Desperate Cravings

Desperate Cravings


Each person, albeit their gender male or female, I am quite certain, harbors their own distinctive mental peccadilloes. Those stealthy idiosyncrasies that lurk within the mind as insolent children, and play their games of hide and seek amidst a forest of reason. Yet, even deeper within the labyrinth of the human mind lives the monsters, those desperate cravings that are no longer innocent yearnings, but rather depraved hungers, more dark and sinister than even the most deviant of imaginations could ever conceive. It is within the realm of these contorted perversions that I traverse each day. Attempt to slay the demons therein, before any of them discover an open gate and becomes loosed upon society.

The science of Psychiatry, I have debated with many of my astute colleagues, requires a sharply disciplined mind, one with a cerebral chamber set aside where judgment and/or prejudice do not exist. How else could one’s objectivity be honest? Wherein, similar to a sequestered jury, a patient’s thoughts can be isolated from the rest of the brain, in order to prevent decency from corrupting the logic of the doctor’s determinations, and misdirect the subsequent treatments he or she may thereafter prescribe.

However, I have personally found that this cerebral room, usually divided from the rest of the brain by a prominent veneer of undiluted character may begin to erode over the years. Eventually, if not treated, this protective layer collapses, engendering those evenings, those nights of waking horrid dreams, when the dementia of the criminally insane leaches through and one finds them self caressing the thoughts of their own primal debauchery. It was in a state of controlled panic, however contrary that may sound, unable to ward off such heinous dreams, that I came to visit a colleague of mine by the name of Doctor Sebastian Morray.

One psychiatrist, under the care of another, is quite a common practice in my profession. The erosion of the veneer separating lucidity and insanity was also a frequent occurrence, oftentimes requiring the stabilizing psychological mortar offered by another professional mind. Private treatments issued to reinforce the perimeter that keeps the monsters from breaching the wall and thus usurping the rational of one’s intellectual dominion. This process, common as it was, did not take into account what I now know as IDS, or “Infectious Dementia Syndrome”.

Mental disorders, in a great many cases, are due primarily to certain physical deficiencies of the patient. While others, the multifarious ones derive from purely psychological derivations. Dementia, I have concluded, is most often the surrogate of the ladder malady. Although, within the undiscovered boundaries of mental infirmities, there may still exist a plethora of diseases, one more virulently contagious than the other in its nature. Infectious Dementia Syndrome, in my opinion, is one such infirmity!

Infectious Dementia Syndrome is not an illness transmitted by air or parasite, but rather by the subliminal use of certain influential words. Words intentionally included in an unsuspecting conversation to induce insanity, by covertly speaking directly to the monsters usually held captive within the safe space, the cerebral room reserved only for madness.

As I have previously stated the diaphanous veneer between lucidity and insanity may erode over time, and without proper treatment, it will lose its protective veil altogether. Unprotected, the demons therein will permeate the good mind, infecting every nuance of its rational with the obscurity of unbridled psychosis. The difficult part of this scenario is the diagnosis of Infectious Dementia Syndrome.

I have found that even the most deranged mind may easily camouflage Infectious Dementia Syndrome from the good brain. Whilst unknowingly, over a course of time, an infected person may inject an unwary listener with certain debilitating words. Words akin to a virus, which spread throughout the listener’s mind corrupting their moral fiber without the slightest hint of alteration, until ‘IDS’ is the master of their soul.

Of course, I knew nothing of Infectious Dementia Syndrome prior to arranging my session with Dr. Morray. I would have been far more cautious as to exactly whom I invited into my mind, if I had previously known of IDS’ potential. Nonetheless, such contemplation is now ineffectual hindsight, analogous to pondering a substantially gangrenous leg in lieu of amputation.

Dr. Morray and I had attended medical school together, after which we went our separate ways, only to rediscover our friendship some two years later, while residents at the same sanitarium in London. Since those days of roguery and impishness, we have each succeeded in establishing our own marquees within the societal hierarchy of psychiatric medicine. My forte’ being the conspicuous head of a public institution treating the infamous, while Sebastian has created a lucrative private practice treating every contrived neurosis of the infinitely famous.

Every few years we call upon each other to plaster up the cracks in our psyche, and siphon the leftover despondency from our persecuted souls so we may once again delve into the ID, shield held high, and slay the devils harbored within its gnarled realm of depravity. More so, I, than Sebastian, require this resurrection of fortitude, yet, even he on occasion has relayed a tale or two of desperation, which mirrors some of my own perverse recounts.

It was one such recount of Sebastian’s which drew my attention to the morning Herald during breakfast one day. The headlines read, “Lady Marguerite Bolestair Arrested for Murder”.

At first the women’s name meant nothing to me, other than that she was one of the privileged few. Then, toward the middle of the disturbing article, I read the woman had invited her husband’s mother, Dame Edith Faust for afternoon tea, after which, in a paroxysm of unwarranted rage, bashed the poor woman’s head in with the working end of a garden spade. Calmly afterward, as if simply adding fertilizer to her garden, she buried her mother-in-law’s bloody remains beneath a bed of dog roses, instantly forgetting the entire morbid affair had ever taken place.

Following her arrest by Chief Detective O’Brien of Scotland Yard, and after subsequent, lengthy interrogations, Madame Bolestair remained steadfast to her amnesia, and confessed not a single iota of remembrance regarding the brutal murder.

