No David's Goliath

Patient Log: Mr. George M. Seelt
October 27, 2000
Patient suffers from psychosis, depression, and paranoia.

         George stopped taking his pills about two weeks ago on the basis that they “cut off his connection with God”.  When I asked him about his religious views and his concept of God he refused to answer, saying only, “I am God”.  For the next fifteen minutes George just sat there, staring at the wall, not responding to anything I said.  The only thing I could elicit from him was a low mumbling and some erratic movements.  And since the rest of our meeting promised to be just as unproductive, I sent him home early with a warning to resume his medicine regiment and with an assignment to keep a log of his life.

         George first began to see me after suffering a psychotic attack while at his place of occupation.  George is the classic case of an extremely intelligent man who, feeling trapped by the everyday monotony of an office job and the lack of mental stimulation, cannot cope with the direction of his life.  He once shared with me that he had double majored in electrical engineering and mathematics at MIT, but that he had been unable to find a job after graduation. 

         It is in my professional opinion that George is now a threat to himself and those around him.  I was told by a friend of his whom I’ve been in contact with that George’s mother died shortly before he stopped taking his medication.  Though I could not get George to talk about his mother with me, I am certain that the two have everything to do with one another.  I am hoping for the safety of those close to him that George resumes his medication in the very near future, before he can do any serious harm.  Hopefully the journal log-book will help him to cope with his issues and sort out his obviously disorganized thoughts.  His hallucinations seem to have developed into extremely complex and advanced fantasies, at times becoming completely inseparable from reality in his mind.  From observing his unusual behavior and spastic, unpredictable movements during his period of unresponsiveness, it seems that he was having another attack during our meeting.

         Next appointment scheduled for one week from today (November 3, 2000)



October 30, 2000
First Log for Dr. Myrn

         The rabid steel blade clanged to the green tiled ground.  Crimson speckled the tile, mapped out something that vaguely reminded me of the constellations.  The Big Dipper, there, on the floor.  Orion’s belt.  I could even see Venus if I squinted hard enough.  Raising my arm toward my eyes I gazed with satisfaction upon my handy work.  I threw back some of the whiskey from the bottle in my other hand and waited.  Waited for…waited for…something.  Impatient for some climactic ending that I’d been promised.  Colors still swam, more beautiful than anything I had ever seen before.  Life becoming a brilliant light show.  Fireworks in my eyes, exploding and streaking across everything.  Shouldn’t it have been in black and white like in those old propaganda films, the ones where everyone dies?  Was the dizziness my doing or the whiskey in my hand?  I couldn’t remember, even when I tried to think about what I had done that night.  Or maybe it was the beginning of the night and I still hadn’t done anything at all.  Time wasn’t lined up right.  The clock on the wall said seven, the oven said two.  My head spun on spot, attempting to catch up to the hour through the spiral motion.  I was the hand of a clock.  Twirl the minute hand around, pushing the hour hand forward through the workings of some secretive inside mechanical movements.

         Someone sat in the corner, smiling eyes beaming at me with a surprising heat.  I was melting, the eyes were too much.  Melting. Melting like glaciers in summer.  I flowed through the room in some state of matter that seemed unfamiliar. Plasma.  I had read about that once, neither liquid, solid, or gas.  I smothered it, hot-eyed beast.  The searing green eyes blinked closed at last and the temperature in the room dropped back down to nearly freezing.

         I was in the garden, solid again.  The ground swelled up and flooded my nostrils, pushed it’s way into my eye sockets, crawled under my fingernails, found it’s way into my very core where it grew into a new being.  My ribcage was being pushed open from within, little paws brushed, clawed at my organs.  My heart beat back at the infesting creature, pounding faster and faster to hit at that parasite.  A scream filled my skull, rattling my teeth.  The yelling crescendoed, rose in pitch and pounded through my hands pressed against my ears.  The colors washed out, yarn drained down from the sky and collected in my open, screaming mouth.  The mutant paws grabbed the ropes of color and coiled them around my intestines, my heart, my lungs, constricting them until I felt everything, felt nothing.

I can see the constellations.  The Big Dipper, there, in the sky now.  Orion’s belt.  No Venus. No matter how much I squint.



Patient Log: Mr. George M. Seelt
November 3, 2000

         George did not show up for his meeting today.  This is the first time that he has missed a meeting since we began them in late 1998.  I talked again to George’s friend when I realized he wasn’t going to show up.  It seems that no one has seen George for the last two weeks except for his old girlfriend.  I was told she went to check up on him and found his house empty and completely destroyed.  All of his furniture was knocked over and the sofas were torn to shreds.  The most unusual thing she found was that his bedroom was gutted and bare.  The only things that remained were a woolen scarf and a lit candle arranged neatly in front of a picture of his late mother.

