of help you think it needs.'

He's ready for me. 'Ah, but that's where you're wrong. Salvation is what you need, and salvation can only be found through our Lord Jesus Christ.'

And I'm ready for him. 'Yeah? So how did everyone manage before Christ came along?'

'Uh...well...' I've foxed him. First shot across the bows and I've foxed him.

'I mean,' I continue, 'some pretty advanced civilisations rose and fell for thousands of years before 0BC came around, and I think they managed well enough without your-Lord-Jesus-Christ. Given that, what makes you think I can't?'

'Because we're more enlightened, these days,' he snaps back. 'Because we're no longer sun-worshipping heathens.'

'Heathens,' I repeat. 'But very possibly good people, some of them.'

'Possibly,' he agrees. 'But they were still heathen.'

He's walked right into it. 'So let's get this straight. People could have lived good—what you would call Christian—lives without even knowing about Christ, but just because they didn't know about Christ, you're sitting there and seriously telling me they're eternally damned?'

'Um...ah...yes, I see what you're getting at here...er—' Those tumbleweeds had better start getting ready for dinner. '—And in answer to it, I would have to say...maybe...er...'

He can't give me an answer and I know why he can't give me an answer. It's not that there isn't one, there is. He just doesn't want to see it.

'So,' I say, 'try telling me again that salvation-can-only-be-found-through-our-Lord-insert-your-favourite-prophet's-name-here.'
He snaps up at that. 'You think all religions are the same, do you?'

'Well, they are, aren't they? You look at religion, any religion, you see it's just a cop-out, a way of life where decision-making is effectively removed and assigned to some nebulous father figure up in the sky. That's why people like it: it takes away their personal responsibility, allows them to leave everything to what they like to call the will of God.'

'And how do you know that this isn't indeed the case?' he counters. 'How do you know that God isn't up there somewhere, guiding us through our lives?'

'But only if we live good lives,' I remind him. 'Christian lives.'

'That would help.' He says it uncertainly, as though he thinks I'm laying some kind of trap for him. He learns fast, this guy.

'So no good life, no guidance—is that what you're saying?'

'You have a choice in how you live your life,' he says carefully. 'But you must then be prepared to be answerable for that choice.'

'Uh-huh. Tell me,' I say, 'why did this God of yours give us free will if all he was then going to do was punish us for actually exercising it?'

He doesn't answer. I guess he figures it's maybe better not to dig himself any deeper into this one.

'I mean, surely it would have been easier and more satisfying for him to create a species of biological automatons, blindly obedient to his will, his every celestial whim.'

He still doesn't answer.

'Would save a lot of holy wars, too, don't you think? I mean, all those religions out there, all fighting each other for a slice of the action. Such a pointless waste of life, even you must see that.'

He bristles. Man, am I getting to this guy or what!

'Or maybe that's what you're here for, to try your hand at recruiting me for the next offensive. God's holy work—yeah, I see now how it all fits.'

'That's enough!' he snaps. He's mad. He's more than mad, he's livid. He's glaring fire and brimstone and murder and malice and hell, just about everything his religion tells him he should never feel towards another human being. Strange, that. Strange how, after 2,000 years of Christianity, people are still human first and Christian second. But he's calming a little, is smothering the anger with the security blanket of forgiveness his religion tells him to carry at all times. 'Tell me,' he says stiffly, 'do you go to church?'

'No,' I say blandly. 'Why?'

'Well, maybe you should give it a try. Maybe you'll find some of the spiritual guidance there that you so obviously need.'

'Yeah, right,' I say. 'Forget it, man. Church is like a loyalty card at a supermarket. Go along every Sunday and get it stamped, save up your points for a pair of super-deluxe angel wings.'

He sighs and gets up. Obviously, this pastoral visit is over.

'I was told you were difficult,' he's saying. 'I just want you to know that, despite everything that's passed between us this day, I will pray for you.'

'Save your breath,' I reply. 'Just bring me a beer next time you're around, it'll do more good. For body _and_ soul.'

He doesn't say anything, just looks at me, lets slip for the briefest of moments his mask of spiritual superiority. Then he's gone, his demeanour not quite so happy-clappy as when he arrived. Me? I swing round in my chair, eye with sudden fervour my notebook. I have things to say to it.

I open it at the next available page. I have questions, questions that Holy Joe just now threw up but somehow couldn't seem to answer. The first and foremost is one that has been bugging mankind ever since he first crawled out of the darkness of base instinct and into some pretence of conscious awareness. And that question is, is there a God? Is there a universal creator of all and everything? Holy Joe and all his kind would tell you there is. But then, they base their assertions on faith, and I've always had a problem with faith.

Faith is a self-contradictory no-no right from the start. Faith is like being in a room with a blindfold over your eyes. There's a light in this room. This light might be on or it might be off. You can choose to believe which. But what you choose to believe may not be what is so. And therein lies the whole problem with faith. It has no basis in provability. It relies on itself for its own validity. But it gets worse.

Imagine a whole herd of people in this room, all wearing blindfolds. Imagine that only one has faith that the light is on. The rest either think it's off or just don't care. But this one, who believes so earnestly that the light is on, goes round cracking everyone over the head and shouting "It's on! Believe!". It might well be on, of course, or it might be off. It might even be flashing, blinking on-off-on-off, making a mockery of everyone. But this doesn't matter to the guy who says it's on. He believes it's on and that's all that matters. And the rest of them will burn in Hell for daring to believe otherwise. That's fundamentalism. And fundamentalism is what you get when you confuse faith with fact.

There is a way out of this unholy mess, though: lift the blindfold, take a look for yourself. You see? Experience wins out over faith any time. And that, I guess, is where _living_ this creation is so much more important than _worshipping_ it. If there is a God, you can see him/her/it at work in the sunrise, in the act of making love, even in the easy company of a few friends on a warm summer evening, the beer cold in your hand, the stereo adding a quiet background of chilled out music while you sit and talk, just talk.

These things are more important, more _valid_ than trooping off every Sunday to some otherwise meaningless halfway-house to Holy Joe Almighty, prayer book in one hand for the supplication, pocketbook in the other for the collection. And let's not forget the collection, shall we? I don't know much about Christianity but I do know that Christ spent his entire life in poverty. Next time you see your porked-out pastor in his brand-new SUV, you might like to remind him of that.

Maybe I should start my own religion, one based on the consumption of huge amounts of alcohol. Yeah, why not! Beerism, we'll call it, after the theological dictum that the whole universe was made by a Divine Creator out of various subatomic combinations of hops and yeast. And on the seventh day, he rested and got smashed out of his skull. There'll have to be strict rules and regulations, of course. Can't have a religion without strict rules and regulations. Have to give the followers something to dissect and interpret and reinterpret and argue over and go to war over and create church schisms over—Hell, that's what religion's for, ain't it?

There'll be problems, there'll be put-downs but I'll fight back. So your religion has X-million followers and mine has only me. So what? It's what I choose to believe, it's what I have faith in. So your holy book has a thousand pages and has been around for two thousand years and mine was scribbled yesterday on the back of an old envelope. So what? It's what I choose to believe, it's what I have faith in. So you'd better get used to it. All bow before The Holy Keg. Services held every evening in my local bar. Oh, and if you neglect to bring a bottle, you get reincarnated as a soda.

Yeah, it's kinda fun having my own religion but it still leaves me feeling empty inside, like it's just another set of rules without meaning I'm supposed to follow. Maybe that's the whole point of religion, giving people rules and rituals, stopping people really living. If you look at them, they all have hang-ups over things like sex and alcohol, and both can be pretty beautiful at the right time and with the right people. No, whatever we're looking for in life, we sure as hell won't find it in religion.

I've found something to write in my notebook. I pick up my pen, set it to the paper.

The religious set of ideals, while noble in intent, will bring about nothing but the hollow oppression of the human spirit. They are, when all is said and done, an empty set of rules. Instead of blindly following them, try looking into the nature of your true self. When you find it, those rules will become self-apparent and then redundant in the wake of your enlightenment.

I look at what I've written and I like it. I set my notebook down and stretch out on my bed. I've had fun this afternoon. I need more visitors like Pastor Kincaid.

THIRTEEN

'I don't care if he bugged you, you crossed the line!'

My shrink is back, is pointing at me as he speaks, stabbing his finger with every word. I expected this. After Holy Joe left, I gave it maybe an hour before he showed up. Actually, he was here in ten minutes, bursting into my room like he ran the place. And I got the feeling he wasn't too pleased with me, with the outcome of the visit I'd just had.

'So what did you expect?' I counter. 'You send some jackass preacher in here to try and make a sale and you expect me to just sit here and buy his bible bullshit?'

'I did not send him in here,' he says quietly. 'And he was not here, as you put it, to make a sale. He was trying to help.'

'Yeah? So if you didn't send him, why did he report back to you as soon as he left me?'

'And what makes you think he did report back to me?'

'Because of the way you rushed here so damn quick. And it was quick, even you have admit that.'

He bristles. Smothers it. Smothers, too, the whole conversation. 'We have a session scheduled for later,' he says coldly. 'But since I'm here, we might as well conduct it now.'

Hey, great. One jackass after another this afternoon. There really is a God.

'So,' he continues as he sits his psychiatric ass on my other chair, 'have you made any more entries in your notebook?'

'I have,' I say, 'but I don't think for a moment you're gonna like it.'

'Don't tell me,' he says dryly. 'More of your "I hate the world" rantings.'

'You're the shrink, you tell me.'

'I think we'll bypass the notebook and turn our attention instead to this combative attitude you seemed to have adopted since you've been here.'

'Uh-uh, hold up there, pilgrim,' I say. 'I have not adopted a combative attitude since I've been here. I've always had a combative attitude.'

'Is that so!' He's looking at me with new interest, as though he had a whole conference-worth of material right under his nose all this time and he hadn't realised it. 'So tell me about it. Tell me why you feel this constant need to take the world head-on.'

'Like I should just lie down and let it walk all over me? Are you serious?'

'So you feel threatened by the world, do you?'

'Hey, don't you? Don't you sometimes take a long, hard look at it and ask yourself just what the hell is going on here?'

'I...take a step back once in a while,' he concedes. 'And I do sometimes wonder if the right decisions have been made by our various government agencies. But we're talking about you here. Why do you feel this need to be constantly on your guard against what you see as some kind of threat to you?'

I shake my head. 'That's not something I can answer, not in the few simple words you're looking for. It's like we're on this crazy carousel. All of us. It's hurtling us round and round and round but taking us nowhere. Once in a while, some of us want to get off but we can't. We're not allowed to. We have to stay on it whether we want to or not, whether staying on it even makes sense or not. And that's why I kick against it, that's why I kick against you.'

'So you regard me, this place, as being part of this crazy carousel, do you?'

'No, I don't,' I say. 'I regard you and this place as being a symptom of it. Face it, doc: if the world beyond these barred windows was anywhere near being a halfway decent place to live, you'd be out of a job tomorrow.'

'Hmm.' He doesn't agree with me on that point. But then, nor does he disagree. He just jots down another something on his clipboard. 'So,' he's saying now, 'given what you tell me, I would have to hazard a guess that you're doing two things right now. You're fighting the world while at the same time trying to escape it.'

'Hey, wouldn't you, given even half a chance?' I say. 'I mean, you're not seriously going to sit there and tell me everything in your life is hunky-dory, are you?'

He flinches, tells me I've maybe touched a raw nerve. And maybe I have: you show me someone who says he's one hundred percent happy with his lot and I'll show you a liar or a simpleton.

'No one gets a free ride in life,' I continue. 'Sometimes, that makes it interesting. Mostly, that makes it a pain in the ass. All I'm doing is what anyone does: I'm dealing with the problems as they arrive or I'm just ignoring them. You prove to me you're any different and I'll buy you lunch tomorrow.'

Half a smile flashes across his face. Given the crap they serve up in here, I don't think that's one he feels like winning.

'So, like I say,' he continues, 'you're fighting the world and running away from it, all at once.'

'And like I say, who isn't?'

He doesn't answer. And I'm finding that a little strange. Could it be that something I've said has actually made sense to this guy? Could be, it's something I've known for some time, something that's always made sense. Has it now? To him? But no, I'm wrong: it hasn't. The cold, reasoning, psychiatrist part of him has just kicked in, reminded him of what he's here for and it sure as hell ain't to take lessons in life from a nutcase.

'Again,' he's saying, 'that's a very interesting little philosophy you've built for yourself. I mean, I'm sure you're right, I'm sure everyone faces problems at some time or other in their life. But what I'm trying to say here is that there are ways of dealing with them and I'm not sure that yours is the right way.'

'It works for me,' I say. 'What more do I need?'

'Does it really?' he says blandly. 'Does it really work for you? If that's so, would you kindly explain to me what you're doing in here?'

That's still not something I can answer, not yet. Maybe soon, but not yet. But I got a let-out.

'Hey, it's a free holiday. That's the reason any of us are in here, didn't you know? Everyone is just taking time out from life, running from it for a while instead of fighting it. Maybe you should give it a try.'

He ignores that. 'A holiday,' he repeats dryly. 'And presumably, the staff are the entertainment.'

'You're very entertaining,' I agree. 'Whether you intend to be or not is another matter.'

He doesn't retaliate, just gets up...marches to the door...pulls it open while he turns to face me again. I have the strangest feeling we've been here before.

'Well, I hate to rain on your little parade,' he says, 'but all holidays come to an end at some time. You can't stay here forever, hiding from life, letting it slip by you while you take a breather. Sooner or later, you're going to be out there and facing it again.'

I shrug indifferently. 'Don't you think I know that already?'

'I hope you do. And I hope you also know that the only way you're going to handle that moment is by making some sort of progress in here. The people out there, they won't put up with this combative attitude.'

—and before I can answer, he's gone, closing the door on both me and conversation. Pity. I had a kickback, a good one. The people out there, he says. The only difference between the people out there and me in here is that they're prepared to accept the way things are and I'm not.

FOURTEEN

I'm back in the day-room. It's not that I need the company, I just can't stand the sight of four blank walls any more.

I'm looking round for Jackson (You remember him! The guy who'd found a new use for a cellphone?) but I don't see him anywhere. I stop an orderly, ask him if he's seen anyone wandering round with a tube of KY jelly sticking out his back pocket. He breaks into a grin as I speak: yeah, he's heard the story.

'Haven't you heard?' he says. 'Transferred out of here yesterday. Gone upstate.'

Upstate. He means prison. And I can't believe it. 'Why?' I say. 'Why send him there?'

He shrugs. 'I guess the evaluation panel figured he was less crazy and more criminal. His boss was called as a character witness.'

His boss. Figures. This is wrong. This is vengeance gone to pure vindictiveness. Step out of line and you feel the boss's whip—remember? I thank the orderly, silently wish Jackson well in his new home, wish the real criminal in all this was there instead of him.

I look round at the room again, let loose a resigned sigh. I've lost a friend, the only friend I could claim to have in here, and a replacement doesn't look too hopeful. The guy with the bible is still there, still rocking back and forward, back and forward in his seat, his lips still wrapping themselves round a mumbled prayer that I don't think even he can hear. I have to wonder if he knows the word Amen, if he's ever used it. Must be exhausting constantly calling on a divine light you only believe is on, you can't know for sure is on.

The guy with the cards has started his game, though, it seems. As I peer across at his table, I'm trying to figure out exactly what it is he's playing. The way the cards are set out is not one I recognise and I guess from this he's playing a game of his own, one that he's making up the rules for as he goes along. But at least he's made a start, isn't hovering uneasily on the fringes any more, wondering if he can, wondering if he should. Because of that, you gotta admire him, these first uncertain steps he's taking.

There's no one here I don't recognise and that's a little disappointing. I guess I was hoping to find someone new, someone who'd maybe got sent here for hanging his boss out the window of his top-floor office. By his feet. With a copy of the jolly all-in-this-together company magazine rammed sideways in his mouth to stop him screaming. Yeah, I'd like that.

So there's no one here, no one I can talk to, no one whose life I can brush with mine. Not unless I feel like joining the guy with the bible in his earnest insanity, not unless I feel like joining the guy with the cards in a game I couldn't hope to understand. I glance up at the clock on the wall (Yeah, there is one here. Maybe I should relocate it.). It tells me it's nearly time for coffee and doughnuts. I have nothing else to do, settle myself in an armchair, wait for the high point of the day.