Sebastian, less than four weeks prior to the murder of Dame Edith, during one of our social meetings, and after his fourth brandy if I remember correctly, had a faux pas of the tongue, and mentioned the name of a patient while relating the happenstance of her unusually violent session. It seemed that a woman of position as were most of Sebastian’s patients, came to see him regarding an uncomfortable pensiveness, highly uncommon to her natural passive demeanor. She, formerly being a woman of tranquil ease, had found her thoughts invaded nightly by a dark and sinister chaos that irrefutably earmarked her husband’s mother as the fount of her malediction. She did not understand this implied perplexity, for she and her mother-in-law had never once had an unkind word toward each other, and were more daughter and mother to all who knew them well. The patient’s name was Marguerite Bolestair!

Coincidence, I had contemplated after reading the Herald that the woman with the homicidal dreams Sebastian had recently told me about now faced the gallows. Busy, I gave the issue no supplementary attention, and went about my business as usual, that is until a second patient of Sebastian’s inexplicably found themselves behind lock and key!

I was more than a little intrigued by the unlikely possibility that two women of noble character in less than a month’s time would suddenly develop homicidal personalities without an apparent extraneous cause. Equally fascinating was the fact that both women, once accomplishing their heinous deeds, instantly regained their formerly passive composures without a sliver of murderous recollection intact.

I had marked my calendar to interview Madame Childress, the second murderess, after my visit with Sebastian. I was interested to discuss what he was willing to release regarding the history of the two women, since they might, if the court elects, end up being my patients after all.

My appointment with Sebastian was set for five-thirty. Accustomed to the value of a Psychiatrist schedule, I left at four, only to find the streets less congested than I had thought they would be at that usually busy hour. Thus, I arrived a half hour earlier at Sebastian's office than I had previously expected.

As I entered the lush waiting room, I could hear Sebastian’s muffled voice coming from behind the door of his inner office. His receptionist, Madeline, who normally greeted me, I presumed, had left at five o’clock, the end of Sebastian’s usual visiting hours. Hence, my eavesdropping at his office door was unencumbered.

Surreptitious behavior of this type was not part of my typical investigative routine, but the anterograde amnesia of the two women perplexed me. In addition, both women had been under the care of Sebastian, and contrary to their docile temperaments, had enacted one of the most gruesome of crimes.

With my ear pressed against the cold oak door, I heard a woman speaking in an alto voice that seemed to be teetering on the edge of hysteria. She was telling Sebastian that he had been correct in his suspicions regarding her two children. They were, in fact, involved in a mutual conspiracy to enact her untimely demise in order to inherit the whole of her estate. She also conferred, in a voice as malicious as any I have ever heard, that her only plausible remedy in the matter was to murder her son and daughter before they had time to execute their own fiendish subterfuge.

My first reaction was one of abject disbelief. I simply could not believe that my friend and long time colleague would have ever imparted his personal suspicions to a mind already teetering on the delicate fringe of sanity. The most inexperienced of residents would not make such an inept error in moral judgment.

I contemplated breaking in on his session and confronting Sebastian, but hesitated. Such a spontaneous act would likely cause his patient more duress than she had already endured. There would be adequate time, once the woman had departed, to challenge Sebastian and his unethical methodology.

With my ear still affixed to the door, I continued my surveillance, intent on hearing the outcome of the perverted session. Some moments later, after a quiescent lull, I heard a voice that could only be Sebastian’s, but instead of his customary soothing baritone, he issued forth a chilling utterance that sounded more bestial than human. If I were a pious man, I would insist that I was hearing the voice of Beelzebub himself.

Mesmerized, I listened, and to my consummate horror and amazement, I heard the demonic voice ignore the woman’s conscious mind as if it were an idiot bystander, and speak directly to what I could only fathom to be the psychopathic residents of the woman’s ID. She, in turn, just as frightful, responded with a voice that seemed more a collection of excited voices. Sinister, eager children, gathered at the gates of Hell, waiting to be freed by their master.

For a moment, my reason told me to flee, to run as fast as my legs could carry me from this place. To leave what was behind the door to its own devise for the preservation of my own lucidity. Yet, amidst my trepidation resided a perverse curiosity that held dominion over my fear. A need to know what evil possessed Sebastian and his unfortunate patient.

From what I had heard to this point, it was as if Sebastian had discovered a means to invoke the demons within his ID at will, and to conjure the same in his patient. It was the essence of pure malevolence, speaking one to the other. If Sebastian, by some uncanny genius, had unearthed the process to summon one’s alter ego, there could be no more effective tool in all of psychiatric medicine. I had to know if my suspicions were true, and if they were, whether Sebastian was subsequently aware that his cerebral Mephistopheles was sentencing his patients and their unsuspecting victims to certain death. In either case, no matter my friendship with Sebastian, I could not ignore what I had heard from behind the door. My choice was clear. Dr. Morray’s psychiatric career had reached its end!

Three months have come and gone since Sebastian’s arrest for conspiracy to commit murder. As a Psychiatrist bound by my mores, I could not simply stand by and let him continue his practice knowing that he himself suffered from dementia. It did not take Scotland Yard too long to piece together the happenstance of the “Nobel Murders” as the Herald coined them, once I had anonymously provided the Yard with the link between the murderesses and Sebastian.

Of course, to prevent Sebastian’s alter-ego research from falling into the wrong hands, I covertly visited his offices and removed what documentation I could without visibly affecting the evidence. I am confident that Sebastian would not mind that I collected his myriad of records, since it was their imaginative content, which led me to identify Infectious Dementia Syndrome. Provided me the secret voice needed to convince the judge of Sebastian’s insanity, thus saving him from the gallows.

Poor wretched Sebastian has received his long aspired notoriety. Although, it is the deeds of his alter ego, which garnishes the headlines.

Not overlooked, my discovery of IDS headlines the annals of psychiatric medicine, proffering me a position of honor amongst my fellow practitioners, and the satisfying comfort that the name Doctor Henry Jekyll shall never be forgotten.