         I have been in contact with all of the police stations and hospitals in and around Wolf Point and they are to be on high alert and looking for George.  If George misses another meeting or does not contact me within that time I will have to have him taken away for his own protection.

         Reschedule appointment for one week from today (December 2, 2000).



November 28, 2000
Log  # 9 for Dr. Myrn

         Anyone who says they don’t hate themselves is a liar.

         I sat in the corner of the kitchen again, pulled at my hair until it came out in clumps in my fingers.  Holding the phone up to my ear, I listened to the distant humming of the empty line.  I slammed the phone that no one ever called against my face. Over and over again.  Draining scarlet from my eyes, my mouth, my nose, all the pores and creases of my skin, drizzling from all the little cups and pockets onto my white shirt.  The phone’s bell rattled in its dead shell like dry leaves at the end of days.

         Blood was caked on the reflected image in the mirror.  Under the red coating were my dark rimmed green eyes, an olive complexion, my large, hooked nose, and a very average pair of lips.  All this was framed by scruffy long hair somewhere between brown and black.  Looking down, my hands were still covered in tufts of torn out hair.  I dragged my hands, looking like the giant paws of gorillas, down my face, catching the hairs in my overgrown beard and leaving my face a mask of a horrible beast.  I yelled into the mirror, hitting my hands against it until spider webs began to trace out from the points of impact.

         I went to work at the office.  The stapler snarled at me from the corner of the desk.  Unblinking.  I ended the cruel staring contest on my own terms by pushing that bastard off the edge.  It plummeted to the floor with a crash, springs recoiling and metal pieces spewing from its broken corpse.  The synthetic drones paused their filing to stare at their lost comrade and I, his killer.  But I was too busy laughing to notice their laser beam looks drilling holes straight through me.

         Dash.  Dash.  Dash.  Dash.  The yellow dotted line whirred by me, disappearing in my rearview mirror over the horizon line.  The sun in the background permeated the sky, dying it shades of red and orange like the woolen shawl my dead mother always wore.  Staring in the rearview mirror I felt the embrace of her arms around me.  They surrounded me, my car, the entire road in the tightest hold I had ever known.  The breath caught in my throat and stagnated where it seemed to push down on my belly.  My hands abandoned the wheel to grasp and tear at my throat.  The air entrapped there evaded my fingers.  I heard the steady uh-huh uh-huh uh-huh of the engine pick up (I must have been pushing down on the gas in my struggle) and the wheezing and panting of too much speed, as if my old truck were some unconditioned runner too bulky from carb loading and a few too many years.  A horn, unmistakable and insistent, hissed at me through clenched teeth, daring me to approach.  But my eyes had long gone black, my hands long dangled at my sides, my brain long flown to some underground sanctuary to ward off the siege of twenty-seven years of memories that I had been promised would be played out, in full old-fashioned red velvet film regalia, before that deciding moment.  The wheel turned beneath no one’s hand, the engine settled to a purr, and someone laid on that Goddamn horn.



An Unknown Date Some Twenty Days Later

         I woke up in a hideously white hospital room.  White walls.  White sheets on a white bed.  White curtains hung over a window that glowed with the whiteness of winter.  White cotton shift covering my numb body.

         Plastic tube snakes curled and danced out of my arms and connected to bags hanging on a metal stand.  A little clamp squeezed my finger, registering a blip on the screen for every pounding of my chest.  A whitewashed nurse holding a clipboard with a stack of some unreadable binary code data looked at the screen, intent upon the pattern of mountains and valleys traced in green.

         She turned towards me with teeth as white as everything else in the room.  Her stunningly straight teeth, clear, wide eyes, and full, flawless lips made me sick to my stomach.  The taste of bile bit at my tongue.  The chalky milk walls rushed in, constricting everything- the room, the taunting nurse, my hospital bed, and even myself- into a sugary cream pill which was pushed down my clenching throat.

         I felt my mother’s hands on my face, pushing down on my mouth, keeping me from spitting out the intruding pill.  Keeping it in and the air I so desperately needed out.  My eyes switched to color, changing the monochromatic room into a dazzling display of the color spectrum.  Red.  Orange.  Yellow.  Green.  Blue.  Indigo.  Violet.  And then black, all black.



Nurse: Sonya Brown__
Date:December 21, 2000__
Patient:George Seelt (auto accident victim)__

         The patient came out of his coma today at 6:30 PM, shortly after his IV was connected.  He had suffered multiple broken bones (left radius, right clavicle, and right Tibia) and a blow to the skull resulting in a coma from a car accident on November 28, 2000.  It is expected that he will make a full recovery shortly.  All vital signs have stabilized and seem to be well within a healthy range.
         The only major setback in his recovery is some standing mental illness.  We have been in recent contact with his therapist and plan on working closely with him over the recovery period.  We predict that the patient will be released to the psychiatric wing upon sufficient recovery.