I have nothing to do while I wait. There are supposed to be magazines in here but the guy with the tumbleweed problem has pretty much eaten them all. I guess I could sit and stare blankly at the walls, like most of the others here, but that would lump me in with them and I'm not ready to admit that I'm anything like them. I also came here to escape blank walls and I shift my gaze uneasily to avoid looking at them. Man, I miss Jackson. What I would give for another hour with him, listening to him, learning from him. That guy was special. What happened to him really was criminal. But it's like he said, you gotta keep in line. I guess he knew he was asking for trouble when he did what he did. Didn't stop him, though, you notice.

'Hi!'

I snap round, look up at the voice. 'Hi,' I say back, but I'm not sure of what's going on here. 'Is there a problem? I mean, shouldn't I be in here or something?'

He shakes his head, sits his orderly's uniform down in the chair beside mine. 'Chill, man,' he's saying. 'You just looked like you needed someone to talk to.'

I do but I don't tell him this. I just study him for a moment, try to get his measure. He's got maybe a few years' start on me, looks like he hasn't shaved in a week, looks like he likes it that way. He seems okay, seems to lack my shrink's blinkered certainty, seems also to have a little of Jackson's easy-going anarchy about him. Suddenly, I'm wondering about KY jelly and clipboards.

'I'm Marty,' I say. 'I'm a patient.' Dumbass thing to say, but I can't think of anything else. He rescues me from certain embarrassment.

'I'm Zack,' he says. 'I'm an orderly.'

And with those few short words, I'm feeling at ease with him, feeling a little less alone in here. I like this guy. This much I've already decided.

'So, what are you in for?' he says now. 'You don't look crazy.'

'I thought that was a word they don't like to use in here,' I say.

'Yeah, well, dress it up any which way you like, crazy is still crazy. So why are you here?'

'I threw a chair. In Starbucks. And before you say anything, I've heard all the jokes.'

'Hey, Starbucks _is_ a joke,' he says. 'Far be it from me to add to their problems. But is that all? You threw a chair?'

I shake my head. 'There's more. I flipped a little before I threw it. I guess they want to find out why, stop me doing it again and maybe hurting someone.'

'Or maybe hurting Starbucks' public image.' He says it like he means it, like this really is a possibility. 'You've had your first sessions with Murdoch, I take it.'

'Murdoch?' I repeat, puzzled.

'Sorry. _Tim_.'—He says the name meaningfully, spices it up with a healthy shot of sarcasm. I laugh.

'Sorry, I'm with you now,' I say. 'You mean my shrink. I never knew his second name.'

'Yeah, well, they like to keep things friendly in here. Pointless but friendly.'

I see what he's getting at: someone locked in a little world of his own sure as hell ain't gonna worry if his doctor is called Tim or Frankenstein. This guy is wasted here. I want to know why.

'So why are _you_ here?' I say.

He glances puzzlement at me. 'What, you think I threw a chair in Starbucks or something? I'd rather throw one of their—what do you call them? Baristas?'

'You do. But dress it up any which way you like, a waiter is still a waiter,' I say, and he laughs. It's a good sound. 'So again, why are you here? I mean, most of the staff I've come across are almost as blanked off to their surroundings as the patients. You're different. Why?'

'Am I?' He grins, looks a little guilty. 'Well, maybe I am. As for the other staff here, I guess they're trying to get through the day as best they can. It's not easy working in a place like this, believe me.'

'No, I guess it wouldn't be,' I say quietly. 'So why do you do it?'

'Hell, someone has to. We can't all be top sportsmen or pop stars or fashion icons.'

I nod understanding: there is something about what he's saying here that is so true.

'It bugs me sometimes, though,' he continues. 'I mean, here I am, cleaning the crap off the floor because bible boy over there didn't get to the john in time then I pick up a newspaper and see the latest pictures of Hannah Montana's thighs.'

'Like her thighs are worth a roll of film,' I mutter.

'You got that right,' he says, hearing me. 'Half the women I've been out with could best her above the knees.'

I smile, don't say anything. An image flashes into my mind unbidden. Of Cindy. And I then understand only too well what he's saying here.

'It just seems to me we've got it all wrong,' he goes on. 'The people that are important in this world don't get the recognition, the people that get the recognition just aren't important.'

Again, the nail hit square on the head. Let a scientist discover a cure for cancer and the world will likely shrug and say 'Yeah, whatever.' Put a bimbo in a bikini and that same world will splash her picture anywhere and everywhere it can.

My new companion lurches round in his armchair. Only then do I notice something about it, notice it for the first time.

'Coffee's here,' he's saying. 'You up for some?'

'Uh...yeah! Sure! Thanks.'

I'm speaking uncertainly, distractedly. He notices, snaps round.

'You okay?'

I look up at him. It's all I want to know. 'Why are the chairs screwed to the floor?'

All at once, he understands. 'You stay here. I'll be back in a moment.'

He's gone, leaving me thinking, leaving me wondering about myself. When I came in earlier, I wasn't ready to admit I was anything like the people here. And here, right before my own eyes, right under my own ass, is something telling me otherwise, something telling me that actually, maybe I am. I don't need Zack to tell me why the chairs are screwed to the floor, I understand only too well. It's to stop them being picked up and thrown around. Suddenly, ice-cold fingers are closing round my spine. Suddenly, I want to be the hell out of here.

He's back, balancing coffee and doughnuts in concerned hands.

'Here,' he's saying. 'You look like you need this.'

I take the cup—plastic, so I won't cause any damage if I throw that, either. It's not that hot—so I won't cause any hurt if...I think you know what I'm trying to say here.

'Must be hard for you just now,' says a voice. Zack is back in his armchair, hands clasped round his own cup, eyes peering at me over its rim.

'I just can't—' I begin. 'I never thought—'

'No, I bet you didn't. Look, they nail the chairs down in here because they _expect_ the inmates to try throwing them around. Let's not equate what you did with what passes for normality around here.'

'Yeah but—'

'Look,' he says, interrupting me a second time, 'do you think you're crazy?'

I don't even have to think about that one. 'Well, aside from what I did in Starbucks—'

'Let's just leave that out of it, shall we? You blew a fuse, that's all. A lot of people don't get that luxury, they just drag on day after day, year after year, living out some kind of existence that eats away at them until they're just a shell, an empty parody of everything they could and maybe should be. So again, do you think you're crazy?'

'No.' I sigh it slowly, like it's some relief I've just found after a long search. 'No, I don't.'

'No, I don't think you are, either. So we come back to my first question: why are you in here?'

'And I come back at you with my first answer: I threw a chair in Starbucks.'

'I would guess it runs deeper than that,' he says. 'People throw chairs in public places all the time. Walk into a downtown bar any Friday evening and look at someone the wrong way, you'll see it happen soon enough.'

'So what you're saying is...?'

'It wasn't the symptom that brought you in here, it was the cause. That, I guess, is what they're trying to figure out.'

The cause. Hell, I could tell them that. Double hell, I've tried telling them that. Ain't no one hearing me, though.

'Do you get the feeling sometimes,' I say, 'that you're the only one in this whole damn, stupid world that sees it as it really is?'

'All the time,' he says. 'Ain't nothing I can do about it, though.'

'Doesn't that strike you as a little scary?'

'All the time,' he says again. 'Could be one reason why I chose to work in a place like this. At least here, the nutcases are known to be nutcases.'

I laugh. 'You and me,' I say, 'we're rare, you know that?'

'Hey, if we weren't, there'd be no need for places like this,' he says back. 'And I'd be out of a job.'

'Yeah,' I agree uncertainly, and I'm really not sure that that would be a bad thing. There's something wrong about his being here, about his doing the things he has to do. Clearing up someone's crap is one thing, spoon-feeding some patient who then dribbles half of it back out of his mouth another. The rest of it, the worst of it, is probably something else. But does he get any recognition for it? Does he hell! And that makes me angry. Because I've just realised something else about this whole damn, stupid world.

What most people do, they do for themselves. But what this guy does, he does for others.

And isn't it strange that we actually celebrate people who spend their lives looking out for Number One? Millionaires are feted, hailed as shining examples of all that is good about The American Way. No matter that those same millionaires may have stepped on hundreds of people in the process of getting their millions. No matter that they might still be stepping on hundreds of people, might be grinding them ever deeper into the dirt in some Third World sweatshop even as they step up to accept their award for Outstanding Businessman of the Year. Yeah, it happens. We know it happens. But I guess we just don't like being reminded of it.

I look up at Zack still sitting in his nailed down armchair. 'So if you didn't do this,' I ask, 'what would you do?'

He takes a moment to think: maybe this is not something he's ever really considered. 'Something useful,' he says eventually. 'Some job where I could sit back at the end of the day and think yeah, that was worth a piece of my life.'

'Not many jobs around that would give you that,' I say.

'And don't I know it. But hey, I'll worry about that if it happens, if they decide they don't need me here any more.'

'I hope it doesn't come to it,' I say. 'I think you do a pretty okay job in here.'

He grins, embarrassed. 'Well, if it does come to it, I can always get a job photographing Hannah Montana's thighs.'

'Pays well, I hear.'

'Yeah, well, like I said, say it any which way you like, crazy is still crazy.'

FIFTEEN

I think I've got the mix right. It's taken me a while but the shade I'm looking for is flowing easily off my brush and onto the paper. The outlines I'd roughed in earlier are now looking more positive, more recognisable against the blue. I'm looking at landmasses for certain now, clearly defined regions of dirt and ideology that mean too much to too many. I can't help but feel that the one is more real than the other.

I've had time to think while I've been working. I spent the morning with Zack until the lunchtime mush came around, and I had mine in my room. Cowardice, I know, but I couldn't face the sight of this all-too-special guy fighting vacant eyes and a dribbling mouth armed with nothing more than a plastic spoon and determination. He deserves a medal for what he does in here. He deserves recognition, admiration, appreciation. In short, he deserves to be celebrated, he deserves _celebrity_. But that's not something that's built on things like compassion and commitment and clearing up someone's crap after the diaper failed to catch it all. Celebrity is built on hype, the selling of an illusion, the hint of a dream that you someday might have if you're stupid enough to believe in it. Oh yeah, and a flash of thigh.

You gotta wonder, sometimes, just what we're creating here. Do we really need a world of vacuous superbodies clamouring to get their carefully contrived falsehoods into the glossies? We do not. And that's the trouble with celebrity: it's built on the people we most want to be, not the people we most need.

I can prove this. You've had accident, okay? It's a serious one. You just got up from drooling over the latest snatched image of insert-your-favourite-otherwise-nonentity-here and you've slipped and fallen. You're injured. You're lying on the floor with blood pouring from a gaping wound in your leg where smooth skin used to be, the jagged end of a bone jutting through your flesh. Who are you gonna call? Hannah Montana? Well, if you want someone to stand there giving you a free shot while you slowly bleed to death then yeah, I guess you would. But if you want to live? I think you see where I'm coming from here.

Let's take this a stage further. That game you were watching last night, brought to you in the comfort of your own home by the miracle of television. Who's responsible for the intricate engineering in that animated box in the corner that you take so much for granted? A celebrity? I don't think so. The computer you'll be using later to hook yourself up to the rest of the world, who developed the microchip that powers it? A celebrity? I don't think so. Even your garbage that so magically disappears every Thursday, who do you think dirties themselves every day so that you can live in a disease-free environment? A celebrity? I really don't think so.

Think about it. Who really is more important to your life, to your well-being, even to every fleeting moment of your everyday existence? Yeah, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking that maybe somewhere out there is a blonde bombshell with long legs and a major in molecular biology. The best of both worlds, in fact: your cake and eating it. But ask yourself, which is the most important part of her? The legs or the possibility that she'll maybe one day find that cure for cancer? Now take it a stage further, take her incredible brain and plant it in a hunchback, a girl who can't stand upright, who has one leg longer than the other and yeah, okay, no hair, blonde or otherwise. Is she still as important to this world, maybe one day to you? Think about it, think long and hard about it.

I cracked the celebrity myth long ago. It really is built on nothing more than a bunch of shallow attention seekers getting off on setting themselves up as something desirable, something the rest of us kid ourselves we want to be. But like Zack said, like I know, what these people peddle, you can find walking down any main street in any town in any country you care to name. The only difference between celebrities and the rest of us, it seems, is a little thing called a sense of self-worth. They're looking for it. We already have it.

The panel in my door slides open. She still checks, this nurse, no matter that I now have the run of the place. She sees me then pushes the door open.

'Hi,' she says, like she always does.

'Hi,' I say back, like I always do.

'You have a visitor,' she says next, 'says he knows you.'

He? I'm puzzled, am not sure what to make of this. Everyone close enough to me to actually come and see me has done just that. There were a couple of girls at school who'd made it clear they wanted to get to know me a little better, sure, Cindy or no Cindy. But this is a he. Who is it?

'Who is it?' I say.

'He says his name is Washburn. He also said he wasn't sure how you'd react to that name but he wanted me to give it to you, anyway.'

Washburn. Actually, he is sure how I'd react to that name. Doesn't seem to have put him off any, though. The nurse is waiting for me, waiting to know if I'll grant an audience to this guy with an apparently meaningful name. I have to decide quickly. And I do. I surprise myself but it's not as if I have anything to lose here.

'Yeah, okay,' I say. 'I'll see him.'

She nods, leaves, and I'm left wondering just what the hell this guy is doing here. We're not exactly what you would call friends. Hell, we're not even what you would call acquaintances. Not in the friendly sense, anyway. As with me and the school counsellor, there's a history between us.

We go back a long way. To Elementary School, in fact. There's a Washburn in every school, isn't there? You remember him, the kid who pees in the sandpit when nobody's looking then shouts 'Hey, everybody, let's build sandcastles.' He then graduates to cornering you in the corridor and stealing your lunch money. He doesn't need it, he just likes the hold he thinks he's got over you, the sense of power it gives him. Come High School, he's ripping off convenience stores and blagging his way into bars and strip joints. Again, he doesn't need to do it, it just gives him a sense of being someone. Like a celebrity, really. Just with less subtlety.

The door opens again, the nurse enters and swings round, holds it open for my visitor.

'Half an hour,' she's saying as he passes into my room, my sanctuary against people like him. 'That's all we can allow you, I'm afraid.'

He grunts some kind of reply and she's gone, is leaving me with this big lug with half a brain. We don't say anything and I'm reminded of Tyler, his visit here. But things with this guy are different. I'm standing here unable to say anything, not because I'm pleased to see him and don't know how to say it but rather because I don't know what to even think to say. He seems to sense this, helps me out of the dilemma he's sure as hell built for me here.

'Hey.' He barely grunts it. But it's a start.

'Hi.' I also barely grunt it. But any start is better than none. 'You, uh...you wanna take a seat?'

He shrugs, slides uneasily into the chair beside my bed. I swing mine round to face him, settle into it just as uneasily. I still don't know what he's doing here.

'So...so how's things?' I can't think of anything else to say. It's not as if I really know him, can relate to him on any meaningful level.

'Been better,' he says, and I guess he's feeling pretty much the same way. 'You?'

'Hey...' I gesture at the room. '...take a look round and weep.'

'Yeah, must be, uh...pretty tough for you right now.'

'Is that why you're here?' I have to say this, can't stop myself. 'To gloat?'

He flashes me a scowl, reminds me of the Washburn I've always known, always tried to avoid. 'Look, Chandler,' he says, 'this isn't about what happened, about you being in here. I came here because I thought maybe...I don't know...it would help.'

I don't get this. Here's probably the most hated guy in the school and he's come all the way here because he thinks he can help? He goes on.

'I just wanted you to know that...all this stuff you're going through right now...you're, uh...you're not exactly alone. And because of that, I thought maybe we could talk.'

Now I understand. He came here this afternoon because he thought maybe it would help. But not me. Him. I'm surprised. Hell, man, I'm more than surprised, I'm amazed! I'd never had this guy figured for anything less than a one hundred percent control freak, shaping the world to his needs, his tools his fists, his grand plan some twisted vision of life where he's the man and don't you forget it. And I'm looking at him now and I'm seeing something in his eyes, something I've seen here before. Tyler, I'm seeing Tyler. I'm seeing him again in that stark moment of telling me the future he thought he had so firmly in his grasp was just slipping through his fingers, like the dust of dreams in the harsh moments of waking.