December 24, 2000
Log #10 for Dr. Myrn

         Someone found this log in the stuff they pulled out of the wreck.  Apparently some doctor thought that having me write in it during my recovery would be a good idea.

         Christmas Eve is today they tell me.  But how can I even tell what time of year it is when the room is in a permanent state of icy whiteness?  I could be summer outside and I’d never know.
         That nurse who makes me cringe inside says I’ll have a visitor today.  We’ll see.  Time for that numbing pill again.  I feel my body draining every day.  Every day loosing a little bit more of the glowing emanating from my soul.  Loosing that godly status I had fought for.  Sinking into the darkness of bandages and cold hands.  Soon I’ll be just like them, holding my head high with some inflated impression of a grin, and the only reason I’ll be smiling is because that balloon head will be empty.  I wouldn’t even know my name but for the sticker on my shirt, the one that keeps the boss from mixing us all up.  I’ll probably even marry that nurse, what’s her name?  Sarah?  Sally? Sonya.  And this little Montana town will talk about us from porch to godforsaken porch, about how cute it was that Sonya cured George and now they’re getting married.  Sonya Seelt.  Even that sounds cute.  But me, all numbed and drugged, wouldn’t notice a thing.  I’d probably say I loved her, and how happy I was that she got me thinking straight again.  She’d quit her job to have our children, make sure the table was ready for dinner when I got home, kiss me on the cheek as I came through the door.  We’d be happy, our little handsome family.  With a presentable house on the corner and skeletons in our closets.  But we wouldn’t care, probably wouldn’t even notice, our heads would be too full of hate and every emotion we had ever felt but chose to keep in.  If we ever opened our mouths to erase the problems, all that hate and emotional sludge would pour out and spill into the street; so instead we keep them tightly shut, teeth grinding together to keep back the rush of word-vomit. 



POLICE TRANSCRIPT
DECEMBER 24, 2000
INTERVIEWING: GEORGE M. SEELT (ON SUSPICION OF MURDER)
4:35:27 PM

INTERVIEWER:  Hello George, I’m here to interview you.  We will be recording this session.  Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.  You’re welcome to an attorney if you would like one.
SEELT:  No.
INTERVIEWER:  All right then, let’s get started.  So I’ve heard George that you were in an accident late last month?
SEELT:  Yes.
INTERVIEWER:  And that accident was...your fault, am I right?
SEELT:  I don’t remember.  Maybe.
INTERVIEWER:  Well, it says here in the records that you drove over the median into oncoming traffic.  You hit a car and wrapped your automobile around a telephone pole.  The driver of the other car died instantly and you were ejected.  You’re lucky you didn’t die.  You know you really should buckle your seatbelt.  That is, if you get to drive again.
SEELT:  (laughter) No way, you’re joking with me.  Don’t try to lie to me.  I know your tricks, pig.  I won’t let you into my head.  I don’t believe you!
INTERVIEWER:  I wish I could be joking.  But there’s no joking about the loss of life.  A young woman died, and it’s because of you.
SEELT:  Don’t try to use your scare tactics on me!  I won’t fall for it.  I don’t believe you. I don’t believe-
INTERVIEWER:  I don’t care if you don’t believe me George.  But it’s true.  And I hope you realize it soon.
SEELT:  No.  No…I don’t believe it…don’t believe it.
INTERVIEWER:  So your therapist-a Dr. Steven Myrn- he said your mother died recently.  Says here she died on September 16th.  Unknown and suspicious circumstances?  Possible murder?  Do you know anyone who would have wanted her dead?
SEELT: (in a whisper) No.  No one.
INTERVIEWER:  Well, all right George.  I guess I’m going to have to be more straight forward with you since you refuse to fully answer my questions.  You know, we found a fingerprint on the knife that was used to stab her.
SEELT: (rocking back and forth in the chair, slamming the chair legs harder and harder down against the floor, responding quietly) Hmmmm…lies.
INTERVIEWER:  It’s true.  And George, you wouldn’t believe who’s print it was!  We ran it through the computer, all the prints on file.  And we found a match.  He had a record.  Public nudity in 1998.  And a car crash on November 28, 2000.
SEELT: (the rocking stops) W-what?  No, no, never! I-I couldn’t have.  Wasn’t even in the house.  I was at home, at home.
INTERVIEWER:  I’m not so sure about that George.  Your print was on the handle of the murder weapon in blood.  Her blood.  That’s pretty concrete evidence there.  We’ve suspected you for quite some time, but without evidence we couldn’t bring you in.  And your therapist had assured us you weren’t dangerous, until you went missing.  Now that we have the evidence, I’m afraid we’re going to have to place you under arrest George.
SEELT:  (unintelligible screaming and crying) Noooooooo!!  It wasn’t me!!  Couldn’t be me!  Loved her, loved her.  Would never kill!  No, not her.  N-not anyone! (rocking the chair again, hands over his ears.  Sobbing and whines drown out of the rest of the words that follow)