'Yeah, sure,' I say dumbly. 'You and me, let's talk.'

And we do. No, that's wrong. We don't talk. He talks, I just listen. And I learn a lot. I learn why he is the way he is, even what makes this guy tick. There's a lot he tells me, a lot he maybe wouldn't have told me if I hadn't gone through what I had, if it hadn't brought me to a place like this. I understand him. And you know something? He's not so different from me, in what he sees, what he fears. He just handles it in a different way.

'You remember that time I snuck out of school to go fishing?' he's saying now.

'Do I ever!' Things are easier between us. 'Old MacAllister wasn't too impressed, if I remember rightly.'

'Yeah, well, that's what Principals are for, ain't it? To piss off?'

'So why'd you do it? You must have known you were going to get caught.'

'Yeah, I did.' He glances aside, gazes out the window. 'Didn't stop me, though. I just couldn't take any more of it, the pointless crap they feed us every day.' I've heard these words before, only lately and from my own mouth. 'And I mean, what's it all for? Do you ever feel that way?'

'Uh...' How the hell do I answer this? '...well, to tell you the truth, it's what brought me here.'

'Yeah?' He snaps his gaze back, fixes it wide-eyed on me. 'So what happened?'

I tell him. Waking up when I did...my parents...Starbucks...the chair and everything being made to go dark, to go away. He listens without interruption. I guess he'd heard half the story already, wanted to be certain of getting the other half so he could fill in all the blanks.

'You know,' he says when I've finished, 'I sometimes feel like doing stuff like that, myself. Picking something up and throwing it, I mean. But it wouldn't do me any good, not when you got my kind of reputation.'

I smile wryly. 'It's gonna stick with you, gonna rub off on everything you do. But do you ever throw anything?'

He shakes his head. 'I used to. A long time back. Got to realising pretty quick that it don't do any good. So I take myself off somewhere, out of everyone's way while I try and work it through.'

'So that's why you went fishing that day,' I nod. 'Yeah, I get it now.'

'I mean...' He's staring out the window again. '...I feel sometimes like I'm sitting on the edge of something frightening, that I'm about to fall in and never be seen again. I guess that's why I lash out at people, why I screw them around the way I do. I'm scared, man. And I don't know how to handle it.'

I'm not saying anything. I'm just sitting here and looking at this guy like he's a stranger, like he's just turned up in my room, sat himself down and started talking to me in our own private group therapy session. I'm learning a lot this afternoon, and not just about him. He said he wanted me to know I wasn't alone. And I'm not, never have been. I just didn't know it at the time.

I have to say something here, have to break this moment before it starts eating into eternity.

'Look,' I say, 'I understand all this, I really do. You and me, we go back a way, don't we.'

He smiles, grimaces, all at once. He's knows what I'm saying here.

'Maybe it's time to start over,' I go on. 'Maybe we should share what we know, what we're told to know and what we think we know. You up for this?'

He looks up at me, thrusts out a hand. For a moment, I recoil. Through habit, through too-long experience. Then I see that the fist is wide open, the fingers flat, the sort of gesture you would make when encountering someone for the first time.

'Hi,' he's saying. 'I'm Pete Washburn. Pleased to meet you.'

I take the hand. It's a crass thing he's doing, almost embarrassing. This I don't tell him. He's trying to make an effort here and this is the only way he knows how to do it.

'Pleased to meet you,' I say, and I really am feeling embarrassed. 'I'm Marty. Marty Chandler.'

The introductions are over. Now we have to learn about each other, now we have to talk.

'So what's going on in the outside world?' I say. 'Anything I should know?'

'Uh?' He's surprised. 'Don't they tell you anything in here?'

I shake my head. 'I guess they figure it's better not to. The outside world is what put most of them in here in the first place.'

'Yeah? Anything you can tell me?'

Yes, there is. And I tell him. I tell him about Jackson, about the new cellphone service he'd discovered for his boss. And as I tell him, his face becomes more and more incredulous, more and more disbelieving. When I finish, when I get to Jackson's explanation for switching on the vibrate function, he laughs. I flinch at the sound. It's not scary or anything like that. It's just that I've never heard this guy laugh before.

'That's awesome!' he's saying. 'That is so...so...!'

He's lost for words and I know I just made a sale here.

'I gotta remember that,' he's saying now. 'Man, let some jackass with a name on his office door push me too far...hell, I'm even hoping he'll push me too far.'

Any other time, any other place, I might have frowned at that. But here, now, I'm almost hoping it, too. For me and for him.

'He was the only inmate with anything worth passing on,' I say, 'and he's gone now. Everyone else is pretty much zonked out around here.'

'Yeah, that I can believe. Look, there's not much I can tell you about what's going on outside: I never was one for watching FOX news. You can be sure it's just the world in a mess as usual, just the usual political crapheads fouling it up with their usual political crap.'

'You got that right,' I say with feeling. 'You gotta wonder how they manage it, sometimes, if it comes easy to them or they have to practise.'

He laughs again. 'You know what I'm gonna do when the time comes around for me to start voting?' I hate to think, have to ask him. 'Any flyer any politician gives me, I'm gonna wipe my ass on it. Then I'm gonna fold it in two and mail it to him, tell him what I really think of asshole politicians and asshole politics.'

Good plan. Wish I'd thought of it, myself. 'Yeah,' I say, 'but what good will it do? I mean, so you've made a point but they'll still manage to dupe enough people into believing their lies and empty promises. Look at Bush.'

'Bush was just a front man,' he says. 'The real power was with a bunch of theo-nazi psychopaths pulling his strings.'

I smile, remember what my shrink warned me about conspiracies. Of the two, him and this new friend sitting before me, I think I know who I'd rather believe.

'Puppet or puppeteer,' I say, 'they've still got a hold on us. They tell us what to do, who to hate and, when it suits them, who to fight. Just how the hell do you put the brakes on something like that?'

'People gotta think!' He says it with such force, it almost throws me back in my chair. 'And that's the trouble, they don't! They just blunder on, election to election, clinging to the flimsy belief that Congress is there to help life along for them, that whatever the world throws at them, the White House has got it covered.'

'Hey, don't you think I know this?' I say. 'Don't you think a lot of people know this?'

'Yeah but that's just it,' he throws back. 'It's not enough people! The majority rules, that's democracy. And if the majority is a bunch of smug, self-satisfied semi-corpses, that's what rules.'

I see what he's saying but I don't like what I'm hearing. 'So you're suggesting, uh...a dictatorship of some sort?' I ask.

'Hell, no! I want people to think!'

'That's just it,' I say. 'Politicians don't want us to think. If we started thinking, those same politicians would be out of a job pretty damn quick.'

'Yeah, I know,' he says bitterly. 'To change people, you first gotta change the system. To change the system, you first gotta change people. Catch 22 all over again.'

I say nothing. That's a good assessment, and put so well, it scares me. I've never heard this guy speak in this way before and that also scares me. There's an old saying about a stranger being simply a friend you haven't met yet. Right at this moment, it seems to be ringing pretty loud in my ears.

'So what are you gonna do?' I ask. 'How do you start making people think?'

'First, stop them being sheeple!' he says brightly.

'Not easy,' I say. 'It's easier to follow than to think.'

'Yeah and that's it, that's the root of the problem: people want their thinking done for them. That's why we have politicians, that's why those politicians know they'll win through every time: because people are simply too damn lazy to sit down and think for themselves.'

Again, I don't say anything. I just think back to something I wrote, something that was forced into recall by the visit of another mortal enemy.

People don't want democracy, they want their minds numbed and their bellies filled. In short, they want security, and they'll vote for any psychotic jackass that promises it.

My God! So I was right all along! And this guy sees it! _I was right all along!_

I want to pursue it, to talk more with him, but the door swings open. The nurse is standing there. Time's up.

He gets up, looks a little less uncomfortable than when he arrived here, is even smiling.

'Thanks for coming,' I say. 'It was good seeing you.' I mean it. I can't believe it but I actually mean it.

'Hey, you too,' he says. 'Maybe, uh...drop by again some time, huh?'

I nod, grin back. 'That'd be great.'

And he's gone. As the door closes, I sink back down on my chair, try to make sense of what's just happened here. But whatever reality has just passed this afternoon, I understand one thing above all else a little more clearly now.

If we understood ourselves a little better, maybe we'd understand each other a little better. If we understood each other a little better, maybe we'd fight each other a little less.

SIXTEEN

Dammit, I have another enemy come to visit. No, scrub that. I have another two enemies come to visit.

My mother is telling me she's just had her hair fixed. I wouldn't have known if she hadn't told me: it doesn't look any different, never does when she gets it fixed. I would wonder why she bothers if I didn't already know the reason: it's a two-weekly ritual she likes to follow, where she just sits there and lets someone else do the work for her, lets someone else try and make her into something better. A little like going to church but without the threat of eternal hellfire if you fail to keep the appointment.

'...that's how I told her I wanted it, anyway. And I told it to her straight, you can be sure of that.'

She finishes speaking. That's my cue to start listening again.

'So,' my father booms, 'any news on when they're gonna let you out of here?'

'You tell me,' I say. 'My shrink says I'm a tough nut to crack.'

'By that, he means...?' He leaves the question hanging in mid-air: he doesn't like what he's being told here. And I think it's time for more fun.

'He means he doesn't know what to make of me. Seems I'm a little weird, even for him.'

'Oh, I don't believe a word of it!' says my mother. 'Why, I'm sure he's making more of this than he needs to. You go right ahead and tell him so, Henry.'

My father is nodding agreement. Strange, isn't it, how parents always seem to know better than the experts.

'We'll have you out of here in time for the summer recess, you can count on it,' he booms next. 'We've planned a vacation. A special one. Just for you.'

Man, I can hardly contain myself, can hardly hold back the excitement of the very thought of the mere prospect of it. 'Really? What kind of vacation? Am I allowed to know?'

'Sure thing! I thought maybe we could drive up to the lakes, get in a little fishing. Just the two of us.'

Just the two of us? I look at my mother. 'So what will you be doing?'

'Oh, I'll be tagging along,' she says. 'But only to look out for the two of you. I mean, someone has to cook the day's catch when you bring it home.'

Figures. Show my father any kitchen appliance and he'll stare at it like it's a ray-gun from Mars.

'So how long is this fishing expedition likely to last?'—I have to ask it, I have to know how long I'll be gritting my teeth for.

'Hell, who knows? We'll give it a week, see how things go. If we like it, we'll stay on a while. If we don't, we can just pack up and come right on home.'

'That's right!' my mother adds. 'The freedom to do as we please. Can it get any better?'

I don't answer that one. I don't dare to.

'It does, Miriam,' says my father. 'Have you forgotten?'—and her face brightens.

'Oh, of course!' she breathes. 'Oh, tell him, Henry! I'm sure he'll be thrilled.'

'Tell me?' I say, wary. 'Tell me what?'

My father straightens up, looks as though he's about to announce some major theocratic edict. 'I'm getting a new car.'

He's getting a new car. I wasn't far out in calling this a theocratic edict. It's worship of a god, just in metallic form and moving in mysterious ways by the divine intervention of gasoline.

'Is that right?' I say, unimpressed. 'So what's wrong with the car you've already got?'

Like I need to ask. But the way they're looking at me, you'd think I'd just uttered some godless heresy. And in their way of thinking, maybe I have.

'We thought you'd be pleased!' my mother wails.

'We thought you'd at least be interested,' my father snorts.

'Hey,' I say, 'I'm not making some big deal out of this. I just wanted to know, what's wrong with the car you've already got?'

They glance uneasily at each other.

'It's not so much that there's anything wrong with it,' my father says uncertainly, 'it's just that...well...we thought it was time for a change.'

Yeah, right. He knows as well as I do that this is another ritual, only this one gets played out every two years. And the reason behind it is the same as the one behind my mother getting her hair fixed: to make someone feel better about themselves. I don't tell him this: this is one act of worship he is not going to give up, no matter what.

'So when do I get to see it?' I ask next, and they're pleased I've come to my senses and am showing some interest in worshipping their new god.

'We'll have it time for our next visit here,' says my father. 'Will they let you outside to take a look?'

I'm hoping they won't. Maybe if I ask Zack for a small favour...?

'Why,' my mother adds, 'if we ask someone, maybe we can take you for a short drive.'

Yeah, I will get Zack to do me a small favour. In the meantime, it's time to change the subject here.

'So how are things at home?'

'Pretty much the same as usual,' says my mother. 'The toaster broke down—'

'Yeah,' my father interrupts, 'nearly set fire to the kitchen. Smoke everywhere. You should have been there to see it.'

'—I was so cross!' my mother continues. 'We'd only just had that ceiling painted and now there's this big, black, sooty smudge right above the—'

I switch off, gaze at them blankly, nod in the right places and generally try to look as if I'm even halfway interested in what they're telling me. It's a trick I learned a long time ago, one I've used too many times with these people. And I'm thinking. I'm thinking about what they've told me this afternoon, about what it is they value, what it is that gives their life together meaning. I'm not impressed with what I find.

Half of what they do is pointless. Take fishing. My father is taking me fishing, remember? And he tells me this like it's something I'm supposed to be pleased about, even something I'm supposed to be grateful for. Hey, great, dad. Spend some quality time together sticking bits of bent wire in the mouths of fish. Then we drag them out of their natural environment, shove a ramrod down their throats to remove the wire for further use then crack their heads over a rock by way of saying Hi, welcome to dry land. He doesn't see it this way, of course. How can he? It's what's done around here.

It's the same with this new car he says he's buying. Buying a new car has nothing to do with transporting his fat ass from A to B, this is an image thing. This is another god he prostrates himself before and hopes to get something back from in return. I've seen it every Sunday, him out on the drive with bucket and sponge, hose-pipe at the ready for the final loving touch. And I gotta tell you, when he's out there, he's not washing his car, he's jerking his dick. This isn't a car he's lavishing so much care and attention on, it's his very sense of being someone.

In his own way, he's even said as much. There was one Sunday when he came in from the drive, looking even more flushed and excited than usual. He said he'd just seen some crumb drive by in a Honda Civic, said this asshole needed to get himself straight and buy himself a real car. By that, he means something with a V8, acres of shiny steel and an onboard sensor to tell the driver when the front and rear fenders are in the same time zone. And this is where his line of reasoning gets interesting.

So this guy driving a Honda Civic is a crumb. By implication, anyone who drives a Honda Civic is a crumb. Is he? Is he really? Maybe this guy didn't like driving what is effectively an upholstered tank so settled for something a little more manageable in commuter traffic. Maybe he has concerns about the environment, about what eight cylinders at full throttle do to the air he's forced to shovel into his lungs with every breath. Or maybe this guy just didn't fall for the hype, realised there is no need to max out eighteen feet of road space with two tons of steel that spends maybe an hour each day actually being used and the rest of the time parked up somewhere.

Yeah, it's hype. When my father buys a new car, he's telling the world something. He's telling the world that he's more than just some minor cog in some minor department in some minor corporation that really wouldn't miss him if he decided not to turn in for work one day. In effect, he's giving his ego a blow-job. And every crumb that passes by in a Honda Civic helps him on his way, helps him to that glorious climax that makes him believe so much about himself.

If I thought for one moment that telling my parents any of this would do any good, I would go ahead and tell them. But it won't. Not because what I have to say has no validity but rather because what I kick against is what they cling to. And they cling to it with all the fervour of a bible-thumping crank after a Sunday afternoon vigorously boycotting sex. What they cling to is some sense of meaning in their lives that is, ultimately, meaningless. My mother with her two-weekly blow-dry and my father with his two-yearly blow-job. For the first time in a long time, I actually feel something for these two who are so alien to me. It's pity. What they have, what they build their lives around, it's worthless. And they just don't see it.

My father has just finished speaking. 'So, what do you think?' he's saying.

What do I think? If I'd been listening, I might have half an idea of what I'm being asked here. But I hadn't and I don't. Help is at hand, though, and from his own lips in a similarly unguarded moment.

'Sure,' I reply. 'Whatever you say.'

He doesn't pick up on it. It's amazing what you can blind yourself to when you want to. He cocks a withering glance at my painting, still standing proudly defiant on its easel, Europe still dominating a world he barely knows exists. 'So how's it going? You haven't changed anything, I see.'

I know what he's getting at. And I shrug, dismissive. 'I'm comfortable with it as it is.'

'Yeah?' He turns to face me, to challenge this new heresy his only son dares to speak in his presence. 'So why? Don't you know this is the Number One country in the world?'

'In what?' I know my ground here.

'Uh...' And he doesn't. '...we're the economic powerhouse of the world.'

'No, China is.'

'We got a great culture.'

'We built our culture from many sources. And we destroyed another culture to make room for it.'

'Our diplomacy is second to none.' He's not giving up. 'Everyone respects us.'

'The Brits can lay claim to the diplomacy crown, actually.' Neither am I. 'And respect? Go ask the average Palestinian that one.'

'They don't count. Hell, none of these people you're talking about count. The Palestinians are just terrorists, the Chinese build their economy on slave labour and the Brits do as we tell them. What's with you, boy? Don't you see what's right under your nose?'

'That's just it,' I say. 'I do. Only too well.'

'Then—'

'Tell me,' I say, interrupting him before he can get further into his bigotry trip, 'where can this country really claim to lead the world? And by that, I mean with universal agreement. Where does the U.S. lead where others are happy to follow?'

He thinks. He more than thinks, he ponders. He more than ponders, he struggles. But no, his face brightens: he's found something at last. I almost can't wait to hear what he has to say.

'Military might,' he says proudly.

I gaze at him for a long moment. 'Military might,' I say flatly.

'That's what I said. We lead the world on land, in the air and on the sea. And because of that, no one even dares to threaten us.'

'Uh-huh.' Man, how can this guy be so crass? 'So tell me, who's the enemy?'

'Enemy?' Obviously, this is not something he's ever thought to ask his asshole politicians spending his tax dollars.

'Yes. Enemy,' I repeat. 'Who's the big boogie-man we need all this hardware for? The Soviet Union has gone, China's self-absorbed, who's left to fight?'

My mother interrupts, intervenes. This is not usual. 'Oh, come on, Marty! Don't you watch FOX? Don't you see what's happening in the world?'

'I see what the media is telling us is happening in the world,' I retort, 'and I don't think the two are the same thing.'

'Jesus!' my father explodes. 'You think there's some kind of conspiracy going on here?'

I smile, take my time to answer, silently thank my once-enemy-now-friend who's taught me so much this afternoon.

'I think we're given less than half the truth, yes,' I say eventually. 'I think we're told what it suits the government for us to know. And I still want to know why we have such huge military spending—spending that could more usefully go on education and healthcare, I might add—when there's no one left to fight.'

He shakes his head wearily: he's not even going to attempt to answer that one. 'You just don't get it, do you,' he's saying. 'We got the highest standard of living in the world. We need to protect it. Don't you see that?'

In other words, the U.S. leads the world in car ownership and big butts. Look closely and you'll see how the two are not entirely unrelated. I don't tell him this, of course. He knows it already, just refuses to recognise it.

'I do see it,' I say instead. 'I also see that we have the highest standard of living in the world because we've bullied our way into that position. We invade countries whose governments are not sympathetic to us, we set up puppet regimes and call it "democracy", and then we let the big corporations move in and plunder the natural resources. _This_ is why you have such an easy life in this country. _Because someone else in another country had to lose theirs_.'

My father says nothing. He just gets up, gestures to my mother. 'Come on, Miriam. I've heard enough.'

'But—but Henry—'

He propels her to the door. She glances back at me all the way, like she's not sure what's going on here, like whatever it is, she doesn't like it.

He almost shoves her out of the room. Only then does he turn to face me. Only then does he speak—

'With what I've heard today, boy, I think maybe you're in the right place, after all.'

—and he's gone, his angry stride and my mother's feeble protests receding down the corridor.

He sure is mad at me. I guess we won't be going fishing, now.

SEVENTEEN

There's a ringing in my ears—

What...? Uh...?

—and I roll over into waking just as the lights snap on.

There are voices outside my door. Loud voices. Someone shouting something about getting everyone out. He sounds serious, sounds as if he means business. I reach for my hospital-issue, swing myself out of bed.

The ringing slams into me as I open my door, screams at me to listen, will ya! I look out, glance both ways along the corridor to see people rushing about, rushing past me like I'm not here. They're not people I know, they're the night staff, their job to sedate the odd sleepwalker and generally make sure the rest of us nutcases don't try and make a run for it under cover of dark. But why are they rushing? I grab a uniform's arm as he passes, stop him in mid-rush.

'What's going on?' I shout above the ringing.

'Fire!' he yells back. 'Outside! Now!'

He doesn't give me the chance to argue, he just grabs me, swings me round, shoves me along the corridor and into the charge of another uniform. Then he's gone, is going back for another load.

The second uniform takes time out to smile at me, to reassure me that everything's okay, that they've got it all under control. And he leads me away, leads me gently out a side door and into the grounds. For the first time in too long, I'm breathing warm night air. It feels strange. It also feels good, feels like it needs a cold beer and a hot girlfriend to make it complete. But there's not much chance of either just now, this I know too well.

My orderly swings me round to a stop, peers earnestly into my eyes. 'You stay here,' he says. 'You understand? You—stay—here.'

He pronounces each word carefully, like he's speaking to an imbecile who doesn't understand plain English, and I'm strangely reminded of my mother and a certain French waitress.

'Sure,' I shrug. 'Whatever you say.'

He snaps a puzzled double-take at me, like maybe he's made a mistake with this one and just led out one of the off-duty staff, then he's gone, disappears back towards the building. There'll be others there who will need his help, who will need speaking to slowly.

I sigh and take a look round. So what happens now? I've never been evacuated from a fire before and I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do now it's actually happened. Most of the faces here, I know from the day-room. They look mainly confused, sometimes bewildered, a few maybe even a little frightened. I guess fires don't happen around here too often. That or the drugs have worn off, have left them struggling in a sudden reality that sleep should right now be shielding them from.

There's a guy standing next to me. He's wide-eyed, dumbstruck. He's gazing at the building, at what is probably his whole world. I think he understands what's going on but I can't be certain. It is a little crazy around here right now, I have to admit. We've been dragged out on the pretext of a fire, man's mortal enemy since he first learned to rub two boy scouts together. But there is no fire. Not one that I can see, anyway. There's not even any smoke and I'm struggling to catch even the faintest whiff of burning. This is a false alarm. Has to be.

No one seems to understand this, though. The patients...well, they could be forgiven for not understanding. The staff, they're something else. They're standing round shuffling their feet as uncertainly as the poor suckers they've had to drag out. For a moment, I'm not sure which is which, can only tell by the uniforms and the hospital-issue.

Some guy has just rushed past me. He's an inmate and he's in a hurry. He's whispering something hoarsely, breathing 'Fire! Fire!' as if this was news to us, as if we didn't know it already. An orderly takes him to one side, tries to calm him a little. But he won't have it, this guy. There's fire here and he's got to tell the whole wide world. I turn away, leave them to it.

There's another guy holding what looks like a rolled up sheet of newspaper. He's with someone, another inmate, and this inmate is laughing fit to burst. I can see why. The first guy is holding his roll of paper up to his lips and pointing it towards the building and this apparent fire, making out he's trying to light a cigarette. And laughing boy bursts into another fit of cackling every time he does it. Yeah, I can see why, all right. What I don't see is the joke.

Bible guy is here. He's sitting on the grass and clutching it, holding onto it like he's never gonna let go. As always, he's rocking back and forward, back and forward. He's not praying, though, he's crying, as though Judgement Day had just arrived in a blaze of his God's holy wrath and nobody told him. I look more closely and see that his bible looks a little more ragged than I remember it, looks as though someone has had a go at trashing it. Could be. Would explain the crying.

There's a commotion behind me and I turn to see tumbleweed guy. Someone has just dropped him onto the grass but he's not sitting there, he's curled round on it, a foetal wreck screaming his fears into the warm night air. I guess from this that he thinks he stands more chance of meeting the dreaded tumbleweeds out here than in the day-room.

There's a lot of noise around me, so much so that things look like they might get out of control. Another inmate has stopped another orderly and is asking him over and over again, when can they go back inside, when can they go back inside? And the orderly is telling him over and over again, when the Fire Department give the all clear, when the Fire Department give the all clear. But still this guy isn't listening, still he wants to know when they can go back inside. It's like he wants to get back inside now and won't settle for being told anything less.

There's another guy, another inmate, going round asking everyone if they've seen his hat. It's there, of course, right where it should be—on his head. And some of the more lucid ones are telling him this. But like the guy so desperate to get back in, he's not listening. Again, he's seeking some constant reassurance that no one seems able to give him.

I drag my gaze away, let it wander, let it feed me what it can. But what it gives me, I don't like. All this, all that's going on around me, it seems unreal, seems like a madness within a madness. If I haven't lost my mind already, I soon will, I know. It's strange but I feel the need to be away from here, away from these people. But I can't get away from these people. Not only because I physically can't but—

'Marty!'

I snap round to the voice, have trouble focussing on its owner. It says my name again.

'Marty?'—I know this guy, can't seem to respond.—'Marty! Snap out of it!'

It's like being slapped across the face. And I'm back. And I see it's Zack, dressed in a coat thrown over pyjamas. And I'm glad to see him, glad there's some sanity somewhere in all this, after all, glad it's found me.

'Hey!' I say unsteadily. 'I didn't know you were residential.'

Stupid thing to say. He ignores it, anyway.

'You're okay,' he breathes. 'Thank God for that. I tried your room but you weren't there...I guess I got there too late.'

'Hey, no problem.' Some sense of normality is coming back to me now, the panic fading with every word that passes between us. 'So what gives? What's this all about?'

He smirks wryly. 'A smoke detector set off the fire alarm. The rest is history.'

Right. Explained. But it doesn't ring true. 'Is there a fire?'

He shakes his head. 'Just smoke. Just someone trying to set fire to something and not doing a very good job of it.'

'Yeah? Who? And what?'

His gaze drifts past me to some vague point behind. I turn to look. All I can see is bible guy and tumbleweed guy. I guess from this that these two have played more than a small part in this night's events.

'Yep! They're the culprits,' he's saying now. 'Seems the guy with the tumbleweed problem needed something to chew. He'd been through all the magazines and that left him with one alternative.'

Already, I'm getting the picture here. 'You mean—?'

He nods. 'He tried taking bible guy's security blanket. Trouble was, bible guy wasn't too keen on the idea. Screamed the place down until help arrived. And when they intervened and restored order, tumbleweed guy started screaming the place down.'

'So...where does the fire come into it?'

Zack grins, leans closer as though to share a joke he's just been told. 'Come curfew, tumbleweed guy, uh...crept into bible guy's room, grabbed said bible and set light to it.'

'Why?' This is crazy. 'I thought he wanted to eat it.'

'You'd think, wouldn't you. I guess he figured he wouldn't have time to before bible guy started screaming, so he probably thought if he couldn't have it, no one could.'

Makes sense. Seen it happen too many times on the outside for it not to. But—

'Where'd he get the matches? And how'd he get into bible guy's room?' It worries me. With nutcases and matches not mixing too well on any level, it seriously worries me. Zack grimaces: he's thinking the same thing.

'You tell me. There'll be a major security revue carried out before this week's through, you can bet your next therapy session on it.'

With that, he's gone, is off to help out with the patient who still wants to know when they'll all be allowed back inside. I sit down on the grass, feel drained. It's not just the rude awakening from sleep, it's the whole stupidity of the night, the whole stupidity of my even being here. I shouldn't be here, shouldn't be going through this. I gotta get outa here. And like, right now! Yeah, like that's gonna happen. I'm not in control of my life right now, they are and—and I feel some kind of jolt inside, like something I should have realised long ago has just grabbed me and said _Hey, I got your attention at last!_

I look up again at bible guy and tumbleweed guy and when-can-we-go-back-inside guy and know that something is wrong here, something I'm missing. I need to find it. But later. No way can I think with all this going on around me.

I'm back in my room. The Fire Department showed up eventually, declared the place safe to enter again after a quick check round and a few explanations. That didn't satisfy the guy who'd been asking when they would all be allowed back in. As soon as the order came to move, he switched to asking when are we going to be allowed out on one of these midnight walks again, when are we going to be allowed out on one of these midnight walks again? I guess there's no satisfying some people.

Right now, I'm lying on my bed and staring up at the ceiling. The lights will be on for some time yet while the staff insert inmates back into rooms, needles into veins for the more troublesome of them. The crack in the plaster is still there. It doesn't look any longer, is still the same twelve inches of advancing army I once saw in it. Either this army has suffered some catastrophic defeat or it's stopped to rethink its strategy. Either way, it reminds me there are many ways of looking at something. And right now, I need to do just that.

This night has brought an epiphany, a sudden understanding of the way people work. Take tumbleweed guy and bible guy. One believes if he doesn't have some paper to chew on, the tumbleweeds will come and devour him with some fava beans and a nice Chianti. The other believes that if his book of empty promises isn't close to his heart 24/7...hell, now I come to think of it, I can't even begin to think what his problem is. Looking at them on a superficial level, what you have is a brace of nutcases, each following some meaningless ritual that they think will make some difference to their well-being. Hold that thought.

Now take a look at my parents. You have my mother and her two-weekly ritual with her hair, and you have my father and his two-yearly ritual with his car. What have you got here? Two people, each following some meaningless ritual that they think will make some difference to their well-being? Yeah, I kinda thought so, too.

I know what you're thinking, that it just isn't possible to equate the act of buying a new car with the act of chewing paper. And in answer, I would have to say that the act is irrelevant. What matters is the symbol, what these things represent. Let's take this a stage further. Does chewing paper really keep this guy safe from carnivorous tumbleweeds? Of course it doesn't. Does buying a new car really give my father the standing in the world (actual, not imagined) that he so desperately wants? I think you know what I'm going to say here.

What we have is two forms of insanity—or, if you like, two different faces of the same insanity. Tumbleweed guy and my father, each is kidding himself and he's kidding himself beyond the point of mere reason. If you want proof of that, take a look at bible guy, at the way he was crying when something dear and precious (but ultimately meaningless) was almost taken from him. The symbol has become more important than the actuality. And the symbol is what they cling to. And if you then want proof of the pointlessness of clutching at these symbols, take a look at my mother and her hair ritual. When she came earlier, I couldn't see any difference, didn't even know she'd got her hair fixed until she told me. So you have to ask yourself, was the ritual worth it? Go ahead and ask it, see what you come up with.

As I lie here on my bed, I know I've learned something today, this night. I've learned what makes people do the things they do. So I got the what, all I'm missing is the why, and that's maybe going to be a little harder to fathom. They do these things but why? What drives them? I'm missing something here. I don't know what it is but it sure as hell is important, that much I know, might even be the whole key to my getting out of this place. It's not impossible. They want a cure. So do I. We just each of us want a different kind of cure. Either way, it's down to me, it seems. Hell, what is it I'm missing here?

The lights have just snapped off. I glance towards the door. Hey, people, no tuck-me-in and bedtime story? No chance. The last of the nutcases has been placed under the benign care of Dr. Hypo for the night, and all the staff want to do now is slump back down in front of the TV and pick up where they left off. Can't say I blame them.

I roll over, settle myself for what's left of the night. I'll sleep now, leave the big questions to the morning. Before Dr. Hypo notices me still here and decides I need help to get there.

EIGHTEEN

'You haven't written much in here.'

'Yeah, well, I'll go with quality over quantity any day.'

He peers at me over the pages of my notebook. He does not look very pleased about something. It could be me, it could be the lack of material I've given him to work with. Either way, I can't say I'm bothered.

'So you think there is some measure of quality here, do you?' he says now.

'Depends who reads it,' I say. 'I mean, it's like hanging the Mona Lisa in front of your average Joe and expecting him to appreciate it. Likely he'll just take another swig on his beer and ask what the broad is grinning at.'

'Your point being...?'

I look at him, smile. 'My point being that some things need a certain degree of understanding before they can be understood.'

'Meaning that you don't think I actually possess that understanding,' he says dryly.

'You tell me,' I say. 'You're the one trying to make sense of what you're reading, not me.'

He doesn't react. I guess he's past that stage with me. Instead, he just looks down at my notebook, flicks the pages over one by one, scans briefly what little I've put on them. He's taking note, if not exactly of the meaning then at least the content. Judging by the intentness of his gaze, I figure I've given him something to think about, even if he does think there's too little of it.