          Two officers enter the room.  George (or at least someone close enough to me, as close as I could put together then) is in the farthest corner of the room, rocking his body and writhing as if in the throws of death.  The officers approach George, handcuffs extended to detain him and drag him to his new cell.  George’s forest eyes widen and the rapid movements come to a halt as he targets in on the officers attempting to capture him.  A guttural rumbling fills the room.  George bares his teeth and narrows his eyes, resembling some mad creature in a trap instead of the feeble, injured man that had entered the room in his place.  The officers come to a stop, pausing to evaluate the situation.  They didn’t expect to meet such aggressive opposition.

         George’s eyes shoot open a second time, emptying of the vicious glean that had been there seconds before.  He stands up to his full six foot three height and seems to fill the entire room.  He is neither creature nor feeble man; a mix of the two.  Half way in between: a Goliath that no David can destroy.  The officers step back, call for reinforcements.  His hands claw at his chest, tearing the cotton shirt provided by the hospital.  Red streaks mark where his untrimmed, yellowed nails bite into his flesh.  He pulls at his hair and cries aloud.  Blood curdling screams fill the small, blank interview booth.  The large one-way mirror covering half of one wall shatters and crashes to the floor.  The people behind it, including Nurse Brown and Dr. Myrn, scream silently, unable to match the volume of George, resembling fish gasping for air after their tank has broken.

         George pulls at his bandages, managing to rip them off of him.  He is covered in bruises and gashes from the accident.  From a pocket of his barrowed jeans he pulls out a stolen scalpel.  Stabbing and slashing himself wildly, he collapses to the gray tiled floor.  Blood flows freely from his mouth, bubbling and gushing from the many wounds he has created.  He curls into the fetal position and lies almost still now.  He shakes visibly, as if from the cold.  His quivering hand traces words and complex mathematical equations in the blood that has spread over most of the floor.  He mumbles, nearly audible to the officers closest to him, hardly caught on the tape:

         “Blood.  It’s blood.  All over my hands.  Who’s is it?  Hers.  And in it?  The world, an entire microcosm swimming in it.  Earth, water…the constellations.  The Big Dipper, there, in what’s left of her still.  Orion’s Belt.  And Venus.  All as clear as day.”



And now I’m dead.  Buried six feet under in a white quilted box where a tray of food is slipped through a flap three times a day, and if I don’t eat this dead man food or take those killing pills I get an electric shock.  Nothing to do in this airy coffin but stare.  And every day I spend 24 hour staring my head inflates a little bit, more fluff filling the ever growing emptiness in my skull, and my grin widens by a centimeter or so.  But with each strand of synthetic fluff that falls between my ears, one memory of what I did is replaced.  And it makes me happy.  I won’t be happy until my head is some satire of what it was, a teddy bear representation.  And when that grin (I used to think it was a slightly contained grimace) spreads across my face, presses out its old lines and wrinkles and leaves no space for eyes or a nose, I’ll be in my head, my Heaven complete with batting clouds.  And my nonstop convenience store stare won’t be empty any more; it will be filled with the joy of nothing, within and without.  Rapture in complete thoughtlessness and the room that inspired it.

I pray for the day I won’t be able to write, won’t even be able to read this.  Every second of stimulationless waiting bringing me closer, blissfully closer.  Taunting me with the taste of nothing on my tongue, but still recognizing the bitterness it holds for me.  Hating every minute how high I built myself, that with every stone I split there’s still a billion to go.  Every shattered brick releasing me from some internal bondage yet making me more aware of what still holds me.  That smile will grow, the fibers will fill, and together they’ll crowd out everything else.  Every thought I ever had will be destroyed to make space for them.

And then I’ll be alive, like I was always denied.  I’ll see their faces and know them, know the story behind them because it’s mine too.  My schedule will be full, but I’ll like the pattern, religiously keep it so, go to the same place ever day at the same time.  On this carousel I’ll be happy, much too happy, but righteously so.  I’ll be living where before I had been dying, dead until my fluff came into bloom.  Everything is so much clearer when nothing’s there.

Finally I see what I had deluded myself with for so long.  There are no constellations, there never were, and squinting will never help.