'I don't know if you're aware of this,' he's saying, 'but I see a pattern emerging in your writings.'

A pattern? This is news to me and I'm suddenly afraid for myself, that I have somehow fallen in with his plan for me and actually given him even just a little of what he wants.

'Yeah?' I say. I try to sound as if I don't care. I don't succeed very well. 'So...how?'

'You don't much like the world you live in.'

'You've only just twigged that? As sharp as ever, I see.'

'It comes through very strongly in the way you word your entries,' he says, ignoring me. 'Take this first one. Do you remember it?'

'Yes.' I'm not sure I do, actually. 'And?'

'I seem to recall thinking it poetic. I also seem to recall the two of us having some trouble trying to figure out what it meant.'

Now I remember it, if only vaguely. 'It was just something random that popped out of my skull and onto paper.'

'But I think I've just cracked it,' he continues. He starts reading. Loud. As though to weight every word with some meaning he's just discovered. ' _In this instant of stillness, the past is laid to rest and the future is born, possibilities becoming realities in the perpetual cycle of now._ '

'Okay, professor,' I say easily, 'what window on my soul does this open?'

'A small but significant one,' he says, turning to me. 'You think yourself—no, let me rephrase that—you wish yourself a free agent, in full command of your destiny.'

'And you're saying I'm not?'

'I'm saying it's perhaps a naïve perspective.'

'Yeah, well, naïve or not and whether you like it or not, we create our own future. It's not mapped out for us by gods, governments or grandad's genes.'

'Hmm.' He looks down at my notebook, reads again. ' _We look on helplessly as the dark cloud of globalisation looms overhead, obscuring more and more hope in its relentless path towards totalitarian blackness._ Now this one is so obvious, it almost leaps out of the page at the reader. You hate Big Business. Period.'

'So do a lot of people. It's a bloated leech wallowing in its own filth as it bleeds the world dry.'

'Isn't that rather a bleak view of what has given this country—any country, for that matter—its wealth?'

'Bleak? Go ask that to some guy struggling to get by on minimum wage, working maybe sixty, seventy, eighty hours a week just so his family can eat, just so he can keep a roof over their heads. Go ask him when one of his children falls sick and he doesn't have the money for a doctor. Go ask him at Christmas, when he knows he can't afford what his children would like, hopes that what he's managed to scrimp together will be enough for at least something to mark the day.'

'Okay, you've made your point—'

'This wealth you're talking about—' I have not made my point.—'lies in the hands of a tiny fraction of the population, a rabble of glorified bloodsuckers who know they only have to snap their fingers and there'll be a waiter at their table in an instant, match at the ready to light their cigar. And the only reason they're rich enough to expect this is _because_ they pay people minimum wage, people that through _their_ sweat, _their_ toil, _their_ sacrifice, have made _him_ rich.'

I've finished. He waits for me to continue but I've finished. He doesn't say anything, just looks down at my notebook one last time.

' _The religious set of ideals_...' He skips a few words. '... _are, when all is said and done, an empty set of rules._ ' He looks up at me again. 'Do you really think that?'

I'm wired up now, ready for him. 'You're a head-doctor, you should know that religion is just another palliative for the terminally inadequate and sexually repressed.'

'I understand the need for religion in some people's lives.' Hey, nicely side-stepped. 'And I also respect that need.'

Very nicely side-stepped. And straight into another trap. 'In which case, you will also respect the need in some people's lives for alcohol. For drugs. For sexual promiscuity.'

'I don't really think you can—'

'Actually, I can,' I interrupt. 'They're all just forms of escapism, a way of avoiding facing up to life. Just like religion. But there's one thing about alcohol and drugs and getting your rocks off every which you can that places all these above religion in the morality stakes—way above.'

'Which is...?'

I lean forward, fix him with all the certainty I'm feeling right now. 'No wino, junkie or raving nymphomaniac ever started a war. Find me even one religion that can claim as much.'

He snaps my notebook shut, sets it down. 'You see?' he says. 'Everything that goes to make up this world we live in, you can't find a single positive thing to say about it.'

'Your point being?'

'My point being that it just cannot be allowed to continue. Sooner or later, you are going to have to face up to the realities of life. Sooner or later, you are going to have to accept the world for what it is and try to find some way of accommodating yourself to it.'

'Yeah? And if I don't?'

He smiles, implies this is something I really should know already. 'Do you have a choice?'

I don't answer. Actually, he's right. But how the hell do I wrap myself around what he's saying here? Do I just give up on myself, become the clone my parents always wanted for themselves? Do I just accept things as they are, with all the shams and lies and pointlessness of it all? No and no. But he's right and I see it. What I feel, what I know to be right, I just can't act on it.

I look aside, try to avoid the victory in his gaze. 'So was there something else you wanted?'

'Not at the moment,' he says easily. 'You're making some progress, I'll give you that, but there's more work to be done here. What bothers me is the amount of time you seem to have on your hands. It can't be healthy for you.'

'I got my painting, I got my visitors—I'm okay.'

'Even so, I would like you to set aside some time each day for something a little more regimented.'

'Don't tell me,' I sneer, 'you're thinking boot camp for nutcases.'

'I'm thinking,' he says, ignoring me, 'that you should consider resuming your studies while you're in here.'

I look up at him. 'Are you serious? My studies, as you call them, are what helped bring me here in the first place.'

'Even so, I would like you to consider it. My guess is you've already fallen behind, and education is important.'

'Yeah?' I've been here before, loved it then, will love it now. 'Why?'

'To get you a good job. Unless you want to end up walking hobo trails, that is.'

Unless you... I _have_ been here before, you bet your ass I've been here before. And something is suddenly, horribly clear to me, something I should have seen long ago.

'You've been talking to my school counsellor,' I say. He doesn't answer. 'You son of a bitch, you've been talking to my school counsellor!'

'I've been...liaising with him,' he says carefully.

'So what have you been feeding him? What have you given him that he can use against me when I finally get out of here and back to school?'

'That's not how such a professional relationship works,' he says. 'He had information that was useful to me in your day-to-day care and I've kept him informed of your progress.'

'So you work together,' I say. 'Towards the same end.'

'But of course. You need all the support you can get just now. Surely you can see that.'

'Yeah, and that's what—' I stop. Blink. Grab the realisation that's just brushed past and swing it round to face me. Why do I need all this support? To do what? What are they trying to do to me here?

'Hey. Are you okay?'

I barely register the words. How could I have been so dumb? How could I not have seen it before? I look up at him again, see him in his true light for the first time.

'My God!' I breathe. 'You see it, don't you?'

'I'm not sure I follow you...'

'You see it. Everything. Everything we've been discussing, everything I've put down in that goddamn notebook you gave me, you see it.'

'Look, I think—'

'And that's why I'm here.' Oh God, it all makes so much sense now! 'And that's why I'm in here. You brought me here to stop me spreading it.'

'Now you're being delusional,' he says. 'Now you're seeing conspiracies.'

'No.' I shake my head. 'No way. I'm in here because you don't want me out there. And you don't want me out there because—'

'We'll continue this tomorrow,' he says, interrupting me, getting up. He moves to the door. Quickly. Like he's trying to escape. 'In the meantime, I want you to consider what we've been talking about.'

And he's gone. And I'm left alone. Left with the sudden awful truth of this place and my so-called illness. So that's it, that's why I'm here. I'm dangerous. But not in the way I thought, not in the way they wanted me to think. And that single understanding leads me to another question: why is it so important that what I see, what I know, is kept under wraps? It ties in with what I was thinking last night, after the fire. I know the what, I just need the why. And I just can't seem to get a handle on it.

I look down, shake my head at the sheer futility of it. It's no use. Whatever it is, it's evading me, won't let me reach out and grasp it. But it's important, that much I do know.

Hell, man, what _is_ it?

NINETEEN

It's getting late. I know this because the lights have just snapped on. During daylight, they're optional. First sign of the sun turning in, they switch in automatically.

I haven't done much since my shrink left. My evening mush came and went but I don't remember eating it. I guess I must have done because my stomach isn't exactly crying out for food just now. And the orderly who brings and takes away my plate would likely have said something if I hadn't. It's his job: find some inmate staring blankly into space and he'll pick up the spoon and force-feed him.

I've been thinking. No, scrub that, I've been more than just thinking, I've been trying to piece together everything that's been happening to me since I got here, trying to make it all fit. I now know for certain why I'm here and it has little or nothing to do with the word "nutcase". Put simply, they don't want me out there. But not because I'm a danger to anyone, I'm a danger to some _thing_ , something they're not telling me. The thing is, I can't work that something out just now. I can't take my finger, swing it round a few times and _STAB!_ —land it on that one little piece of awareness that makes some kind of sense of this whole crazy situation.

I've tried but the best I can come up with is a rerun of my conversations with my shrink, my time with Jackson and my unspoken alliance with Zack. I learned something from them, all of them, even though they didn't know it. They've helped me towards some greater understanding of not just myself but also the world. I see what makes it tick, I see what drives it on. What escapes me is why it's driven the way it is. It's like this whole crazy, stupid, screwed up planet is blundering on through Time and Space without meaning, without purpose, without even a sense of itself. It should have one but something is stopping it, is maybe even holding it back from discovering it. Find that and I find the why, I just know it.

Looking back to the afternoon, I guess that's what threw my shrink. Whatever it is, he knows I'm looking for it. I think he also knows I'll find it and that somehow scares him. But why, that's what I can't figure. What might I find that is so threatening? Yeah, okay, so I took his precious world and tore it apart, exposed it as the fragile sham it really is. I held up patriotism and exposed it as little more than the acceptable face of racism. I held up religion and exposed it as nothing more than a prop for the weak and the whinging. I held up the world of work and exposed it as just a nice word for slavery. So I did all this but so what? Why does this frighten him? It's like there's something behind them all, some single, defining motivation that explains the stupidity in each of them. And that's what I'm looking for.

I get up, cross heavily to the window. My legs feel strange, feel like they haven't been used in a month. I guess from this that I really have been out of it for a while. I look out. Outside, full darkness is still some way off. It's a quiet, still summer evening. Right now, judging by the length of the shadows, I should be well into my third beer of the evening, with Cindy close by, the music blanking out the outside world for a while. It's strange but I don't find myself wishing to be there, don't wish myself to be as far from this place as I can get. Even stranger, I no longer feel trapped in here, no longer look on this place as a prison. Not even the bars on the window matter any more. The prison, such as it is, lies within me. There's something within me that I have to find but just can't reach. And it's important, _I know it's important_.

I turn away, slump down on the edge of my bed, gaze round at this room that has been both home and interrogation cell for these past few days. Outside my door, the nightshift are just coming on duty, are doing the rounds with the dayshift to identify potential troublemakers for the night. They won't be looking in on me, I'm not dangerous enough in that sense to warrant a second glance. No, I'll be left alone to pass the evening as best I can. I can do a little more painting but I don't feel that to be the right thing to do just now. I need something more substantial, something that will help with all that's going on in my head just now. My gaze stops at the bedside rack, at my notebook lying there from where my shrink had tossed it. Yeah. That'll do.

I reach round and pick it up, turn it over in my hands like I have so many times before. Just as this room has been a home to me, so this little notebook has been a repository of all I know and feel, an ally to take my part when my enemy threatened. I have one more thing to put in it then I'll call it a day. I pick up my pen, open my book to its first clear page. And I write.

The waking world is dead. The sleeping are the living. To live, to truly live, is to experience, but life limits that experience with rules and principles, empty strictures on what we could be if only we let ourselves. Only in dreams do we fly, only in dreams do we escape that which binds us. Yet while we dream, life passes us by, every breathing second stolen away until suddenly, horribly, we realise we have none left. And suddenly, horribly, we wonder just what the hell we've been doing all these years. Only then, it seems, when it's too late, do we wake up.

I stop writing, read through again what I've just set down. No answers. Just an extension of the same question that's bugging me just now. But it'll come to me, I know it will. Whatever it is that I've been brought to this place to find, it will come to me.

TWENTY

'Hey, Marty. What's wrong?'

I shuffle uncomfortably in my chair. I'm trying to hide what I'm feeling right now and not succeeding too well. And that makes me wish she hadn't come, even though I'm glad she's here. Aside from the orderlies who brought in my meals, I've had no visitors all day. Given that alone, you'd think maybe I'd be happier to see her.

'It's nothing,' I say. 'I just didn't sleep too good last night, is all.'

'Yeah?' She grins. 'Maybe they should let me stay the night. I'll make sure you sleep.'

I smile back but only faintly. I know she'll pick up on it, still can't help it.

'What's _wrong_ with you?' she says. 'This isn't like you. If I'd said that before all this, you'd have had my clothes off before I'd even finished speaking.'

'I'm just...tired,' I say. 'And I don't just mean sleep tired, I mean _tired_ tired. Place is starting to get to me a little, I guess.'

She nods slowly, nods some kind of understanding.

'So anything happening?' she says now, says in a way that tries to lighten the mood a little.

'Nothing beyond the usual,' I shrug. 'My shrink is still trying to figure out what makes me tick. The nurse is still trying to figure out if I'm dangerous or not. And I'm still trying to figure out just what it is they feed us in here. No change.'

'Uh-huh.' She looks at me sidelong. 'So when are they going to let you out?'

'Like I know that. Their decision. No change.'

'Those words again. I bet you'd like to be out of here, huh?'

I don't answer. It's strange but...but I'm not too sure any more. That feeling I had last night, like there's some reason for me being in here, some reason I have to crack before I can leave, it's getting stronger, won't let go. And she wants to know if I'd like to be out of here. I avoid the question by firing another back at her.

'So how's school?'

'Hey, you do not want to know. You're not gonna believe this but next semester, we have to study...uh, let's see if I got this right—yeah, that's it! We have to study the "Social and Economic Circumstances that led to the French Revolution". I mean, yawns-ville or what!'

'So,' I say dryly, 'just another exercise in gathering facts and writing them up in a presentable form so the teacher can tell that we can gather facts and write them up in a presentable form. I can't wait.'

She laughs. 'You know, I'd never thought of it in that way before. Maybe I should introduce a few ideas of my own, insert them at strategic points when it comes to writing up my assignment.'

'And get yourself a trip to the school counsellor's office?' I say back. 'Remember what happened to me? They don't like independent thought, Cindy. Independent thought is not something they can mark.'

'Yeah,' she sighs, still grinning, 'I guess you're right. It would be fun, though, you gotta give me that.'

Fun? Yeah, that's how it started out for me. I change the subject.

'How's Tyler? You seen him lately?'

'Yeah, I've seen him. He's okay, asked me to tell you he'll make it along when he's sure your parents aren't going to be around.'

'Hey,' I say, 'my parents. Thanks for reminding me about my parents. Have you seen them at all?''

She grimaces. 'Like I'd go out of my way to! No, I haven't seen them. Thank God. Talking of God, has that cranky pastor been back again?'

I shake my head. 'I think I made sure of that. I think he's got me pegged as the Antichrist Incarnate, and I'm comfortable with that if it keeps him and his spiritual fascism out of my life.'

'Uh-huh. And what about that guy with the cellphone—?'

'Jackson?'

'—Yeah, him. You liked him, you got on okay with him. No sign of him coming back?'

'No chance. He's upstate now. They've decided he's a criminal, not a nutcase. And they're gonna make sure he never forgets it.'

'Yeah, well, you can't beat the system.'

I blink, double-take on that one. Can't beat the system? Who says we can't beat the system?

'Who says we can't beat the system?' I really want to know. 'Are you saying the system can't be beaten?'

'I'm saying many people have tried and no one has ever succeeded. Look at it, Marty. Big business, the media—they've got it all sewn up. Between them, they've created this big machine that no one man, woman or teenage rebel cooped up in a nuthouse can hope to take on. It's just too big, it's just too powerful.'

I see it. I don't want to but I see it. The trouble is, I also see something else, and it's tied in with what I lost myself to last night for so long. This big machine, it exists, yes, but why does it exist? There has to be more purpose to this short spell of consciousness between entering this world and leaving it, there has to be more to life than what this machine tells us to expect from it. I see this. Why doesn't she?

I'm losing myself again. I'm looking up at her still speaking but I've switched off. I see her lips moving, I hear sounds coming from them but I don't register their meaning. I'm wandering again, my head so far away, it no longer feels attached to the rest of me. I'm trying to make sense of all this again, having trouble making things fit in the way I think they should.

I feel my eyes focus on my girlfriend sitting opposite me, feel her knee touching mine as she speaks, teasing me, daring me to respond. But I can't respond. For the first time since probably we met, I see the gulf that lies between us. She doesn't see things the way I do. Did she ever? Did she ever take time out to really listen to me? I mean, okay, so the words came out of my mouth and went into her head but what did she then do with them? Did she store them, file them away for future reference, when maybe she stopped looking at herself in the mirror long enough to sit down and do something useful like think?

I don't know any more. It's like we're two different people. Either she's stayed in place and I've moved on or I'm the same as I always was and she was never in the equation. Either way, there's something wrong here. But whether it's with her or me, I can't tell any more.

She's stopped speaking. She's looking at me, looking as though she's expecting some kind of response. I can't give her one. And unlike my parents, I can't just deflect her with a Sure, whatever you say. I look down at the floor instead. And she understands.

'You weren't listening, were you?' she says quietly.

I have to admit it, I have no choice. 'I'm just...I don't know...I'm just not feeling a hundred percent right now, that's all.'

'Things still getting to you, huh?'

I nod.

'Things that made you...?'

I know what she means, nod again.

'Goddammit, Marty! Can't you leave it alone?'

The words explode in my ears. I look up at her, see her gazing at me earnestly, like she's imploring me to do something, like there's this one simple chore that needs doing and I'm digging my heels in and making every excuse in the book not to do it. But it's not as simple as that. No way is it as simple as that.

'No,' I say quietly. 'No, I can't.'

She sighs, sits back in her chair. 'So what's the plan?' she says quietly.

'Uh?'

'What's the plan?' she says again. 'Are you gonna stay in here for the rest of your life? Are you just gonna sit here all day, every day while you try and figure out what this life thing is all about? Tell me, Marty. Is that what you've got planned for you—for _us_?'

Us. The word feels strange. I let it pass.

'I don't need this place. What I need to figure out, I can figure out anywhere. So no, I don't plan on staying here any longer than I need to.' I say it but I'm not sure of it, not any more.

'Yeah?' She doesn't sound too convinced, either. 'And when they do finally let you out and you're back in the world and we meet up in Starbucks and your parents have given you another hard time, what are you gonna do? You gonna throw a chair again and make someone hold you down until someone else arrives to hypo you and rush you back in here?'

I grimace, somehow don't think I'm even gonna be allowed back in Starbucks. But the question is valid. And I already know the answer.

'If I have to,' I say. 'If it helps me make sense of all this.'

'You're crazy.'

She gets up, makes ready to leave.

'That's not a word they like to use in here,' I throw back.

'You're still crazy.'

She moves to the door.

'No,' I say, 'I just see reality. I just see things as they really are.'

'Yeah? And you're so special that you think you're the only person in this whole stupid world who sees it?'

'It seems that way now. I thought you did, too, but I guess I was wrong.'

'No, you're not wrong,' she says quietly. 'I see it. So does everyone. That's what you don't understand.'

'Yeah?' Now she's she crazy one. 'So if they see the reality, why do they live this distorted fiction they've invented?'

She screams the reply—

' _Because they HAVE TO, don't you understand? They LIVE the fiction because they can't HANDLE the reality.'_

—and it's like a bullet between the eyes. It hurts. My God, it hurts. Because it means...oh God, no...it means...

And for the first time in a long time, the world makes perfect sense.

I'm thinking this and I'm hearing something. It's laughter, it's the sound of laughter. I look up and see Cindy but she isn't the one laughing. She's clutching the door, staring back at me, staring horror at me. And still I hear laughter. She yanks the door open, shouts something into the corridor. And still I hear laughter. It won't stop. Oh God, why won't it stop? There's no reply, just a white coat in the doorway, one I know but don't want to. He yells back to someone behind him. I see him step forward, a hypo in his hand. I see Cindy being hustled away, the hypo drawing ever nearer. And still I hear laughter.

I feel something sharp enter a vein, feel the world around me going to sleep.

But I don't care any more. I understand!

Do you hear me, people?

I UNDERSTAND...

TWENTY ONE

It's wearing off. Whatever it was he pumped into me, it's wearing off. I'm half-glad about that, half-sorry. Either way, I'm coming back to waking.

It must be late. I know this from the fluorescent tubes in the ceiling glowing reassurance, flooding the room with their usual clinical light, and I guess from this that I've been out of it for some hours. Figures. My mouth is dry, too, my throat parched, and there's a hollow feeling inside that tells me my stomach is missing a plate of mush or two.

But these are nothing compared to the unbearable pain that's roaring inside my head. I understand now, I understand only too well. I see the world as it really is, I see life as it really is, and I see me as I really am. All three can be summed up in a few short sentences, can be stated in the single, simple equation I've been looking for all this time.

People are the way they are because they can't handle reality. I'm the way I am because I can't handle fiction. Just which of us belongs in here?

So there you have it. I finally got there. It's been a long journey, painful at times, fun at other times, but I'm glad to have made it. And now I have to wrap my head around what I now know and make the world fit in with it. It ain't gonna be easy. This lunacy we subscribe to, it's the root of all that ails us as a species.

Take patriotism, that warm, fluffy blanket people wrap themselves in when they feel the rest of the world closing in on their beloved country. But before they do it, before they blank themselves off yet again to a truth that is so self-evident, maybe they should ask themselves a simple question. How would they feel about the flag they revere so much if an accident of birth had placed them in Britain? In Cuba? Even in Soviet Russia at the height of the Cold War? They're not in this country by choice, they're here by some quirk of fate that could have decided otherwise. Had they been born in Cuba, they would no doubt be burning the Star Spangled Banner right now instead of revering it. See what a border does to people? But you know, it could have been all so different.

Cast your mind back to the War of Independence—yeah, that's it: the war that gave us the day we celebrate that sent me in here in the first place. What if we'd lost that war? What if we were still under British colonial rule? And what if we liked it? See where I'm coming from?

Patriotism is an attitude of mind. It is not something our borders determine for us but something we determine for ourselves. This country isn't so great. It has skeletons in its closet like any other. Being the main beneficiary of the Slave Trade is one. Trying to overthrow democratically elected governments in other countries just because they don't have a pro-U.S. stance is another. Invading oil-rich nations on the pretext of ensuring world security yet another. Hell, the list goes on. But none of it matters to a patriot. Still they will stare misty-eyed at their national flag. Still they will send their sons and daughters to war on its behalf while they sit safe at home telling themselves over and over again that it's good what little Johnny and little Jane are doing, that it's a just and honourable war and it's their children's duty to go and fight it. But something they conveniently ignore is this: if a war is just and honourable enough for Johnny and Jane to go and fight, it's just and honourable enough for Mom and Dad to go and stand right there beside them on the front line. That's patriotism for you. That's its true face.

So patriotism, the result of historical borders and an accident of birth. The one can't be changed but the other...well, I kind of have to wonder if borders can't be changed more easily than people's thinking. It's one world we're living in, we're one people. Burn your national pride and get used to it.

Politicians could make a start, do I hear you say? Hey, they're the worst patriots of all. As I said when Washburn came to see me, they're the assholes who tell us what to do, who to hate and, when it suits them, who to fight. It's a power trip and gravy train all rolled together into one long freebie at the taxpayers' expense. And don't kid yourself they're in it for the common good. Oh sure, come election time, they'll wrap up their promises and sincerity into one neat little package and present it like it's the best goddamn thing that could happen in your whole goddamn life. But strip away the wrapping and all you'll find is a hollow well of silence you'll think you've heard somewhere before. And you will have. Because you fall for it every time.

That brings us to the other power trip and gravy train that tries to control—sorry, guide—our lives. Religion. Man, you gotta love religion. Where would we be without religion to show us all that's wrong in the human condition? Need a new car? Just say a prayer. Need a new house? Just burn a heretic. Need just about anything? Just look up into the sky and tell the Lord God Almighty you'll be good for the rest of your days. And the Lord Whoever Whatever will satisfy your every last need, your every smallest whim. No effort on your part, no question that you might just not deserve it. And if that wasn't enough, there's a whole industry out there just waiting to help you along with your delusion and relieve you of your cash in return for promises you actually have no comeback on if they don't deliver. Don't believe me? Think about it: if you don't end up sitting at your Lord's Right Hand when your time in the world is up, just who the hell are you gonna complain to?

It's all crap. It's all just another bunch of bullshitting con-men on the make. Have you never wondered what this life thing is all about? Have you never considered that there might just be a little more to it than praying and worshipping and giving up every Sunday to make an ass of yourself in church, speaking in tongues and handling serpents? You got it wrong, people: what we need is not the promise of empty immortality but the reality of fulfilled mortality. Don't arrive at your grave perfectly preserved and pious. Instead, topple into it in an untidy heap, exhausted but happy, your last thought as you close your eyes _Man, what a ride_. And you will arrive at your grave, a cold, dark place where the worms will have you for breakfast. There's no escaping it and no amount of prayer and pimping for Jesus is gonna change that.

Maybe that's the whole problem with religion: if people understood this life and death thing more, they wouldn't need religion. No, actually, even if they didn't understand this life and death thing, they still don't need religion. As a species, we long ago evolved beyond the need to believe in fairy tales to explain the sun coming up every morning. So take that book of holy hogwash you've been blindly following all these years and hang it by the john. It'll be more use to you there as an emergency supply of paper. Then go and buy a cool T-shirt, one with a slogan that maybe says _I USED TO BE RELIGIOUS BUT THEN I SAW THE LIGHT_ , then get out there and _live!_ And while you're out, say Hi to that lonely woman standing at the bus stop, offer to carry that old lady's groceries a way down the road, even buy some homeless guy a cup of coffee and a doughnut. In other words, show the world what a beautiful heart you have. You don't need to be religious to be a good person, you just need to be a good person.

But religion isn't the only unforgiving regime that dictates to us how we live. There's work, that paid slavery we're told to willingly donate one third of our lives to in return for just enough of a pittance to keep us going back. But have you ever stopped to wonder why we work? No, think beyond the need for money for food, clothing and a roof over your head—things that form a barrier between you and the gutter. Think more about what you're doing and why you're doing it. My brief friend Jackson taught me a lot that day. And what he taught me is that the paid slavery he traded in for a little dignity is a sham, a front to something more sinister.

There's an image burned deep into my mind's eye. It's of Jackson, of him sticking his company cellphone in his boss's ass. Ever felt like doing that or something like it at some time or other? Yeah, me too. Take a look at yourself at work then take a look at your boss. There's a difference, yeah? You? You go in, you do just enough to get you by and you go home, leave the office back at the office. Your boss? No. He takes the office home with him. To him, it's more than just work, it's a way of life, a complete existence in itself. Now think about why that should be.

Maybe it's a status thing, your boss the lord of all he surveys—like a pastor with his congregation but without the piety. But if he wanted real status, even respect, he'd be better off _as_ a pastor, with a captive audience hanging on his every word, with first crack at the collection plate and the choirboys thrown in for good measure. So no, look for some other reason for him living his work rather than simply doing it. Clue. It lies less in what he does and more in why he's doing it.

Quite simply, he's trying to blind himself to the fact that what he does is, ultimately, pretty damn pointless. I never knew what it was that Jackson told me his boss was giving him such a hard time over and I guess I didn't really need to. Half of what we produce, we can get by without. Things like electric banana peelers, multi-fragrance air fresheners—and yes, the drugs we just know we gotta have to get us through the day. None of it's needed, none of it makes people better people. All of it is there just to make someone, somewhere, money. Never mind the fact that the latest pointless gizmo they're pitching at the target demographic consumes resources and enslaves people in its production, the boss wants to make money. And pointless or not, the boss is gonna make money.

The trouble is, I think bosses everywhere know this. I think that, despite everything, despite their insatiable need to shore up the bank balance, they know deep down inside that what they're doing is pointless. But that's not enough to stop them, no sir! No way is something as sordid as doing the right thing gonna come between them and the big bucks! So the boss has to justify himself, he has to justify his work. And the best way to do that? You guessed it: he buries himself in it, he becomes his work. Like a religious zealot repeating a prayer over and over, trying to convince himself that this is right, this is ordained, he carries it with him every waking hour of every day. And like that same religious zealot, he has to persuade others to his way of thinking in order to validate himself, to keep the illusion alive. That's where you come in. That's where you start getting phone calls in the middle of the night.

Of course, you might say he needs to make all this money so he can live the lifestyle he wants for himself, his family. But what do we mean by lifestyle? If he didn't yearn for the latest in electric banana peelers and multi-fragrance air fresheners, would he need so much money? See where I'm coming from? We make things so we can make money to buy things we make. Things we don't need. Things we pay other people to tell us we need. If you don't believe me, go ask Jackson. Go ask any multinational's marketing department. I'd like to think you'll be surprised by the answer they give you. I somehow think you won't be.

So that's your future working life in a nutshell. Oh sure, you can just shrug your shoulders and throw yourself wholeheartedly into whatever wanton path the world of business takes you down. But don't expect to be happy, don't expect to be fulfilled: a career is Nature's way of kidding you that you've actually achieved something with your life.

So there you have it. The fictions we build round ourselves because we can't handle reality. Look at them. Think about them. If you let them, they will rule your life for the rest of your days.

Can't handle personal responsibility? Turn to religion.

Can't handle making your own decisions? Vote for some politician to do it for you.

Can't handle the idea that you're really no different from the guy across the border? Become a patriot.

And can't find something meaningful to do with your time? Get a career, work your way up through the system and become that jackass boss you so despise now. Just keep an eye out for people toting cellphones.

So why don't people just say no, I hear you ask? Because it's not easy turning your back on something you've spent your whole life believing. It's like tumbleweed guy and bible guy: threaten to take away some illusion someone holds dear and they go to pieces. I see it all so clearly now.

We're given a small space in this world for a short time only. We become part of the continuum that is life, the whole purpose of existence in any form. We have life, we have the potential for the richest experience possible, and both are being eaten away by those who seek to enslave us, whether it be through the imposition of dogma or the pursuit of greed. It doesn't matter which, all that matters is that we are on guard against them. What they peddle, we should ignore. What they demand, we should refuse. We have our freedom, we must protect it. Always, we must protect it.

Yeah, I see it all so clearly now. I can't believe I didn't see it before.

There's movement outside my door. I guess they've come to check on me one last time before lights out. It may even be my shrink, I don't know, don't even care any more. Strange to say, I feel for him, even pity him.

No, I really do. Because I understand so much now.

TWENTY TWO

'So how are we feeling today?'

I don't answer, not immediately. I just lie here feeling we've been down this path before. That movement outside my door last night wasn't him, it was the nurse with food and drink, figured I'd probably be needing them. She also brought an orderly, a mountain of muscle and quiet attitude I'd seen around a few times, probably figured she'd be needing him. I didn't give her the opportunity to put it to the test. But how am I feeling, how am I feeling...? Actually, I can answer that.

'I'm okay,' I say. 'Really.'

'Hmm.' He looks down at his clipboard. 'So what happened? Do you know?'

Can I answer that, too? Of course I can. Will he understand what I tell him? Of course he won't. Nothing's changed. I've changed but nothing's changed.

'It was just something...' I begin. 'Things just suddenly got...'—but I don't finish. How can I when I know we're looking at this from two different angles?

'Hmm.' He flips a page over on his clipboard, studies it. 'Your girlfriend couldn't shed any light on it, either—'

'You dragged her into this?'

'Did we have any choice? She was there, she was our one link to the incident.'

'Yeah, right.' He's right, of course. Dammit. I let my head sink back onto the pillow again, wonder aloud. 'Was she...I mean, did she...?'

'If you're asking if she was traumatised by what she saw, I would have to say how could she not be?'

Figures. It's not every day you witness a nutcase going over the edge. And she's seen it twice now.

'And what did she say?' I have to know.

'Not much. Apparently, you two were talking about something and you started laughing for no apparent reason. Do you remember this?'

Do I remember this? I feel a smile creep across my lips, feel something close to fond memory stealing up on me. 'Yeah, I remember it,' I say softly. 'I remember the laughter.'

'I think a better word might be hysteria,' he says. 'You were out of it when I got to you.'

I look up at him: this is something I'm not sure of, something I maybe didn't take in properly or chose to blank off. 'The hypo. That was you, right?'

'It was me,' he says. 'And before you ask if sedation is normal practice in here, it is when there is a danger of the patient hurting himself.'

'You could be right. I might have laughed myself to death.'

He ignores this. 'So what were you laughing about?' he says instead. 'What was so amusing that it picked you up and threw you headlong into uncontrollable mirth?'

I close my eyes, relax into the comfort of warm bed and cold certainty. 'Man, if only you knew.'

'Well, I don't. That's why I'm asking.'

I open my eyes, turn them on him. I am _so_ going to enjoy this. 'It's all a game, isn't it?'

'A game?'

'All of it. It's what we used to play as children that we clung to as we passed into that happy state of stupidity we call adulthood.'

'I'm not sure I follow you...'

'I don't doubt it for a moment so let's take an example. Let's take the comfort of your own street, your own backyard—do you remember that? The people around you the same as you, people you know and think you can trust. We carry it over with us into adulthood. Only now, our backyard spans from coast to coast and the people we think are the same as us number into the millions instead of just a handful. And like in childhood, we feel safe and secure with them, with those borders we've determined for ourselves. It's still a good feeling only we call it by a different name. Instead of calling it community spirit, we call it Patriotism.'

'Oh, God!' He slams his clipboard down. 'I knew this was a mistake!'

'Hey!' I say. 'You asked, I'm telling you. If it sounds crazy—'

'I told you, we don't use that word in here!'

'Don't worry, I've just found a new definition of it. Now, can I go on?'

He has no choice but to let me: listening to the rantings of lunatics is what he gets paid to do.

'And do you remember your parents telling you bedtime stories?' He does but he doesn't admit as much. 'Do you remember losing your baby teeth one by one and being told that if you put your latest loss under your pillow, the fairies would take it away during the night and in the morning you'd find a dollar in its place? You remember that?'

Still he doesn't answer.

'And do you remember that warm feeling you used to get when you found that dollar? Because you knew that okay, you'd lost something but you'd gained something in return. And you knew that no matter how many teeth you lost and no matter that you might finish up with a mouthful of gums, the tooth fairy would always be there with her dollar to make everything okay. Well, guess what: we carry that over into adulthood, too. Only this time, the tooth fairy is something we call "God" and the dollar is the promise of eternal life when we lose teeth, mouth, body—the whole shebang. And we call this fairy tale Religion.'

'A lot of people are going to find that very offensive if you take it beyond these walls,' he says suddenly. 'Some people need religion.'

'They do,' I agree. 'And those same people make my point better than I ever could. Tell me, do you have a sister?'

'I do,' he says guardedly. 'Why?'

'Did she ever play Convenience Store with you?'

'Look, I don't think my sister—'

'You're right,' I counter swiftly. 'She doesn't have anything to do with this. But we're talking here less about your sister and more about her game. And you must remember it. You must remember how she would have you buying stuff, things she knew she could offload on you if she twisted your arm hard enough.'

'Look, just where are you going with this?'

'Where I have to. A lot of people played that game and a lot of people are still playing it. Only little brother is now the customer base, the target demographic, whatever latest buzz-phrase is in vogue right now. And the product is still the same pointless tat your sister had spread out on her makeshift stall all those years ago. The only difference between tat then and tat now is that it's now more sparkly and comes with the promise of a better life if you buy it.'

'You know, you really are...'—He's lost for words. But I think I can help him out.

'Crazy?'

'...Yes, okay. Against my principles and hospital policy, I think you really are one hundred percent off your head.'

'Oh, you think? Listen on, pilgrim. See if you still think that when I'm finished.'

'You mean there's more?'

'Hey,' I say, 'I haven't even started. Tell me, as a head-doctor, do you get a kick out of the world looking up to you?'

'I'm not sure, actually, that the world does look up to me. Now, if I was a rock star or something—'

'Exactly!' He walked right into it. 'Go back to your childhood. Remember those games you used to play? Always the hero? Always the guy everyone else looked up to and admired and wanted to be—in your imagination, at least. Ring a bell from your dim and distant past?'

'Yes, okay, I get the picture. Go on.'

'So tell me, did you ever play the part of...uh...let's say a tramp, did you ever play the part of a tramp?'

'Not that I recall...'

'Or how about a junkie, a drug addict?'

'I don't know that there are any children's games involving drug addicts.'

Irrelevant but I don't tell him this. 'And did you ever, _ever_ play psychiatrist?'

'Oh, come on! I wouldn't even have known the word, let alone what it meant. Where are you coming from here? I can't see it.'

'Can't you?' I say flatly. 'Really, can't you? Just take a look around you, take a look at everyone you meet, everything you see about them. Then take a look at what I've just said. We've yet to grow up, haven't we? We've yet to cast aside our childish games and act like responsible, thinking adults. We've yet to stop catcalling my dad-stroke-country is bigger than your dad-stroke-country. We've yet to start tucking ourselves into bed at night rather than waiting for mummy-stroke-God to do it for us. And we've yet to stop thinking Supergirl-stroke-Hannah Montana is the only girl on the block worth talking to. But we don't because it's easier, it's more _comforting_ to cling to what we've always known, what we've come to believe in. We play the same games we did in childhood, just on a larger scale. The trouble is, we get more than a scratched knee when we fall over.'

It's suddenly quiet in this room. I've stopped speaking and he hasn't started. His face isn't telling me anything and I've learned to read it pretty damn well over these sessions. Like before, I like to think I've maybe made an impression on him, that maybe he'll go away and think about what I've been saying. But also like before, he won't, I know that. Only too well do I know that.

But he's speaking at last, is sifting words through a weary sigh that makes me feel so good inside.

'I have to say, I'm very disappointed in you.'

Not what I was expecting. But nor is it surprising.

'I had hoped you might have made some progress in here,' he goes on, 'but I see now it's just been a waste of time.'

'Sorry but I have to disagree with you.'

'Well, you would, wouldn't you?'

'No, seriously, I do have to disagree with you. I feel a whole lot better than I did when I came in here. I finally understand a whole lot more than I did before.'

'It shows,' he mutters dryly. 'Tell me, do you believe any of this—this nonsense you come out with? I mean, surely you can see it's all just twisted conjecture with no basis in fact.'

'Go ask Pastor Kincaid the same question,' I fire back. 'He believes in twisted conjecture with no basis in fact, too. Try getting him to prove it.'

End of conversation. And how. He gets up, swings round his chair, stands there with this makeshift barrier between us.

'I want you to stay in bed for the rest of the day,' he says quietly, 'get some more sleep if you can. Get up only when you feel ready.'

'I feel ready now,' I say. 'I feel ready to get up and walk right out of here, even ready to take on the world again.'

'Whatever it was that happened to you, I see it hasn't mellowed your combative attitude,' he says. 'You still feel it, this need to set yourself against the world in some way.'

'Hey, who else is gonna do it if I don't? It's not perfect out there, even you must see that.'

'But I do,' he says. 'That's what you don't understand.'

'And that's the difference between us,' I say back. 'You accept it. I don't. That's what _you_ don't understand.'

He doesn't answer, he's just not here any more, the door slowly closing on his retreating white coat. I feel myself sag, feel the afterglow of combat well-executed. I think I can safely say I won that round.

TWENTY THREE

'Hey!'

I look up from my midday mush, focus on the nurse standing in the doorway. So lost was I to my thoughts that I didn't hear her open the door.

'Are you all right?' she's asking now. Figures. I feel a little out of it, have done since I woke up this morning. I force a smile, force an answer.

'I'm fine. I was just miles away, is all.'

She nods vaguely. 'You have visitors.'

Visitors. In the plural. Can only be the two people I least want to see right now.

'I'm not feeling too good,' I say. 'I mean, I take it I do have the right to refuse visitors if I can't handle seeing them.'

'You do,' she says. 'Whether you believe it or not, we try to keep your best interests at heart in here.'

'Yeah, I'm sure you do.' Actually, I don't but can't be bothered to argue. 'Tell them I'm zonked out or something. Tell them I pole-vaulted out of here last night and you haven't seen me since, tell them anything but get rid of them.'

'Well, if you're sure...'

'I'm sure. I really can't handle them today.'

She shrugs, turns away. 'You don't know what you're missing. I wish I had legs like hers.'

Legs like— I'm on my feet in a flash, have to grab the dish to stop it scattering the remains of my mush on the floor.

'What do mean, you wish you had legs like hers? Who are we talking about here?'

She stops, looks back. 'I thought that would get your attention. It's your girlfriend. Cindy.'

Could only be Cindy. But—

'But you said there were two people.'

She nods. 'Tyler. Your friend. Remember?'

Friend and more than friend. 'Yeah, of course I remember! And yeah, I'll see them, you bet I'll see them!'

'What a miraculous recovery,' she says dryly. 'You really must tell me what wonder drug you're on.'

She's gone before I can reply. But Cindy and Tyler. How could I have been so dumb! It's been two days since it happened, what I've come to call the "aftershock", and I've had no visitors in that time. I guessed from this that my shrink had called my parents, told them what had happened, told them I was okay and in the best hands and hell, you can probably guess the rest. It's the one thing I can be grateful for, I have to admit, him keeping them at arm's length for me when I most needed it. But I always expected them to be first in the queue when the outside world was finally let back in; no wonder I kicked back when my nurse showed up telling me there were two visitors here to see me. And it turns out it isn't them, it's Cindy and Tyler. And I'm glad. On both counts.

The door opens. Two people enter. One of them's in a hurry. She runs across the room to me—throws her arms around me—holds on. Hard!

'Oh, Marty,' she's saying, 'I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.'

I see the nurse quietly withdraw and close the door behind her. She's not needed here. This is my moment. I prise my girlfriend off, hold her before me. She's crying again.

'Sorry?' I'm saying. I don't understand. 'Sorry for what?'

She sniffs, fumbles for a tissue. 'Whatever it was I said, whatever it was I did that threw you over the edge again. I'm so sorry!—' The tears are full on again, her arms round my neck as before, the tissue forgotten. '—Please forgive me! I—'

—but the rest is lost to more crying. There's nothing I can do except hold her, let whatever it is that's bothering her burn itself out in its own good time. I look up at Tyler. He's standing there looking uncomfortable. I offer him a smile, toss a glance at a chair. He takes the hint, settles himself for what could be a long haul. Again, I prise my girlfriend back, try to make some sense of all this.

'What is it?' It's all I want to know. 'What have you done that so needs me to forgive you for it?'

'It was me, wasn't it.—' She gropes in her bag. '—I said something—' Finds this tissue. '—and it made you flip out again.—' Blows her nose. '—It could only have been me, Marty. I was the only one there and—'

I raise a finger, place it against her lips, and there's silence in here again.

'It's okay,' I say. 'It wasn't you, it was me. I'd just realised something, that's all. Something important, something big. It was too much to handle all at once.'

She sniffs again, tries to believe me. 'Are you sure? Are you really sure?'

I lift her chin towards me, kiss her lightly on the lips. 'I'm sure. All that happened was that you made me realise just how wise and beautiful you really are. I'm glad you did and I'm okay now. Really.'

The arms! Oh god, the arms! They're round my neck again. And this time, they will _not_ let go.

'Hey!' I say, trying to pull her back again. 'Enough already! We got company, remember?'

She does indeed remember. She lets go, flashes a tear-stained smile at my best friend.

'Hey, don't mind me,' he shrugs. 'Beats porn on the Internet any day.'

She makes to slap him. Playfully. He ducks out of the way. Laughing. It's good we're together again, the three of us. Then we're sitting, me on a chair, Cindy on my lap. Her skirt, already short when she arrived, has ridden high on her thighs, and I know without looking that Tyler is having trouble keeping his eyes off her. She could have my chair, she knows, could keep her body secret from him. She wants to be close instead and I guess from this that these past two days have been harder on her than she's letting on.

'So what brings you guys here?' I ask. 'Come to check on just how far gone the nutcase really is?'

'Don't talk like that!'—Cindy.

'Nothing like that, man.'—Tyler. 'We were concerned about you.'

'Yeah, well... Look, I'm okay. Really. I feel better now than I have in a long time.'

Cindy draws back, swings round to look at me, to study me like she's sitting on someone she doesn't know.

'What happened, Marty? You said something about discovering something.'

I nod slowly. 'Yeah. I did. It was...Hell, how do I put this?...I guess what I'm really trying to say here is that I now know what drives this whole crazy world to be crazy. And it's so crazy in itself that no one sees it until it's upon them, until it's so close, they can't escape it. Does that make sense?'

'Revelation, they call it,' says Tyler. 'Sometimes epiphany. It can be hard on people if they're not ready for it.'

'You got that right! And that was it, it hit me. Hard. And it turned everything upside down.'

'You're—you're over it now, though.'—Cindy, gazing at me earnestly, uncertainly. 'I mean—'

I laugh. 'Hey, it's cool. No more chair throwing in Starbucks, okay?'

'Okay...' She sounds only half-convinced. 'So what was it? What was this big revelation you had?'

I look across at Tyler. His attention has shifted from Cindy's legs to me. He wants to know, too. But what the hell do I tell them? We have the half-hour these visits allow, no more, and there's so much to say. But I can try. And I know just where to start.

'Tell me,' I say, 'has July Fourth come and gone yet...?'

And so it begins. I tell them what I've discovered, what I now know. I set them on the first steps of a path that can only end with a greater understanding of this world and their part in it. And in telling them this, they come to know what this world expects of them, what they can expect if they fail to come up to scratch in its eyes. They don't say much as I speak. They don't even ask questions. They just sit here with me, these two special people I love above all others, their sense of horror growing with the understanding I'm giving them. Me? I feel it all again. I feel the rage building with every word. I feel the helplessness that goes with knowing we all of us are up against something we can't hope to challenge. That we must try to, nonetheless. That we must succeed in defeating it if any of us are to have any life worth living. This I give them. More valuable than gold, more potent than power, I give them the greatest gift anyone could give a friend. I give them knowledge. It's all I have. It's all they'll need...

All too soon, the nurse is swinging the door open: our half-hour is up. She looks down at Cindy still sitting on my lap.

'Hey,' she says, 'do I get a turn?'

'With me or with him?' she fires back, and we laugh. For the first time in a long time, I feel easy enough in myself to join in.

'Sorry to break this up, people,' she's saying now, 'but we have schedules to work to.'

'Yeah, it's okay. We understand.'—Cindy, sliding off me.

'I got things to do, anyway.'—Tyler, getting up.

They turn to me, both of them. They're smiling, showing me they're glad to see me on the way up again, showing me they'll be there for me. But I won't need them. Not in that way, anyway. This much I know already.

'You take it easy, yeah?' I say.

'Hey, you too,' says Tyler.

'You just get yourself out of here,' says Cindy as she reaches up to plant a decorous kiss on my cheek. 'We got some catching up to do.'

They turn to go, to sidle past the nurse holding the door open by way of a hint. But I can't let them leave yet, not without getting something off my chest.

'Hey,' I say. They stop, look back. 'Thanks.'

—and they understand.

Tyler shrugs. 'We didn't do anything.'

Cindy just smiles, says nothing.

The nurses shoos them out, flashes me a wink as she pulls the door closed behind them. And I'm left standing here, sorry they're gone, knowing they're wrong.

'You did more than you know,' I whisper. 'Both of you.'

TWENTY FOUR

'Hey.'

I register the voice, look up.

'Hey!' I say. 'Where have you been?'

It's Zack. I get up from my painting, meet him at the door. And man, am I glad to see him!

'I thought they'd transferred you out of here or something,' I say next. 'Come on in! Let's talk!'

He glances behind before answering. 'I can't. If Murdoch finds me here, I'll be for the high jump for sure. Look, there's something you have to know.'

I'm puzzled. On two counts. 'Why, what's happening? And why can't you be seen talking to me?'

'The two are related.' Another glance behind. He sure is jumpy about something. 'You're out of here. Tomorrow.'

'Uh?' Definitely uh!

'You're leaving! Tomorrow! What's so hard to understand?'

'But...how? Why?'

'That's not something they tell me. Maybe you got friends in higher places than you thought, I don't know. But whatever the reason, you're leaving tomorrow and you're not supposed to know until they decide to tell you.'

Things are making sense at last. 'Is that why—?'

'Yes! I was never here. Okay?'

But before I can answer, he's gone. There's nothing I can do but look on an empty doorway then sink heavily onto my bed. I'm out of here tomorrow. And I'm somehow not finding it easy to handle. I've grown strangely used to the existence here, to the blank walls and bustling nurses, to the bland mush and the lurking orderlies. And my shrink, how I have grown used to my shrink, to our sessions together that were always just a little less one-sided than he would have liked. I'm remembering all this and I'm thinking Man, I'm gonna miss it. In some strange, mischievous way that somehow appeals to me, I am really gonna miss it.

I look round for some comfort, for my notebook. It's there on the bedside rack, right where I left it before Cindy arrived to hit me with sudden realisation and a whole new understanding. I thought I was finished with it. I was wrong.

I reach round to pick it up, scrabble under the pile of books for the pen. It's there. I'm ready. I take only moments to decide what needs to be said here. I need to encapsulate all I've learned while I've been in here, list a simple set of ideas to live by when they let me loose into the most dangerous place on the planet, the outside world. With my new knowledge, the words come easily, flowing through my ballpoint as though the ink itself had life.

Remember this: People don't fight wars, ideologies fight wars. People don't want war, only ideologies want war. But ideologies embroil people with such ease. They whisper to the people that they're under attack. They point a finger at dissenters and scream "UNPATRIOTIC!" And an ideology always believes that defending itself is worth any number of body bags being unloaded from a C17. People don't matter, only the ideology.

Remember this: Work is a living, not a way of life. Use whatever talent you've been given. And whatever you choose to do, do it well. Money is a good reward for your efforts but not the most satisfying part of work. Remember that this is time, the very stuff of your life that we're talking about here. Don't squander it for a few dollars and a nameplate on your office door. It's not a bargain, it's a rip-off, one you can ill afford: you may get another pay-check next week but you'll never get another week of life. And whatever you choose to do, wherever you choose to channel your talents, never lose sight of the fact that the world needs sanitary inspectors more than it needs supermodels.

Remember this: Never believe or trust a politician. A politician's first job is to be a politician, way down the list comes looking after the people who voted him in. So don't expect an election to change anything: if elections had even a cat's chance in Hell of changing anything, they'd be banned overnight.

Remember this: Never trust anyone who claims to know the will of God. Faith is a conviction too self-absorbed to realise that doubt is its twin brother. When we blindly accept faith, we become slaves to it. We cease to grow. True faith is simply living life and living it well. If you need a bible, make up your own. Take whatever has meaning for you from wherever you find it and hold on to it. It'll serve you better than any leather-bound, gold encrusted holy text you'll find in a church.

Remember this: Above all, don't accept the world for what it is, challenge it for what it isn't. Man created the world he now lives in but this same world is now creating him. Each is a monster. Each needs to be tamed. Start with yourself. It's all you have the right to do.

There. Done. I count the paragraphs. Five. Five new commandments that I'll keep with me. I can't help but think there should be ten but I can't think of any more just yet. They'll come, I'm sure. Probably when I'm least looking for them. There's a whole lot of crazy life out there.

I set the notebook back down on the rack, satisfied with what I've done. My shrink won't see it but that's not the issue here. I wrote this for me, not him.

TWENTY FIVE

Zack was right. They've just told me.

An administrator I'd never seen before marched in accompanied by an orderly riding shotgun. She told me the what, she told me the when. What she didn't tell me was the why. I did ask. She didn't answer. Now they're gone and I realise I'm okay with it: I think I want to be out of here. I don't belong here, never did. It's just become a safe refuge from what I maybe don't want to face (insert favourite TV/religion/whatever simile here). But hey, at least I now know officially and Zack doesn't have to worry about his job if I accidentally let slip something.

I'm not doing much just now. I've done all the painting I want to do and the finished result is pretty much what I set out to achieve. It's a picture of the world hanging in space. She looks strangely serene, looks as if she's unaware of what really is going on beneath that thin veil of atmosphere she carts round with her on every orbit of the sun. I envy her for that: ignorance must be truly bliss. But if she ever found out, I'm sure the earthquake sensors we've plugged into every pore of her heavenly body would suddenly find themselves working overtime.

My door swings open. She's not checked, this time. I guess she figures that now I'm soon outa here, I must be safe.

'Hey,' she says.

'Hey,' I say back. It's almost become a ritual between us. She looks down at me sitting on the edge of my bed and staring blankly into space.

'Better not let a doctor catch you doing that,' she says. 'He might think you're a nutcase.'

I laugh. She's another someone in here I've come to know and respect, another someone I'm going to miss.

'So are you gonna tell me why you're here?' I ask. 'Or have you just come to administer an enema?'

'Hey, don't tempt me. No, you have a visitor.'

'Someone I want to see?'

'I don't know about that,' she says. 'But he wants to see you. He's pretty insistent, too.'

Tyler, can only be Tyler. But if one thing being in here has taught me, it's to not jump to conclusions.

'So who is it?' I ask.

She doesn't answer. She doesn't get the chance. Another figure appears in the doorway beside her. And I can't believe what I'm seeing. I get up, turn to face him, turn to take him head-on.

'I thought I told you to stay the hell away from me.'

I say it coldly, more coldly than I thought I could ever say anything. He steps past my nurse, steps into my room. Why do I suddenly feel like I'm being invaded?

'I remember,' he says. 'Unfortunately, that's not your call. Mind if I sit down?'

He doesn't wait for an answer, just slides into one of the chairs like he owns the place. I look up to see my nurse retreating. I think she feels the tension here, doesn't want to be part of it. I have little choice but to allow this, it seems. I take my place on the chair opposite him. Feels like a war zone in here. And no one's even fired a shot.

'So what are you doing here?' I ask.

'My job,' he says easily. 'What I'm paid to do, remember?'

'Yeah? So what is it this time? Therapy sessions after school? Implementation of a viable support structure tailored to the patient's needs? Tell me.'

He smiles. 'I see you've been brushing up on psychotherapy. A little knowledge is—'

'Yeah, I know,' I snap back. 'A dangerous thing. I've been through this one once already with my shrink so you can save your breath.'

'That actually makes me feel good,' he says smugly. 'It proves I'm not the only target for your particular brand of venom. Now, in answer to your question, it's my job to assess you, to determine what you're going to need in the days and weeks after you're let out of here. So first questions first, how do you feel? In yourself? Do you feel able to handle the outside world?'

Is this guy serious? 'Hey, just try and stop me, okay? I'm not alone, I'm sure there are others out there who see what I see. So as for what I need when I get out of here, I've got it covered already.'

'No,' he says, 'you're right, you're not alone. Not by any means are you alone. Take a look around you. Look at all the people who've tried to help you over these past few days. Look at the nurses, your doctor—even the orderlies who brought your meals into you. Look at them. Think about them. Then tell me again you won't need more.'

I do think about them. I think about Jackson and his cellphone. I think about Zack and his everyday commitment to his work. And yes, I think about bible guy and tumbleweed guy, what they've taught me while I've been in here. And you know something? He's right, I really am not alone. There are people around when I need them most, just not in the way he would like me to think.

I look up from the floor, meet his expectant gaze.

'There's nothing I need,' I say quietly. 'I'm fine with what I have. I'll get through this with help, yes, but it's help I'll find for myself.'

He sighs. 'Well, that's your view and you have a right to it. Unfortunately, you will find the reality a little different. You see, having suffered the sort of breakdown you did, you have little choice but to be monitored on your release.'

'You mean you can't afford to have nutcases running wild on the streets,' I sneer.

'I do wish you wouldn't use that word. You're sick, that's all. And anyone can fall sick.'

'Man, you don't know how true that is!' I say. 'So where do we go from here? I mean, I take it this is one pie you can't wait to get your fingers into.'

'Nicely put,' he says dryly. 'But yes, I will be involved in your further treatment. How can I not be? Whatever you may think of me, I'm here to help.'

'There'll be others, I take it.' God _damn_ , I need to know this.

'There's a whole professional support structure out there ready and waiting,' he says. 'I'm just one part of it.'

I don't say anything. There's nothing left _to_ say. He seems to think so, too. Gets up. Moves to the door. Stops.

'We'll get you back on track,' he says confidently. 'Just give it time and a little co-operation. See you back in school.'

And he's gone, taking his air of professional caring with him, and I no longer feel under attack. And I'm thinking.

Back on track, huh?

Asshole.

TWENTY SIX

'I thought you'd be pleased,' he's saying. 'I thought it's what you wanted.'

Yep, you guessed it: my shrink is back. Sitting in my second chair like he always did. Trying to sound like he knows what's wrong with me. Like he always did. Today's subject for discussion is my impending release. Apparently, I'm not jumping around and whooping and hollering fit to burst at the prospect. And he can't figure this out.

'Yeah, I'm okay with it,' I say flatly. 'Why shouldn't I be?'

He's flogging a dead horse here and he knows it. He changes tack. Quickly.

'We have the paperwork done,' he says. 'You'll be released into the care of your parents at your home address. Do you have any problem with that?'

'I think you'll find the answer in the question,' I reply dryly.

He ignores that: he knows how I feel about my parents. 'Your doctor will have been informed, of course. And he will drop in from time to time to check on you.'

'And present his bill to Medical Insurance after every visit,' I add. He ignores that, too.

'You've refused a drug regime,' he's saying now, 'and that is your right. However, I would recommend that you reconsider. Drug therapy can be beneficial after a breakdown, gives the mind a breathing space in which to get itself back together.'

'Is this you or the drug industry talking now?'

He...yeah, you got it. Am I getting through to this guy at all?

'So do you have any questions? Something maybe I haven't covered but which you'd like to know?'

There is one thing and it's been bugging me since Zack slipped me the nod. 'Yeah, why am I being released?'

He was prepared for this one, didn't even stop to think about his answer. 'There's no reason to keep you here. Your condition is not acute and we can treat you just as effectively at home as we can here. And case studies have shown that patients recover more swiftly and more effectively in a familiar environment.'

'You sure that's the reason?' I don't believe him, no way do I believe him. 'You sure you're not just heaving me out the door before I can infect the other patients in here with my thoughts—infect you with my thoughts, come to that?'

He smiles, like he's just heard some whimsical little fantasy that pleases him.

'I mean,' I continue, 'don't you think I might be more dangerous out there? Spreading what I know? Telling everyone these twisted thoughts you seem to have such a problem with?'

The smile's still there, but now he's turning to face me, is looking too damn confident for my liking.

'You can spread whatever you want to whoever you please,' he says simply. 'But would anyone believe you?'

I don't answer. He may be right, I don't know. But that is not going to stop me from trying.

'The treatment's just starting,' he's saying now. 'It's a long haul, clawing your way back to reason, and you won't find it easy. There'll be good days, there'll be bad. I want you to know that if ever you feel the need to come back here for a while, the door is always open.'

He's finished, signals this by getting up from his chair and making for the door. He opens it, turns for one last parting shot. I've seen this before, now understand the theatricality of it.

'You know where I am. Just give me a call.'

And he's gone, the door closing on him for what I know will be the last time. And I'm thinking again.

Just give him a call, huh?

Asshole.

TWENTY SEVEN

It's arrived. The last day of my confinement for the common good. What little I came in with, what little I was brought, I have packed and ready. My clothes they've returned to me, and after these long days of baggy hospital-issue, my jeans and T-shirt feel unfamiliarly tight. They also feel good, make me feel I belong to myself again.

My shrink hasn't been back to see me since our last session together, and I figure from this that he either doesn't handle goodbyes too well or another broken-winged sucker has just crash-landed onto his conveyor belt. I think I know which it is.

I have my notebook safely packed, made sure I didn't leave it behind. It's become more than just a few sheets of paper bound together. Just now, it's the most precious thing I own, a little piece of myself made substantial. In the days and years to come, I will add to it, use it to try and build a bigger and maybe better picture of this crazy, screwed up world we live in. I might even stumble upon a better way for it, who knows? All I can do is make a start, strike out in the direction I know is right for me and maybe point the way for others to follow. I can do no more.

There's a knock on my door. I look up. Strange, that: now I'm outa here, I suddenly deserve courtesy.

'It's open,' I yell.

The door swings back a little, the head of the unknown celebrity Zack peering through the gap. He doesn't say anything, just stands there grinning. And I'm glad to see him.

'Hey!' I say. 'Come to say goodbye?'

'Kind of,' he says back. The grin tightens a little. 'Are you gonna be okay?'

I shrug. 'Time will tell, I guess. I'm better equipped now than when I came in here, that's for sure.'

'Good...that's good.' He trails away, the moment suddenly awkward. 'You, uh...you take care of yourself, you hear?' he's saying now. 'If ever you feel the need to talk, you know where I am.'

'Hey, same goes for you,' I say back. 'Any time you need to, bro. Any time.'

He nods understanding, makes to leave. But before he can—

'Hey!'

—there's something I have to know. He stops, glances puzzlement at me.

'Do you ever get out of this place?' I ask. 'I mean, even if only for a day?'

He grins again. 'Are you kidding? There's more madness out there than there is in here.' He hears something, glances behind. 'Gotta go!'

—and like once before, he's gone. Something's spooked him for sure and I have the strangest feeling I'm about to find out what it is. And yep, right on cue. A brief knock on my half-open door and my nurse is standing there, and I know it's time.

She doesn't say anything. She doesn't need to. She just steps aside, holds the door open, and I know. I get up, heave my rucksack off my bed and pause to take one last look round at what has been home and sanctuary for these past few days. And as I do so, my gaze lights upon my easel, my painting, and I know I'm not done here yet.

I glance up at her. 'Give me a moment, will you?'

She understands, nods, leaves me to it. I cross to my easel, look down at it. My brush is there, so is my palette, a little red paint from yesterday drying in one corner, but still useable with a little refresher of water. I pick the palette up, take it to the washbasin, give it the drink it needs. Then I'm back at my easel and picking up my brush.

I dip it in the red and stand here for a moment, looking at this picture of the world I've painted, a shining disc hanging in space for all to see. It's missing something. And I know exactly what.

I grip my brush and use it to place a large red blob in the top left hand quadrant of the disc. Then I place another blob in the top right hand quadrant. Then I refill my brush and paint a long curved line in the lower half of the disc. A smiley face. A smiley face on the world. Underneath it, I write in bold red letters:

TO BE SANE

IN AN INSANE WORLD

IS, THEY WILL TELL YOU,

INSANE.

_Now_ it's finished. I put my brush down and turn away, leave the painting for anyone who can be bothered to make sense of it.

We walk in silence, my nurse and me. She checks me through Security, and with one step past a movable steel grill I somehow missed on my way in, I'm back in the outside world.

She leads me to the main door, outside into warm summer air that feels somehow different, somehow free. There we stop. There she turns to me, looks at me, straightens a crumpled sleeve on my T-shirt.

'I don't want to see you back here, okay?' she says. 'I know life's a bitch but I also know that living it is not impossible. Just smile once in a while and you'll get through.'

'Thanks,' I say.

'You're welcome.' She leans up, kisses me lightly on the cheek. 'Take care.'

Then she's gone. I watch her leave, watch every crisp footfall on tiled floor as she walks out of my life. She had been good to me. I won't forget her.

There's the sound of tyres crunching on gravel and I turn to see my parents drawing up. They're in their new car and they're smiling. It could be because of the car or it could be because their only son has returned to them, returned to the world they have built for him. Either way, I don't much care. Because I know what awaits me if I let it, I know what I have to look forward to if I allow myself to be sucked back into that world.

I have fishing with dad. I have national holidays and parades. I have school and a well-rounded education. Then college and graduation with a dumbass piece of paper telling the world I just majored in regurgitating pointless crap. Then it's a good job and sucking up to the boss's ass, maybe a round of golf with him to smooth the way for promotion. I have years of watching the office clock slowly ticking my life away, every day of every year taking me one step closer to retirement and social security, an eked-out existence waiting for the Grim Reaper to come calling. And all because that's the way it's supposed to be. If that's the way I let it happen.

I grit my teeth and step down towards the car. I'm ready for this. Like my shrink said, it's a long haul clawing your way back to reason.

And the treatment's just about to start...

~oOo~

For other tales of the offbeat and supernatural, check out my Smashwords page at:

https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/DavidPElvar
